An Unexpected Wife

by Masters, Constance

  “It’s a nice touch.”

  They ate and drank, happily sharing family stories and combined memories. It was fun, and Sage found, for the first time in a long time, that she was completely relaxed and happy. She knew though that the date had to end and she wasn’t surprised when Cliff started to pack up.

  “Sorry, we have to leave. I have some work to do,” he said.

  “No, don’t be sorry, it’s been lovely.”

  “You really had a good time?”

  “I did. Will you be back for dinner tonight?”

  “Of course,” he said with a grin. “We could talk about some plans for the new business over dinner. I was thinking with your degree, you could maybe work on the business side of things.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Dinner was later that evening because they’d spent so long out and things still had to be done around the place. Sage though had spent some time on her computer and thought she’d come up with some names that could work. She was excited when she finally heard the screen door bang.

  “Hi,” she said happily when Cliff came into the kitchen.

  “Hey there,” Cliff said with a grin.

  He looked like he was going to kiss her but then stopped. For once she didn’t take offence. She assumed he was just trying to keep things moving slowly. “I just made soup for dinner tonight, seeing as how we had such a big lunch,” she said. “I hope that’s okay.”

  “Perfect.”

  “I was thinking about some names for our venture,” she said. “We’ll want to start thinking about advertising as soon as we’re somewhere near ready.”

  “You’re right,” Cliff said, taking the pad she slid across to him.

  “I’ll just get our supper first.” She ladled steaming soup into bowls and placed them on the table, then opened the oven to get the rolls she’d tried to make earlier. “These might be a little heavy.”

  Cliff took one of the rolls and attempted to break it. Then he tried to cut it with his bread knife. “I’ll just dip it in,” he said, hiding a grin as Sage watched intently.

  “They’re like rocks aren’t they?” she asked, looking a little crestfallen.

  “No, they’re fine, they just need a little liquid.”

  Sage banged hers on the table. “They need a miracle, Cliff! Sorry.”

  “You know what means more to me than perfect rolls?” Cliff asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “The fact that you wanted to make them for me because you know I like homemade bread.”

  Sage’s heart swelled. “Thanks,” she said. “Now, read the names and tell me which one’s your favourite.”

  “This one,” he said, pointing to the first one on the list.

  Sage grinned, that was her favourite too.

  * * *

  The next date didn’t happen until after work the next day. It was cool so Sage had dressed comfortably in jeans and a sweater. She was pleased to see that Cliff had done the same.

  “I thought we’d see a movie in town,” Cliff said with a grin. “Anything you’ve been wanting to see?”

  “I really don’t even know what’s on,” Sage admitted. “What about you?”

  “How about we play it by ear? We could get some spaghetti at the Italian place and then see what’s playing?”

  “Sounds good to me.” He took her hand and she felt her heart race for a second.

  Dinner was tasty but the conversation was better. “You must have gotten into trouble a lot when you were a little girl,” Cliff said.

  “Not really, I think I was saving myself for you.” Sage giggled. “What about you? Did you give your grandma and grandpa much trouble?”

  “Are you serious? I was a devil child.”

  “Oh really? What did you do?” It was amusing for Sage to think of Cliff as a young boy. It was especially amusing to think of him being on the receiving end of some old-fashioned discipline, which she was positive would have been the result of his antics.

  “Let’s just say I was an active child. I liked to be busy. One time after watching an old movie with grandpa, I fancied myself as a bullfighter. I knew better, I was brought up with a healthy respect for bulls. Anyway I thought I was on my own and I snuck into the bullpen with a red dishtowel. Didn’t end well for me.”

  Sage laughed so much she snorted which set them both laughing. “I take it you didn’t get hurt, seeing as how you here to tell the story.”

  “Not by the bull. We should go,” Cliff said when they’d finished their coffee. “We’ll miss the last movie.”

  “Good idea.” Sage slipped her hand into his as they walked to the end of the block to the movie theatre.

  * * *

  Cliff had gone out of his way for nearly a week, taking her on some kind of different date every day, even if it was just for coffee. He had brought her flowers and chocolates. He’d even taken her to the hardware to choose colours for the kids’ rooms. Sage had been touched that Cliff had remembered the promise he'd made Netty about a surprise the night of the wedding. It was becoming very clear to her that Cliff was a beautiful man both inside and out and her feelings for him had grown.

  There was only one problem, they still hadn’t made love since that first and only time, and Sage was hoping to rectify that situation. After all, they were married, they were getting on great and since he’d stayed the night after he’d spanked her the last time, they’d even slept in the same bed. It’s a wonder poor Cliff wasn’t a permanent wrinkled prune the amount of time he spent in a cold shower. Tonight, she was determined to rectify that situation, she’d even bought a new dress.

  Sage fluffed around trying to make things look perfect for dinner. She thought it would be nice to eat in the dining room, to show that she too was making an effort. In retrospect, there could have been just a tad too much time spent searching for a lace tablecloth that her mom always used for special dinners. Once she found it, she concentrated on a table centrepiece that seemed to be of all importance. Her mom had a book somewhere. She dug through cabinets and trawled through bookshelves until finally she found it. The trouble was that none of the centrepieces seemed as easy as the easy centrepiece books made them out to be. Her first effort was meant to be made with a bunch of freshly picked herbs and wild flowers. Maybe this wasn’t meant to come from people who shared the outside with animals, because the smell that came from these less than decorative weeds was pungent and disgusting. There was no way they would be able to eat dinner let alone end up feeling sexy after smelling that.

  Her second effort was floating flowers. Easy right? It should have been. She stomped outside to the back porch, looking for regular spring flowers that grew in planter boxes but nothing looked ready enough to be presented in the middle of the dinner table. Silk flowers! Her mom had silk flowers in a vase in the sunroom. She raced out there and grabbed up the flowers, taking them to the kitchen to rinse clean. She did as the book said and filled the glass bowl setting the flowers in-between a few floating tea candles. Looked okay. Was something burning? She dumped the bowl in the middle of the table and went to see to the lasagne that she’d made from scratch using a recipe. Sage knew that Cliff loved Italian food and she’d made this meal specially.

  As she looked at the now incinerated offering, she was ready to explode! She opened the kitchen window that faced the side of the house and threw the entire pan out into the dirt. They had no dinner and she had no idea what to do. All she could think of was to collapse into a chair and bang her head on the kitchen table. What had she been thinking? What kind of wife could she be anyway?

  * * *

  Cliff had gone home to check on his own place, so he took the opportunity of showering there and changing for dinner. When he’d spoken to Sage on the phone, he could tell she was excited about whatever it was she’d prepared for them and he was over the moon. He felt like they were actually getting somewhere. So much so that he planned the next day to visit a jewellery store in town where he would finally
purchase a new ring.

  Sage had a ring that she’d been wearing as a wedding ring, it seemed right at the time that she wore her mother’s ring and he wasn’t going to ask her to take that off. What he was thinking of now for a ring was an eternity ring, because if she were to say yes to his real proposal this time, that’s what she was getting herself into, a marriage for life. He had fallen for his fiery little bride and he wasn’t going to let her get away, not ever.

  Cliff climbed out of his truck, excitement building because he was about to have dinner with his love. That thought made him think for a second but that was what he’d come to think of Sage being—his love. As he neared the house though, he could hear that his love was anything but happy. There were pans banging and yelling. He picked up his pace, frightened that something had really gone wrong. He had no idea what to expect.

  “What’s happened?” he asked when he reached the kitchen.

  Sage was pacing back and forth, in a state over something. When she realised he was there, she sank into a chair with her head in her hands and started to cry. “It’s all gone wrong,” she wailed.

  “What’s gone wrong, darlin?” he asked, wrapping his arm around her and kissing her head.

  “The dinner, my dress, everything.”

  When he took a closer look he could see she was covered in flour. “Is this about the food?” he asked.

  “Yes!” She continued to cry loudly. “I wanted it all to be perfect but I forgot and I burned the lasagne!”

  “Oh, honey, that doesn’t matter,” he said crouching to hug her curled up body. “I’m sure we can save it. Come on, where is it? We’ll take a look.”

  “It’s in the yard. I threw it outside.”

  “You threw it?” He was a little surprised. “The whole thing?”

  She nodded. “Pan and all.”

  “And the flour that’s all over you?”

  “I tried to make more. I made that pasta from scratch. I even squeezed it through the damn pasta squeezie thing.”

  “Okay, so what do we have left?”

  “I tried to make more sheets of pasta but the stupid machine has gone on strike. Like I said, it’s all ruined.”

  “Do you have left over sauce?”

  “Yes,” she said with a sob.

  “Bread?” He had the perfect idea for dinner; he’d seen his grandma do it with left over spaghetti sauce, although he was pretty sure she hadn’t thrown anything out onto the lawn first. He might have to address her temper tantrum later.

  “There’s still some left from yesterday’s loaf I think.”

  “Good. Now I just need a muffin pan,” he said as he went in search of what he needed. He clunked the pan on the table and got the butter out of the fridge and some cheese. “Right, you can grate the cheese.”

  “I’m over dinner. I’m over this whole night.”

  “You can’t throw in the towel just because things don’t go right,” Cliff said, popping a few tablespoons of butter into a pan and turning on the stove.

  “You’re not getting this, Cliff. I wanted to do this. I wanted to do something for you for a change. Instead, you’ve come in like my knight in shining armour and are fixing my crap all over again.”

  “Okay, now explain away by all means, but there’s no need to use crass language.” Cliff picked up the grater and started to shred a pile of cheese. “Besides, you made the sauce didn’t you?”

  Sage rolled her eyes. “I did open a few cans of tomatoes, whoopee for the chef of the century.”

  “Lighten up,” Cliff said, trying to push away the irritation he was starting to feel. “You’re probably hungry. I know I am.”

  “See, you’re hungry and I can’t even offer you a nice meal, you have to make it yourself.”

  “You have made lots of meals for me and I’ve enjoyed them all. Please, Sage, let’s just make the best of tonight. I haven’t made anything here; I’m just assembling something out of what is already made.”

  “Well what else are we going to do?” Sage asked grumpily.

  “Exactly,” Cliff said. “We’ll eat and relax a little,” he glanced over at the sullen face. “Then before bed we’ll discuss your temper tantrum and attitude.”

  “Well, you better just mean discussing as in talking, you know, with actual words.” Sage was trying to sound controlled but her voice was a little shaky.

  “That will depend on how the evening progresses I think,” Cliff said with a smile. “You know you’ve been out of control here right?”

  “Maybe,” she said, “not without good cause though.”

  * * *

  Sage sat there in the kitchen watching as Cliff performed some kind of magic with the dregs of food that were left after her culinary disaster. She had to give him props, what he was doing seemed clever and it smelled good. He’d painted one side of the bread with melted butter and the pressed that side down into the dip in the muffin tray before painting more butter on the inside. He repeated that until all the slices of bread lined the trays, making them look like odd shaped pastry shells.

  “Now we put these in the oven until they’re brown.” Cliff was very focused on what he was doing but he stopped to smile at her.

  “Can I do anything?” she asked.

  “You can heat the sauce, if you like.”

  Once again he was wearing his winning smile. Maybe she hadn’t scared him off after all. She knew her behaviour wasn’t great. She just got stressed sometimes and she felt like things didn’t naturally go her way. “Is the microwave all right?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  While they waited for the shells to brown, Sage opened a bottle of wine and poured them both a glass. “I was thinking,” Sage said, deciding to broach the subject.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I think I feel ready,” she said. Well put Sage, she thought. Ready for what? Dinner? They both were, for the big talk about her behaviour, she would gladly dodge that conversation.

  “Ready for what?” Cliff asked, sitting next to her and taking her hand.

  Her fingers fiddled with his as she tried to find the right words to explain what she wanted. “I ah, I think I’m, we’re, I mean, I think we should be really together.” There, she’d spat the sentence out and made absolutely no sense at all.

  “Really together?”

  Cliff was acting like he didn’t know what she meant but, although she hadn’t been exactly articulate, he must have gotten the gist. “I think we should have sex, like regularly. We’re married, it wouldn’t be wrong and if things did go wrong, I don’t think the kids will be any less hurt by us getting divorced than if we were to get the marriage annulled. Either way would hurt.”

  “I know, but I explained that the next time we make love, that I want it to be right.”

  Sage could feel irritation building up in her again. “I get that,” she said, trying to keep her voice sweet. “I though, feel like I’m ready and that it would be perfectly all right.”

  Cliff got the shells out of the oven and didn’t answer at first. He placed the muffin tray onto a board and then proceeded to fill them with the sauce.

  “You’re ignoring me?” Sage asked.

  “Of course not,” Cliff said, finishing up with the spooning of the mixture. “Could you put a little of the grated cheese on the tops of all these, please?”

  “Sure.” Sage dumped little mounds of grated cheese over the tops of the little pies none too gently and waited while Cliff popped them back into the oven. “Now will you answer me?” she asked again, this time not so sweetly.

  “I want our marriage to be more than just all right. I promise it won’t be much more of a wait.”

  Sage sighed. What was the point? Did she blame him? There she was, covered in flour and in a filthy mood. She probably wouldn’t want to sleep with her either. “Whatever,” she said.

  “These won’t be long. Did you still want to eat in the dining room?”

  “Sure,” Sage said, feeling completely rej
ected and dejected. “If that’s what you want.”

  “You went to all that trouble to set the table up all prettily and everything.”

  “At least you noticed that,” Sage mumbled.

  Cliff glanced in Sage’s direction but didn’t respond to the comment. “Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll bring in the food?”

  “Sure,” Sage said, taking both glasses and setting them down on the table. She narrowed her eyes. “Damn it!” she said.

  “What’s wrong now?” Cliff was in the room in a second.

  “Dinner has taken so long that even my centrepiece has drowned.” Sage whined. “Look they were supposed to float on the top of the water and now they’ve all gone soggy and dropped to the bottom of the bowl.”

  “The candles are still lit at least,” Cliff said.

  “Has anyone ever told you that your positivity is extremely irritating?”

  Cliff took a large step towards Sage and whacked her bottom with the spatula in his hand. “Seriously, Sage, knock it off.”

  Sage was left standing at the table rubbing her assaulted bottom. That thing packed some sting, even with just one whack.

  “I’m sorry,” she said when Cliff came back into the room with a platter of the goodies. They smelled delicious.

  “Hmm,” Cliff said. “I’m wondering about your ability to process a subtle warning.”

  “These look and smell divine,” Sage said, changing the subject quickly. The food did smell great though.

  “They do actually. Let’s eat,” Cliff said, picking up a tartlet with a pair of serving tongs and placing it on her plate. “It’s good.”

  “Tasty,” Sage agreed. She tucked in, realising once she started eating how hungry she actually was. “Maybe this evening won’t turn out to be so bad after all.” They could resurrect it without her ending in too much trouble couldn't they?

  “That depends on what you call bad, I guess.” Cliff gave her a knowing look. “If you do the crime…”

  “What crime?” Sage asked. “I haven’t robbed a bank or anything.”

  “Do you remember a promise I made you?”