The Caseys: Family Life, Part 3

The Goodbye that Never Happened: Darden

Hi Readers: I hope that you guys enjoyed the past couple chapters that covered some of the business. But the truth is, I don't know where to take the business meeting when I have something else on my mind right now. And that would be Andy. So, I want to do a chapter on him now that I've brought him up. I hope you understand that there are times where I just need to follow the story where it leads me, rather than have me lead the storyline. And right now, the story is telling me that I need to cover this thing about Andy.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Three hours later, 1:30 PM – Casey Primary Suite
The original plan was for them to do an entire day of business. To go from morning to night, with them just doing business. But unfortunately, it didn't seem like Matt was able to do that past lunch. When they decided to break for lunch, Matt surprised everybody by telling them that they would not be doing meetings again this afternoon; and that they would instead be working independently and e-mailing each other if they need to talk. And that was just what was going to happen, nobody questioned it; well, except for one person. And that person would be Gabby, as she was currently wondering just why her husband felt like he needed to take a break. However, she could already tell that it was something serious just based on the sight that she was walking into as she walked into their room; as her husband was not looking normal at the moment, he was instead wearing sweats as he sat in bed. Something he rarely does. Well, that is unless they want to take it easy with each other; and not risk them having sex with each other as they relax.

And right now, that most certainly was exactly what Matt wanted; he wanted to relax in bed and take it easy with his wife, rather than have sex with his wife so that he could try and concentrate as much as he can on the business. But that was pretty hard at the moment, due to the fact that he had Darden in his head. All the things that he wished he could say to him, how he still feels bad that he lost his life on the job right in front of him. I mean, he's always felt that way; heaven knows he'll always feel that way, due to the fact that he lost a man on his shift. But what just makes it worse, is the fact that he died right in front of him; and that big fireball still haunts him at times, which is the exact thing he dreams about when he has that PTSD. And how his best friend never got a chance to say goodbye to Heather, or his sons. And that also brought up another part of his PTSD, how he said goodbye to Gabby when he thought he as going to die, which actually was starting to make him wonder. Was it really only due to the fight that they had.

Was that the only reason that he told her goodbye in the middle of the fire? Or was there more to it? Was there something to it related to Darden, and how he never got a chance to say goodbye to Heather? And now that he's thought about it, he can't stop thinking about it; and he can't explain why that's the case. Still, he's going to have to find a way to explain it; due to the fact that Gabby is going to want some answers as to why they just cut their day of business short. Why they decided to leave their meetings. In fact, at first she was going to be mad as she thought that he was starting to back out of the business; a business that she was really interested in. But now, she's starting to see that this has nothing to do with that at all; rather, this was related to something her husband has in his mind at the moment...she could just tell that was the case based on the way that he was barely concentrating at the moment. Both on his own iPad, and on the fact that she just walked into their room so that they can get some time together today.

And that, well it was something that would normally lead to him giving her his full, undivided attention; but it seemed that wasn't the case right now, and she wanted to know why that was the case. So, she decided to swallow the questions that she had regarding the business as they didn't really matter; what did matter, was how her husband was doing if he was having some problems with his mental health. And if that was the case, then they were going to talk right now. "Hey, Matt?" Turning his head, Matt finally realized that his wife was in the room. "Hey, you say something?" And that was when Gabby knew, he had something serious on his mind if he didn't even realize that she was in the room. "You didn't even realize that I was in the room, did you?" Matt sighed, as he hated that was the case. So much so, that he just looked down at what he was doing on his iPad. "Baby, are you okay?" Matt was about to say yes to Gabby, but he knew that wasn't the truth, because he wasn't okay at the moment. He could never be okay, as it's still hard.