Our Love Saga

"Hi, AJ, this is Claire. I had a message on our answering machine to call Samantha. I hope it's not too late for me to return her call."

"No, it's not too late. She's been anxious to hear from you. Hang on a second."

I covered the handset and walked to the bathroom. I opened the door and said, "Your mom is on the phone returning your call from earlier."

Samantha had just finished washing her face. She lowered the towel that she had been using to dry herself and reached out to take the phone from me. "Mom, where has everyone been? We expected you to be here by five o'clock."

"That was your expectation," her mother said. "Your father and I never committed to being there."

Samantha's eyes grew wide as she listened to her mom. She hesitated a few seconds before saying, "By not declining, you in fact did commit to being here, as did Donna, Ellen, and everyone else. I can't believe you were all so rude and inconsiderate to not even call to let me and AJ know that you weren't coming."

Her mother said, "Believe what you want. I don't have to explain myself to you. If I decide that I want to spend time with my children who I don't see on a regular basis instead of one who I can see anytime, then that is my choice."

I saw Samantha trying to calm herself before continuing, "Okay, Mom, it's your anniversary weekend and I want to make it special for you so let's not fight. I had hoped to also spend time with my brother and sisters tonight, but if you felt that you didn't want me to join you all, I guess that was your choice."

"You were perfectly welcome to join us."

"No, Mom, by neglecting to inform me of your decision you were clearly telling me that I wasn't welcome. It's disappointing, but as you said, it was your choice. We'll see you tomorrow at the restaurant. Good night."

The rage inside of Samantha radiated from her like heat from a fire. I took the phone from her hand and returned it to its cradle as my wife silently seethed in the doorway to the master bath. I came to stand in front of her, waiting for some sign of what she might need from me.

She moved into me and rested her cheek against my bare chest, "My whole fucking family just shit on us, and they feel perfectly comfortable doing so."

I picked her up into my arms and carried her to our bed. Laying her naked body onto the bed, I asked, "Do you know why they are acting this way?"

Samantha scooted her body up so that she could lean against the pillows on the headboard, she said, "Get in bed with me and I'll share what I suspect."

I quickly climbed into bed beside her and positioned us so that my right arm was around her and she was resting her head on my shoulder. "Tell me what you suspect," I said.

"I smell Ellen's influence all over this," she said. "This is exactly the type of petty competitive shit that she used to pull when we were growing up. Anything that she could do to win my mom over was fair game to her. It didn't matter whether it was me or Donna, Ellen was always looking for a way to outshine us with my mom. She stood no chance against Jerry, but where her sisters were concerned, she couldn't stand one of us getting any attention from my mom over her."

"Okay," I said, "I guess I could see your mom being susceptible to manipulation from one daughter over the others, but your dad is a different story..."

"Oh, I'm sure that Ellen worked on my mom in private. Once she had her convinced that the plans that I had made were just my selfish attempt to monopolize and control their anniversary, my dad would have gone along to get along."

"How do you think this bodes for the plans for dinner tomorrow?" I asked.

"I don't know," Samantha admitted. "The reservations are at a restaurant that my mom requested, so it would be hard for her to claim that it was my choice instead of hers. I guess we'll have to wait and see if they decide to change plans..."

"And whether or not they decide to inform you of any changes that they make," I said.

We dropped the subject of her family and Samantha spent the next half hour sharing what was going on at her work. She was always so excited about being appreciated for her efforts, and I was proud of all the accolades that she had received over the months that she has been with Saturn Systems. She had quickly become an indispensable commodity for them, and to their credit, they made sure that she knew that her value to the organization was recognized.

I lay awake for a few minutes after Samantha had fallen asleep, contemplating what I was going to do if her family continued to show their disrespect towards my wife. Samantha never tolerated my kids or anyone else showing me disrespect, and there was no way that I would allow it from her family without them facing the consequences.

Neither of us was surprised when we arrived at the restaurant Friday evening at six and discovered that none of her family had shown up yet. When no one had arrived by seven, we released the reservation and had a quiet dinner just for the two of us.

Samantha didn't bother calling her parent's house that evening when we got home, since they would likely still be out celebrating their anniversary with everyone in the family except us. When the home phone rang around nine-thirty, we were already in bed, with Samantha preparing to read one of her favorite erotic stories. She grabbed the phone and pressed the speaker button to answer it.

"Hello," Samantha said.

"Hi, Samantha, this is Ellen. I hope I'm not calling too late."

"Too late for what, informing me of the change of plans for tonight, because if so, you are definitely too late."

Ellen said, "Well if you had been over at Mom and Dad's this afternoon with everyone else instead of at work, you would have known about the change."

"How would I have known to be there if no one had the courtesy to call and let me know?"

We heard Ellen sigh and say, "No one has your number at work..."

"AJ does, and he was working here at the house all day. If any of you had wanted to put the effort into letting us know, it would have been easy to do so. The same with the change of plans yesterday. Do you know how much food got wasted due to your lack of consideration?"

"Typical Samantha. Everything always has to be about you, doesn't it?"

"Why are you calling, Ellen?"

"Donna and Jerry asked me to invite you to breakfast tomorrow morning. We'll be going into San Antonio with Mom and Dad to do some sightseeing after that so it will probably be the only chance for you to see everyone while we're here."

Samantha hung up the phone and turned to me, "I'm sorry, AJ, but my family is dead to me right now. Neither you nor I have done anything to deserve the way that they have all treated us this week and I won't ever subject you to their disrespect again. I'm sorry."

"Babe, I know that you have always gone above and beyond to try and maintain a relationship with each of them. None of this is on you. I supported you when you wanted to try to have them in our lives, I will support you if you want to cut them out. You're all that matters to me."

Samantha snuggled against me and said, "I just wish that there was some way that I could make them feel just a little bit of pain for treating us like they have."

"Don't worry," I told her. "They'll definitely feel it."

Samantha had turned down an invitation for us to go horseback riding at a ranch owned by one of her co-workers and her husband on Saturday, but a quick call in the morning had the invite back on the table for us. We spent an enjoyable day riding around hundreds of acres in the Texas Hill Country. We stopped for dinner at Maggiano's on the way home and thoughts of her family were essentially banished from our minds the entire day.

It was raining Sunday morning, so we spent a loving and leisurely morning in bed, eating homemade cinnamon rolls and sharing the Sunday paper. The home phone rang just before eleven. Samantha picked up the handset and handed it to me to answer.

"Hello," I said.

"Oh, AJ, I'm so glad you're home. This is Samantha's brother Jerry..."

"What do you want, Jerry?"

"We're all at the airport and are being told that our flights have been canceled. Since you made the reservations, we were hoping that you could call American Airlines and get things straightened out."

"What flights are you talking about?" I asked.

"Our return flights home. You know, the second part of the trip that you arranged for us."

"Are you telling me that you all actually were here?" I said, winking at Samantha. "I assumed that since none of you showed up at our house last Thursday that you had all decided not to come. Then when we waited for everyone at the restaurant Friday night and no one showed up, that cemented it for me. You were all no-shows. I thought that the airline should know that the seats that I had booked could be used for passengers who needed them."

I heard Jerry trying to cover the handset as he spoke to someone. The next voice I heard was new to me, "Listen, Asshole, this is Ellen, and you know damn well that we were all with our Mom and Dad this weekend because I spoke to Samantha Friday night and invited her to have breakfast with us..."

"That's the amazing things about telephone calls," I said. "The person calling could be anywhere and claim that they were right next door. You could have been speaking to Samantha from your home in Virginia and it would have sounded the same as if you were just down the street. For the three days that you all were supposed to be here, we saw no signs to indicate that you actually were. That is on you. Have a nice trip home."

I disconnected and handed the phone back to Samantha who was laughing too hard to do anything with it for several minutes.

"That should put a hitch into their get along," I said once she had calmed enough to hear me.

"Oh, they are going to be so pissed at having to buy one-way tickets home. In fact, I bet that Jerry has to call Mom and Dad to buy his ticket for him."

I grinned and said, "Paying for the tickets is only the tip of the iceberg they are facing. Trying to get on a flight out of San Antonio on a Sunday without a reservation is going to be nearly impossible. There are too many tourists and conventioneers with confirmed seats. The best that they will be able to do is to get placed onto a standby list, and even then, there will be several frequent flyers with priority in front of them. I imagine that they will be spending a night or two in a hotel near the airport or finding a way to get to Austin where they would have better luck getting on a flight."

"I love it," Samantha said. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Getting on my bad side could prove inconvenient for a person," I said. "Getting on my wife's bad side and letting me know about it could be fatal. No one messes with your happiness without facing the consequences."

"I feel the same way about your happiness," Samantha said. "Nothing other than your health and security means more to me."

"Do you know what would make me happy right now?" I asked.

Samantha snuggled her naked body against me under the covers and said, "I hope it is the same thing that would make me happy right now. Let's see..."

It was, and it made both of us very happy.

We never heard from a member of Samantha's family again. Sometime over the next year, her parents sold their house and moved away, but we had no idea where they moved to and Samantha didn't seem to care.

Chapter Ten

Having as many global contacts within the company as I did, I spotted the signs of change long before most of my coworkers got a clue. The parent company in Japan was about to go into an acquisition phase. They were planning to buy several companies that were viewed as financially weak but with sizeable customer bases to make them complementary to a new, more direct business strategy rather than the traditional manufacturer/distributor strategy that everyone in the organization was familiar with.

I discussed my concerns over these pending changes with Samantha, and after a lot more research and planning, we decided that I should resign while conditions were still favorable for me and start my own consulting business. Within six months, I was generating more than twice my previous income and had three contract consultants working with me.

The downside was that my business travel requirements increased significantly. Out of curiosity, I kept the ticket stub from every flight segment I flew in 1997 and counted them at the end of the year. Considering that every trip into or out of San Antonio would typically require a connecting flight through one of the airline hubs such as Dallas, Houston, or Chicago, I was still amazed when the total flight segments for the year was three-hundred and ninety-four.

Samantha accepted the increased travel like a champ. It helped that I was home every weekend and made as many day trips as possible, even if it meant early morning and late-night flights that allowed little sleep. I had replaced my pager with a cell phone, and while the coverage was sometimes spotty, it did allow Samantha and I to keep in contact much better than the satellite pager had. We spoke multiple times each day whether I was home or on the road.

The accolades for Samantha continued to flow at Saturn Systems. She was named employee of the month ten times, which naturally earned her employee of the year and a significant bonus. As devoted as she was to her job, she seldom worked past her normal quitting time so that she could get home to care for the dogs, or care for me if I was home as well.

Weekends were typically busy for us, but we always spent them together. Whether it was yard work, laundry, or running errands, we shared the load and enjoyed our 'us' time. It's funny how you get comfortable with your life. Everything was as it should be, and all was right with the world until it wasn't.

The first hint I had that something might be amiss was on a Sunday in September. I had flown out that morning in order to be in New York for an eight o'clock meeting on Monday morning. I had wanted to take a later flight, but everything was already booked.

I landed at LaGuardia before noon and while waiting for the rental car shuttle, called home to let Samantha know that I had arrived safely. When the answering machine picked up, I wasn't concerned because it wasn't uncommon for Samantha to be outside, either playing with the dogs or doing some yard work.

When I tried calling again a few hours later, I got the answering machine again. It wasn't like Samantha to not come back into the house at least once over that time period, and if she had, she would have noticed the flashing light on the answering machine and called me back. Maybe she had gone into town for some reason?

As it was nearing five in the afternoon at home and I still hadn't been able to reach Samantha, I called a neighbor, Frank Finley, who lived about a quarter-mile down the street. He was a homicide detective with the San Antonio police and we had become friendly since they had built their house and moved in a few months back. I asked if he could stop by my house and see if Samantha was there. I told him that she may be in the back of the lot, so he might need to honk his horn to get her attention.

He called me back ten minutes later and let me know that Samantha wasn't home and her car wasn't there. I thanked him and decided to go get some dinner while waiting for Samantha to get home and call me back. She shouldn't be out too much longer since the dogs were going to need to be fed pretty soon.

I was getting concerned as the time approached seven-thirty back home. I was preparing to call Frank again when my cell phone rang.

"Hello," I answered.

"Hi, Sweetie, it's me. Sorry that I didn't call sooner, but I fell asleep watching a movie and didn't hear your call."

"That's okay," I told her. "What else did you do today besides watch a movie? It must not have had much of a plot if it put you to sleep."

"It was one I had seen before," she said, "'The Philadelphia Story' with Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Other than that, I did a little ironing and just piddled around the house."

"Who was this woman and what had she done with my wife?" I thought. Samantha was telling me a blatant lie, and she had never prevaricated to my knowledge.

I wasn't going to challenge her over the phone. I would rather wait until I could look into her eyes and watch her expression. I said, "Well, hopefully, you taking a nap this afternoon won't prevent you from getting a good night's sleep."

"You know that I never sleep well when you're away, but you did a wonderful job wearing me out this morning, so that will help."

I forced a chuckle and said, "It's always my pleasure to be your sleep aid. Hey, since I'll be arriving into San Antonio around four tomorrow afternoon, would you like to meet somewhere to have dinner in town before we head home?"

"Of course. How about Red Lobster?"

"That sounds perfect. Give me a call in the morning before you head to work so I can start my day with a smile. I'll keep you posted on my schedule during the day. I love you."

"I love you too, AJ. Sweet dreams."

"Sweet dreams."

~~~

Additional anomalies in Samantha's behavior caused me to sit tight where confronting her lies were concerned. Where our normal dinner conversation had always included her updating me on what had happened that day at her job, Samantha began talking more about people who worked at Saturn Systems rather than what she had done herself.

I had met many of her coworkers, so I was able to put faces to the names as Samantha told me about things going on in their lives or their work. It wasn't uncommon for her to share details about her coworkers with me, but was uncommon for her to withhold what her own activities had been.

When something was needed in town on the weekend, we would usually both go together. Samantha was now begging off on these trips, claiming that she needed to do some chores around the house and it would be more productive if I went alone so that she could do what she needed to do while I was gone.

About a month after her first lie, Samantha told me that she had been invited to play Bunco with some ladies from work. She would be going into San Antonio on Saturday afternoon and probably wouldn't be back before dinner. The way that she told me indicated that she wasn't asking if I approved or not.

There had been no change in Samantha's loving care of me or her ever-present desire to please me in any way possible, but something was going on that she wasn't being honest with me about.

We made love three times on Saturday morning before Samantha got herself ready to head into San Antonio. Though physically drained from our morning activities, I prepared to get some yard work done while she was in town.

I was in the front yard, adjusting a few sprinkler heads that I had noticed weren't providing the correct coverage when Samantha's car came down the driveway. She stopped and rolled down her window so she could kiss me.

"You okay with me missing dinner?" She asked.

"I guess I will have to be," I said. "Have a good time, and drive safe."

"I will," she said. "I love you."

"I love you too."

As I watched the back of her car heading up our street, I noticed the mail carrier approaching. I walked out to the mailbox to meet him and he handed me the stack of envelopes directly rather than place them in the box. I sorted through the envelopes as I headed back into the house.

Samantha handled the paying of all our bills except for my office telephone and the credit card that I used for business and travel, so most of the envelopes could be left for her to open and review the statement inside. It wasn't obvious from the envelope if the bill from the telephone company was for our home phone or my office phone, so I opened that one.