I hesitantly knocked on the front door of Salvador and Amber's house, and waited. Part of me wanted to run away, but I kept still. 

Steven won't know that Amber's not here. I reminded myself. Just help clean and go back home before Oliver comes home on the bus.

The front door opened, and my blue eyes met with Salvador's bright green eyes. He was tall and lanky with a slightly darker skin shade and midnight black hair. I already knew he was half Chilean and spoke Portuguese, since Amber had told me that in the past.

"Hey, come on in." He smiled warmly as he held the door open for me.

"Gracias." I said before shyly sliding past him.

"De nada." He grinned. He was clearly pleased that I knew some Spanish.

I made sure to keep a few feet away from him in case Steven found anything out and started accusing me of things. "Do you want me to take my shoes off, or leave them on?" I asked politely as I stared at all of the open boxes laying around on the floor.

"Leave them on." He sighed. "I don't want you accidentally stepping on something and hurting yourself."

We didn't talk much after that, but both immediately got to work on sorting through boxes. I went through the ones in the living room one by one and asked Salvador where he wanted things to go as I went. We wandered together through their home to put different sorted boxes into their respective rooms, and I saw that their bedroom and office were just as messy as the rest of their house. In the back of their kitchen was a back door, along with stairs leading down to the basement.

"I have several boxes of basement stuff ready to go." I said as I grabbed a cardboard box and lifted it up. It was heavy, but I managed to carry it down the basement stairs. Salvador stopped what he was doing, which was organizing the kitchen, and helped me take the rest down.

"Hey, are you hungry?" He asked as he looked at his cellphone for the time.

"Yeah, I am." I admitted. I had eaten breakfast several hours ago, and I could feel my stomach beginning to gnaw on itself.

"Do you want me to make us lunch, or do you want to go out somewhere?" Salvador smiled, his green eyes twinkling as he watched me bite my lower lip in thought.

As fun as it would be going out to eat, the idea of going out in public alone with Salvador scared me. I didn't want my family or husband finding out Amber wasn't with us. Not only would they lecture me for weeks, my Dad would create several sermons about that topic in church, which meant the other congregants would most likely find out that it was about me. The pressure to be perfect all the time was overwhelming.

"I'll eat whatever you make." I said after internally debating myself. "I can help you make food if you need me to."

"Nah," he shook his head as he cracked open the refrigerator and began pulling out ingredients, "just keep working on putting things in their proper places. I'll make us food."

After about thirty minutes, I had half of the room cleaned up while the other half still needed to be worked on. It already looked much more open and organized. I was proud of my work, it felt good to be doing things for other people.

"Lunch is ready." Salvador called over to me from the kitchen. I walked over from the big living room to the medium sized kitchen and found a plate already made up for me on the white countertop. It had fried tofu and eggplant on it, along with a fork set off to the side. I was quite excited to try something new.

"Muchos gracias." I thanked him as I took my lunch. There was a small round table in the living room close to the kitchen entrance, along with two wooden chairs, so I went over to sit down and eat. Salvador was eying me carefully and watched how I tried hard to stay a few feet away from him at all times.

"Did Amber say something to you about me?" He suddenly asked.

"Well," I began hesitantly. I didn't want to lie to him, so I decided to tell the truth. "She was saying that you're abusive to her."

His face fell and contorted into a grimace. "That explains why several of her friends have blocked me on social media." He sighed as he shook his head. "I don't even know where to begin to defend myself, but what she's calling," he put his hands up and made air quotes with his fingers, 'abusive,' is just me not allowing her to get away with forgetting her responsibilities. You can't stop paying bills or student loans because you don't feel like doing that anymore, you can't pretend to be sick all the time to avoid going to work, and you can't sleep for fourteen plus hours every day. It's irresponsible behavior."

It was strange listening to him talk about Amber like this. Pretending to be tired and sick to get out of responsibilities sounded an awful lot like my husband to me, but I stayed silent and let Salvador continue venting his frustrations.

"She wanted to buy this house to be closer to her friends and her work. The title of the house is even in her name only. Amber got exactly what she wanted, but now, she suddenly wants to have her own apartment and live like her single friends do. She can't be married to me and be single at the same time, and we can't afford owning two houses and paying rent for an apartment we don't need." He sighed again before taking a bite of food from his plate and chewed on it in thought.

Salvador was speaking very rationally, and I could easily see where he was coming from. Amber had painted such a different picture of what was happening than him, that I was a bit confused as to who I should believe.

"Look at me," he added solemnly. "I'm much taller than her, but no one would believe me if I told them that she's hit me in anger several times, now would they?"

He was right. He was a guy who was at least six feet tall. Amber was the same height as me, five feet five inches. Who would believe him if he said his wife beat him? "I'm sorry this is happening." I said was sincere empathy. I wasn't sure how to engage him about Amber possibly being abusive to him, so I changed topics. "Aren't you guys trying to sell your other house?"

They had moved into town from a smaller town called Westwood about thirty minutes away. Amber had promised to invite me over sometime, but those plans had never come to fruition, until yesterday.

"Yes, it's for sale, but it's going to take awhile because Westwood is such a small town in the boonies. We still have to mow that lawn every so often and clean that place up too."

I noticed how tired Salvador looked. There were heavy black bags under his eyelids, and I realized that he must be working a lot to stay afloat financially.

"You know, I could help with that as well." I suddenly offered, much to my own surprise. "I have time to help with the Westwood house too."

"I would greatly appreciate that." He smiled. "But are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes, I can do it." I said firmly. "I'll let Amber know that I'm helping with that as well."

"Yeah, keep talking to her, please." Salvador sighed. "She's easily influenced by others, like a kid, and I'm worried about how her new group of friends are affecting her. She's suddenly not interested in being responsible and working hard anymore, and that's not good for our relationship if she decides that's who she now wants to be."

I quickly messaged Amber, "Hey, I'll be helping with the Westwood house too. I hope you're doing okay," before finishing up my lunch. Salvador and I got back to work on sorting through other boxes and putting their belongings away.

The next few hours quickly flew by. Before I knew it, the alarm on my phone suddenly went off. "I have to go now," I said as I hurried to the front door. "But every Monday through Friday I can help you out. Friday nights are date nights with Stephen, Saturdays I have Oliver for most of the day, and Sundays are church and family days."

"Muchos gracias, Cheyenne." He said with sincerity as he watched me leave through their front door.

We had gotten a lot done, but there was still so much more work that we needed to do. As I drove home, I prayed to God that Amber would come back so she and Salvador's marriage would be salvaged, and so that her presence would allow me to not get in trouble with my family or my husband.

I arrived home with a few minutes to spare, so I quickly ran up the stairs towards my computer and scanned through my fantasy story again.

I think, the Professor should have black hair and green eyes. I said to myself as I added those details into the draft of my first chapter. The more I thought about it, the more I envisioned Salvador as being the Professor from my story. I saved my new draft before going down the stairs to watch out the wide window in our dining room for the school bus to arrive with Oliver. 

* * * * *

*Every song from Alexandru Sabau's album, "In Between the Standing Trees," is beautiful, relaxing, serene and magical. It makes me think of how wonderful the two loves of my life are. 

https://soundcloud.com/alexandrusabaumusic?fbclid=IwAR0yuFJA-Ie7TVrf0eYgLlXkTkpmjXRUie1hmijH68n_OXliX-WfFe0_4hk