Marriage and Family

Chapter Thirteen

"You mentioned that you and Martin didn't really speak for almost a month." Leslie pointed out. "What happened when you two finally talked?"

"Well…it was awkward…" Sam replied, thinking back to that rainy Saturday evening.

Sam milled around the kitchen, not really doing anything. The dishes from dinner were done and she didn't have anything else to do. Normally she would find Martin and try to get him to watch television with her or something, but since his father's death they had been avoiding each other. Maybe that was for the best. The last thing she wanted to do was have another fight like the one in the hotel room while they were in New York.

But as much as she wanted to avoid having another one of those fights, she knew that not talking wasn't going to help either of them. Although she was still mad at him for blaming her and thought he went too far in his accusations, she could at least see why he would draw that conclusion.

He was hurting, mourning the loss of his last surviving parent and while that doesn't necessarily give him the right to place the blame on her shoulders, avoiding him out of anger wasn't going to solve their problems.

After dinner he had gone off to do something, but what that was she didn't know. She hadn't heard the garage door open so she knew that he hadn't left. She wondered what he was doing and whether or not she should go try to find him.

Curiosity got the better of her though and she soon found herself searching the house for Martin. She found him in the first place that she looked—his father's room. He was taking his father's clothes from the closet and packing them up in boxes. He seemed not to notice that she was standing in the doorway.

After watching him for a few minutes she left and headed back to the kitchen, returning a few moments later with two glasses of wine. She hesitantly entered the room and held out a glass towards him.

Without a word he took the glass and sat down on the edge of the bed, sipping the glass occasionally and staring at the half-empty closet.

Sam wasn't sure what to do now and decided that she would just leave the room to let him have some time alone. She turned to leave when she heard Martin call out her name.

"Sam?"

Turning around, she nervously tapped her fingers on the glass. "Yeah?"

"Thanks." He pointed to the wine.

"You're welcome." She started to leave the room again.

"Sam?"

She turned around to face him again. "Yeah?"

He moved some clothes around so that there was an empty space next to him on the bed. "Wanna sit down for a moment?"

She thought about it and wasn't sure if she really wanted to. She wasn't in the mood for a fight tonight, but he didn't seem like he wanted to fight. He had taken the wine she presented as a peace-offering gesture. Maybe his invitation was a peace-offering gesture of his own.

She nodded before walking over to the edge of the bed and sitting down next to him, making sure that she wasn't pressed up against him to close. She didn't want to crowd his space.

They sat together in silence for a while, drinking their wine and getting lost in their own thoughts.

Finally, Sam couldn't take the silence anymore. "What are you doing with his clothes?" She asked softly.

"Packing them all up. I thought we could give them to a charity or shelter or something." Martin replied, his voice staying the same low volume that Sam's had. "I figured we don't have any use for them now. Might as well try and help someone else."

"It's a good idea." She said, moving to take a drink of her wine only to find that her glass was empty. She looked over at Martin and saw that his was empty too. "Do you want more wine?"

"Not really." He shook his head.

She reached for his glass so that she could take both of their glasses back to the kitchen but was caught off guard when he grabbed a hold of her hand.

"Wait." He asked.

"Are you not done with your glass?" She asked, confused. The glass was empty so why did he want her to wait?

"It's not about the glass." He told her. "I just don't want you to go yet. I was hoping you could stay."

"Oh." She wasn't expecting that and looked down at their joined hands. Once the surprise of him wanting her around wore off, she removed her hand from his grasp and moved it to her glass. While she waited for him to say something else, her fingers lightly traced the rim of the glass.

He placed the empty glass on the floor next to a box. A few moments later, he spoke again. "I hate the fact that there's this distance between us now."

"It's your fault. You're the one that started it." She reminded him, keeping her eyes fixated on the glass.

"I know." He nodded. "And I was wrong. I'm not sure if there are any words to describe just how sorry I am about what I've said to you."

She could hear from his tone of voice that he was genuinely sorry and thought for a moment that she heard a twinge of shame coming through also. In a small voice, she said, "you really hurt me."

"I know."

"You practically accused me of murdering your father." She pointed out.

He winced at the memory of that. He really shouldn't have said those things to her but in the heat of the moment words came out of his mouth before he had a chance to filter them. That wasn't really a valid excuse for what he said though. If he could have one wish it would be to take that whole conversation back and make it never happen.

As soon as she had left the hotel room that day, he had realized how wrong he was to say those things to her. He thought about running after her and apologizing right then, but he was too embarrassed and ashamed. He just stayed frozen in his spot and waited for her to come back.

She never came back to the hotel room though. Apparently she had called Claire and asked her to tell him to bring her suitcase with him when he came to the airport. She met us him there and gave him his ticket, not saying anything to him the entire time.

As more and more time passed without them speaking to each other, the harder and harder it got for him to find the courage to apologize. He grew more and more terrified that she would leave him because of the things he had said to her.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to accuse you of all that stuff. I wasn't really myself that day." He continued on. "I know it's no excuse, but I was just so angry with myself."

She was confused by his statement. "Why yourself?" She asked softly.

"Because I didn't save him. I let him die."

"You didn't let him die." She told him, putting her glass on the floor and letting her arm wrap around his shoulder. She was surprised that he didn't pull away from her like she thought he would.

"But I wasn't there." Martin argued. "I wasn't there the one time he really needed me."

"You were there for him every time he called you for the past four years." She pointed out. "That's what should count. That's what you should focus on, not that one night."

"It's not what counts though Sam." He protested. "It's not what counted to him."

She didn't know what to say to him that wouldn't start another fight. She wanted to tell him that he shouldn't care about what his father thought so much, but knew that would only lead to another conversation where he accused her of hating his father. So she stayed quiet and decided to let him be the one to do most of the talking.

"I tried so hard to be there for him these past few years to maybe show him that I wasn't the failure that he always thought I was. I brought him here to live with us so that maybe he could see how great my life is. He'd see firsthand what a good family I had and how good I was at my job. And then he'd had to admit that I turned out better than he thought I would."

He sighed, leaning forward and putting his head in his hands. "I really thought that I could show him that and prove it to him. At times I thought that I had. I thought that I had finally forged some kind of good father-son relationship with him and that he acknowledged me as something other than a disappointment and a failure."

"He did." Sam interjected, causing him to look over at her. She wasn't going to get involved in this conversation but felt the need to say this to him. "Do you know how many times he would talk about how wonderful his son was? He'd constantly tell anyone that would listen how great to him and how proud he was of you."

"Really?" Martin asked, finding that a little hard to believe. His father never told him that to his face and he never heard him tell anyone else about it either.

"Really." She assured him. "That was one of his favorite topics when you weren't around. You were like a saint to him."

"Well that doesn't matter because it all disappeared that night." Martin shook his head. "He said, 'I needed you…you weren't there for me'. And the look in his eye said everything. He was mad and disappointed. He trusted me and I let him down."

"You didn't let him down." Sam told him. "He was old Martin, and his health was fading. If he didn't die that night, he would have died another night. You couldn't have stopped his death."

"But…"

"No buts." She interrupted. "Whether you want to believe me or not, this wasn't your fault."

He was silent for a few moments before he reached over and grabbed a hold of her hand again. Only this time, he held it tightly in an effort to keep her from pulling away. "I really am so sorry. I never meant to…"

"It's ok." She told him, giving him a small smile.

"No it's not." He shook his head. "It's not ok Sam. I had no right to say those things to you. Do you think you can ever forgive me?"

She looked into his eyes and saw that he was being sincere. He really seemed to feel terrible about what had happened between them. While she was still mad at him for everything that he had said, she didn't want to fight with him anymore and just wanted everything to go back to the way they were before Victor moved into the house.

After thinking about his apology for a moment, she slowly nodded her head to show that she could forgive him. That prompted him to smile and bring her into a tight hug.

He kissed her neck while they hugged. "I love you so much Sam."

"I love you too Martin."

"After that night, things were kind of better. We were at least talking to each other more, but it was usually only about the children or work. I think we ignored what had happened because we thought if we ignored it, it would go away and be erased from history."

"You do know that won't help things, right?" Leslie asked.

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "But it was much easier to just ignore it. Of course now there's this gap between us and I'm not sure how to fix it anymore."

"Well you're here asking for my help." Leslie pointed out. "That's a good first step."