A Reason to Stay (20 page)

“They're not all that old. Must be the humidity.”

“Uh-huh. Humidity,” he teased.

Faith noticed his cell phone on the counter. “Have you talked to your folks this morning? How's Dilly and the new baby?”

He turned the bacon strips. “Everyone is doing fine.”

“That's great,” she said, heading for some creamer in the refrigerator.

She loved this—the renewed easiness between them. She took her place at the table and watched him serve up the food.

Who would blame her for not wanting to lose him? While stubborn and opinionated, he was also deeply kind, a man of convictions, funny and attentive. Geary was one of those guys you lost your heart to, and never got it back.

He set her plate on the table. “Dilly and little Violet Grace are even going home later this afternoon.”

“Isn't that soon?” She grabbed her fork.

“Mom says not. Guess there's no real reason to rack up a bunch of hospital bills when they are both healthy and ready to come home.” He took his place across from her. “You know, Faith . . . I think I'm ready for one.”

She looked at him. “You're ready for what?”

“A baby.”

Faith slowly let her fork drop back to the table and stared in his direction. “You want a what?”

A smile played on the corners of his lips. “Oh honey, I think we should have a baby.”

She leaned back, astonished. Had she heard him correctly? “Well, sure. Yeah. I want that too. Someday.”

“No, I mean I want to start a family soon.”

Now he had her attention. Without much thought, she blurted, “Geary, you're kidding, right? We can't possibly have a baby right now.”

He looked at her, his blue eyes growing more intense. “Why not?”

“Why not? Don't be ridiculous. First off, you're busy traveling and trying to qualify for nationals. Second, my own career has just hit a trajectory. How could we fit a family into all that now? Besides, we haven't even been married a year yet, and we're hardly in a position financially to afford starting a family. There's lots of time.”

Faith wasn't used to this kind of fanciful daydreaming, especially given the magnitude of this sort of decision. She was a practical girl. And Geary, though more easygoing than she and more prone to believe God could alter his carefully designed plans, was still a practical man.

“But none of us knows what tomorrow might bring—”

She held up her palm. “No—for goodness' sake, Geary. Starting a family right now is out of the question.” She shook her head and gave a laugh. “I'm sorry, but no.”

He didn't argue the point further. Instead he stiffened and looked across the table and out the window.

“Maybe in a year or so,” she offered, trying to ease his obvious disappointment. “I mean, as soon as we—”

“I get it,” he said simply.

She breathed deeply, not sure what to do with the uneasy pallor that had so quickly blanketed their relationship. He was being totally unfair to ask her to put her career aside at this critical juncture. He knew when they married how important the station was and that she planned to work hard over the next years to advance her career. How could he hold that against her now?

“C'mon. Are you mad?”

He paused as if collecting his thoughts and dusting them off before presenting them for her examination. “I wouldn't say mad.”

“Well, what would you say?” Her heart pounded as she waited for his answer.

He rubbed at his chin. “I guess I'd say I just don't really get you.”

So they were back to this again.

Faith raised an eyebrow and gave her husband an icy stare. “What's there not to get? I think I've been open the entire time about what is important to me. Never one time did you voice any contradiction to my career ambitions while we were dating.” She pushed back the plate of eggs that were now growing cold. “I'm simply not ready to start a family. What I don't understand is why that suddenly makes me the bad guy in all this.”

She could see his grip on his fork tighten.

“Faith, what I don't get is why you think some job will ever fill you up. I listen to your plans, watch your striving. In the end, do you think all that will make you happy? Didn't you express that your own family went terribly off track? Why would you want to follow in your mother's footsteps and focus on things that don't matter?”

Her fist clenched. Had he really just taken what had been so terribly hard to reveal and thrown it back in her face?

She was nothing like her mother!

And her decision to hold back and not tell him about Teddy was proving to be the right one. Why let him use that situation as more proof that he held the corner on all things family?

Somehow she'd convinced herself that despite the horror show her parents had called a marriage, she'd do better. Her marriage would be different—kinder and gentler, more respectful.

While she and Geary could never be accused of battling with the same nasty tactics Theodore and Mary Ellen Bierman employed in their short-lived union, somehow her husband seemed to expect her to be the only one doing any compromising in this relationship.

How many more times could she talk herself into swallowing her pride, stuffing her building resentment over having to look the bad guy when all she wanted was to focus on her career first? There'd be plenty of time for a family later.

She surely didn't want to mirror her parents' flawed relationship, but was the only answer to simply suck it up and move on past these incidents? Continue to butt heads at every turn?

That might have appeared reasonable in the past when she bent her will to his and opened herself to his wacko family, or let his monster niece and nephew ruin her clothes, or look the other way when his redneck brother-in-law pushed the boundaries on appropriate behavior. She'd tried to cook like his mother, be engaging like his sister.

If she didn't put a stop to all this now, she'd soon lose herself.

One morning she'd simply wake up and look in the mirror and see a reflection that was no longer her own.

Suddenly, that Prince Charming sitting across the seat from her wasn't so charming.

She could feel her own eyes darken. “I think the real problem here is you've confused me with your mother—or your sister. I'm neither.”

“What's gotten into you? What does my family have to do with anything?” Geary argued. “And I resent the implication that you think I'm demanding something out of line here—or demanding anything, for that matter.”

“Ha—you make your commandments known loud and clear with your silence, your judgment, your passive-aggressive comments. You fight dirty in a manner that makes you look clean. But I've got your number.”

Geary stood and slammed his chair against the table. “Faith, do you even hear yourself?”

She verbally lunged at him. “The night of my big sweeps broadcast—did you even watch?”

Her comment seemed to hit him square where it hurt. “Have you torn away from that precious station long enough to go to even one tournament with me?” he countered, throwing his own verbal punch.

“That's not fair.”

“Yeah? And you know I felt awful about missing your show. I even made special arrangements with Mom to record it so I could watch.”

“But did you? Watch the program, I mean?” She looked at him with utter contempt. “See? You didn't.” Her insides quivered as she voiced how much that hurt. “The words
I love you
don't matter nearly so much when actions don't back up the sentiment.”

“So you're not going to have a baby to, what—punish me?”

“Punish you? Have you heard nothing I've said?”

He grabbed his phone from the counter and moved for the door. “Oh, I hear you, Faith. Loud and clear.”

In the distance, a dog barked.

She opened her mouth for a retort, then stopped. A flash of her parents screaming at one another formed in her mind. She turned and stared out the window into the harsh sunlight. Tears burned her eyes and her stomach knotted.

She wanted to be a good wife, hoped for a secure and intimate marriage. Perhaps there was no such thing.

There was only one fact she now knew for certain. She was not putting her career on hold to have a baby right now.

She was not.

M
onths went by, and her and Geary's relationship never really seemed to recover after the blowup on the morning following Dilly giving birth.

Geary traveled to more tournaments and stayed longer. His wins racked up critical points and his tournament standing climbed. Fishing enthusiasts and bloggers projected him to be next year's champion. His face appeared on the big spring cover of
Bass Fishing Today
magazine. He was interviewed on ESPN.

Faith buried herself at the station with more stories, which delighted Clark Ravino and earned her a full-time morning anchor spot. Then he dangled the big one in front of her, luring her even further into her career.

“Faith, I have good news,” he said one day after she'd wrapped up the morning broadcast. “Come meet me in my office at five thirty. I want to take you to dinner.”

There was a time she'd have worried about an impromptu dinner invite, wondering how to frame the fact she'd be home late so her husband wouldn't fuss. Now she simply sent him a text.

Home late tonight.

Of course, then she remembered he'd left for Arkansas that
morning and wasn't expected back until the weekend. So it didn't really matter anyway.

The momentary thaw in their relationship had been just that—momentary. Now the way they related to one another seemed to be colder than ever.

Clark took her to dinner at Brennan's, an upscale downtown restaurant known for its Creole cuisine. Despite her marital troubles, Faith found her stomach buzzing with excitement. His choice of restaurants signaled something big.

He waited until after their table waiter flamed the bananas foster and served up the sweet concoction over vanilla bean ice cream before he got down to why he'd invited her.

“Faith,” he said, “over the past weeks I've been meeting with the boys upstairs. We all agree you are a talent we don't want to lose. We'd like to make you an offer.”

“Oh?” She forced her reply to sound nonchalant. Word had been getting around about her, and rumor had it other stations were watching. He knew it and so did she. The key was to play this right, to extract every ounce of advantage and use this capital wisely.

His mouth drew into a slow grin. “Let's just cut to the chase. We explored moving you into the evening anchor spot.”

Her heart skipped a frightened beat. “But . . .”

“But we have a better idea.”

She held a spoonful of gooey banana mixture suspended in the air. “I'm listening.”

Clark leaned forward. “We'd like to offer you your own morning program—something like a cross between Kathy Lee and Hoda and the Katie Couric show. You'd have your own studio and we'd tape daily in front of a live audience.”

Her mind raced. Her own show?

She blinked and lowered the spoon to her plate. “That sounds wonderful. But what about my anchor spot?”

He tilted his head. “If you still want your morning slot and think you can juggle the workload, you can have it. In fact, the timing would work out well to wrap the news and pull your audience directly over to your hour-long show.”

She finally let herself smile. “An hour, huh? Yeah, and what would we call it? The show, I mean.”

Clark rubbed his hands together. “We've already commissioned a focus group. By far, the name with the best reception in the target audience was
Faith on
Air
.” He looked up at her like a pimply-faced kid who had just offered his girlfriend a promise ring. “So what do you think? Do you like it?”

Like it? She was thrilled.

“What about the evening anchor slot? I still want to be considered for any openings down the road. I'm not going to retract from my goal of making it onto
The Today Show
someday.” She winked and gave him a wide smile.

He chuckled. “Well, this show fits beautifully into someday attaining your grandiose plans.”

As expected, Geary didn't share her enthusiasm over her promotion, though to his credit he tried to hide the fact. “Oh? Well, that's good news. I mean, that's going to be a lot of work. But that's what you wanted, right?”

When she shared the news with Wendell and Veta, they expressed similar concern. “Oh, honey,” Veta said while stirring up some brownies for their midweek Bible study group. “I hope they don't work you half to death. You're so busy now you barely have any time left over.”

No doubt her in-laws had noticed the growing rift in her and Geary's marriage. They'd mentioned Wendell would be teaching a new series from the pulpit titled “Aisle Altar Hymn”—a not-so-subtle message to their daughter-in-law, she suspected.

She knew it would take far more than some Bible teaching to mend a relationship that was quickly coming apart.

After the announcement of the new show, Faith got caught up in a whirlwind of promotion activities. There were meetings, focus groups, logo designs, and head shots. She filmed promo clips and interviews to be aired during launch week.

After much consideration, the set designers went with cream-colored sofas against a pretty backdrop in shades of aqua—very feminine and inviting. The goal was to make Faith Marin a trusted friend on television, someone women across southern Texas could rely on to provide what they needed to know, when they needed to know it.

In particular, advertisers hoped to ride that idea all the way into her audience's bank accounts.

More and more often, as the weeks went by leading up to her big debut, Faith stayed in town at the condo she'd never let go. The idea to forego driving back and forth between the station and their place at Lake Conroe just made sense. Especially since Geary was so infrequently home anyway.

Excitement built as the big day neared for her debut program. The producers had a stellar lineup planned. The early minutes of the show would feature on-screen shots of city dignitaries wishing her and the new program much success.

That would be followed with an entertainment piece—a studio visit with an up-and-coming country vocalist named Jaslyn Ausmus. The chef would show viewers how to prepare bananas foster at home (hopefully without starting a fire), and then she'd offer their closing segment, a piece on aging gracefully.

She'd had to do a lot of talking but had finally convinced Clark and the others to let her bring Barbara Dover Nelson on for some “happy talk” about how she'd successfully transitioned after leaving the station and the keys to a happy retirement.

Faith waited until two days before the big show to call Geary.

“Hey, Faith—what's up?”

She held her breath while choosing her words carefully. “I see on the calendar that you get back to town tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I'll be back for three days before I head out to Memphis. I'm doing a fund-raiser for at-risk youth.”

“Oh, that sounds really great.” She hated how timid her voice sounded. She wanted to ask him when their mode of conversation had become so measured and polite. When had they determined their differences were so insurmountable that they'd quit being lovers and decided to act like they were nothing but well-behaved acquaintances?

Faith couldn't even remember the last time they'd been the least bit physical with one another.

Did he miss her like she missed him?

“Geary,” she ventured, “I have a favor to ask.”

“Yeah, what's that?” She could tell he was eating while talking to her.

“
Faith on Air
's premiere is in the morning. Tomorrow evening the station is throwing a party to celebrate. Will you come? To the party, I mean? With me?” Had she really just rambled? She held her breath and waited.

And waited.

“Uh, I suppose I can. Yeah, I can do that.”

Relief flooded her. “You will? Thank you!” She rushed on to give him all the details he'd need to meet up with her at the party venue.

Knowing Geary would join her at the party buoyed her spirits.

For far too long, the distance between them had been growing, and frankly, she was frightened about how their relationship seemed to be disintegrating. She didn't know how to stop it. And she was lonely.

Sometimes at night, when everything quieted and she had only the sound of the clock on her bedside table and her conflicted thoughts to listen to, she would dare to wonder if she'd made the
right decision. The cost of holding tight to her career dreams had been high. Maybe too high.

Throughout the dark nights she'd toss and turn while fighting to sleep, only to drift into a deep, fitful slumber hours before dawn. Then the alarm would go off and she'd wake to the sunlight of morning, when the life she'd wanted started all over again.