A Reason to Stay (23 page)

Geary reluctantly pushed the call button. “All right, if you all think so, I suppose it'd be okay. But let's not have her out there long.”

Minutes later two nurses showed up. Faith's in-laws stepped outside the room to let her have some privacy, and the nurses helped her into her wheelchair and strapped her in. Geary tucked a lap blanket around Faith's legs and wheeled her into the hallway and to the bank of elevators where Wendell and Veta waited.

Wendell smiled and clapped his palms together with the same enthusiasm he'd exhibited in the bowling alley all those months ago. “What y'all say? Let's get after this little field trip, shall we?”

On the first floor of the hospital, the elevator doors slid open to the lobby, revealing the first slice of regular life Faith had experienced since that horrible day at the Johnson Space Center.

Strangely, the first thing she noticed was natural light streaming in from massive windows. On the other side of the glass, carefully manicured bedding areas were planted with sego palms, variegated green hostas, and yellow lantana. Beyond that, a parking lot filled with cars.

Such a normal scene.

“You doing okay?” Geary asked.

“Uh-huh. I'm fine,” she lied, now feeling herself slip into a bit of anxiety as strangers milled around the floor heading to various destinations.

As Geary wheeled her along, people turned to look—an elderly couple, a businessman with a briefcase, a man and wife and their teenaged son. Across the room more people watched them from behind the main desk.

They'd ventured about halfway through the main lobby when a little girl pointed. “Hey, Mommy. What happened to that lady's head?”

Her heart raced wildly and sweat broke out under her bandages. The air thickened and she couldn't quite fill her lungs. She felt shaky, unsure, and she hated it.

Suddenly, the doors opened to outside. She smelled green grass. Heard a distant plane engine.

Then she saw the back side of a little boy standing next to his mother.

Next, a shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye.

“Back. Back. Back!” She rocked in a frenzied motion.

Alarmed, Geary leaned over her. “What's the matter, babe?”

Adrenaline swept through her entire being. “Get me out of here,” she pleaded, wanting nothing more than to use both hands to free herself from the wheelchair so she could run. Hide.

No matter what her mind conveyed to her body parts, nothing would respond—especially her left side, which leaned heavily against the chair.

She was trapped. Inside the chair and inside the nightmare building in her mind.

She had to get out!

Please—let her out!

Wendell and Veta exchanged worried glances. Her mother-in-law grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Sweetheart, it's okay. We'll go back upstairs.” She nodded at her son. “C'mon, let's go.”

Back in her room, Faith cried uncontrollably, and she kept crying for about half an hour. Her neuropsychologist was summoned.

Dr. Viv arrived within minutes, clipboard in hand.

Geary rubbed the back of his neck. “I don't know what happened. She wanted to go outside and enjoy some fresh air, and then as we approached the doors of the lobby, she seemed to lose it.”

“Will she be all right?” her worried mother-in-law asked.

Dr. Viv explained that TBI patients often experienced out-of-control emotions and moments of severe panic in uncomfortable surroundings. “She'll be just fine, I assure you.”

Faith wiped at her eyes, aware they were all speaking of her like she was not in the room—a fact that annoyed her.

Still looking very concerned, Geary and his parents followed Dr. Viv's recommendation and left for the evening. Before departing, Geary took Faith's face in his hands. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry.” He knelt by her bed. “I'll be back tomorrow, okay?”

She couldn't look at him. Instead she pulled her face away.

Alone with her now, Dr. Viv turned. “Faith, talk to me. Tell me what you're feeling.”

She looked at the doctor, still feeling shaky. “I saw him.”

“Who?”

“The shooter—I saw the shooter.”

F
aith stared at the large piece of hand-thrown pottery filled with real sunflowers on the sofa table in her doctor's office.

“You like that?” Dr. Viv pushed her glasses up into her hair. A pretty gold earring in the shape of a feather dangled at her ear.

“It's nice.” She looked around her office, at the earth-tone walls painted to look like suede. Above the sofa was a large framed painting of an adobe house in the desert.

“Thanks, I made it. And I bought that print in Sedona. It was painted by a young woman born without legs. I couldn't help but marvel at the extraordinary talent she showed despite her physical limitations.”

“Looks lonely.” Faith picked at the blanket tucked around her lap.

The doctor looked at the painting again. “Now that I really study the piece, I can see where you might say that. There are no people.” She turned and pulled her glasses from her head and shifted them into place. “Maybe that's what attracted me. I enjoy solitude.”

“Not me.”

Dr. Viv nodded slowly. “Yet when you were moved into a setting
with people last evening, it caused you great anxiety. That's what I'd like to talk about today.”

Oh, here it comes
, she thought.

“Does that make you uncomfortable? Talking about last night, I mean?”

Faith folded her hands neatly in her lap. “No, not really. Frankly, I'd like to understand why I freaked out like that.”

“Tell me. You said you saw the shooter. Do you remember what he looked like?” Dr. Viv paused while Faith considered her words.

She looked the doctor in the eyes. “I said that. But I couldn't have seen the shooter. The shooter is dead.”

“Yes, he's dead,” Dr. Viv confirmed.

Despite the reassurance, questions plagued her. Questions she'd wrestled with since her mind had been aware enough to wonder about that day. “I want to know what happened.”

“Okay. What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

After a long pause, Dr. Viv's eyes softened. “Let's start by you telling me what you remember.”

Faith nodded. Since waking from the coma, she'd tried to assemble the fragments of images floating through her mind, tried to piece it all together.

“Don't try too hard. Just tell me what comes to mind and I'll help you fill in the rest.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated. “It was a sunny day,” she began. “The station was busy, really busy. They sent me out to Johnson Space Center for a field interview with—with Senator Rohny. I can remember Clark sending me out. I remember the entrance to JSC and the man at the security gate. I—I recall standing. No, wait. I remember seeing the senator step from her car.” Faith opened her eyes and looked at Dr. Viv. “Her staff miked her up. Everything is muddled after that. I vaguely recall setting up.
Doing a sound check.” She furrowed her brow, trying to remember. Frustrated, she shook her head. “That's about all.”

“Okay, that's fine.”

Faith hurried to add, “I guess I don't remember the shooter then—so what I said earlier doesn't really make sense, does it?”

Dr. Viv picked up Faith's file. She opened it and pulled a news clipping out and slid it across the coffee table that looked like a big antique trunk. She watched closely as Faith picked up the article. With the photo.

She flinched. “Is that him? The shooter?”

Dr. Viv nodded.

Faith studied the face carefully, noted the haunted eyes, the shallow grin. “But he's not much older than a teenager.”

“His name was Lawrence Matthews. He was twenty-five and his father had been forced to retire early during the last round of budget cuts, which caused extreme financial stress.”

“So he just shot people?” The idea made her want to hit something. “He shot more than me. Who else?”

“The senator.”

“Yes, okay—that makes sense.” She squeezed her eyes closed as if the motion could protect her from the scary parts, the images that now formed in her mind. “I remember now. He shot the senator and some of her staff. There was chaos. Lots of people running.”

She looked back at the article, studying the details provided—information that slammed against her heart. She glanced over at the doctor, stunned. “He shot thirty-seven people?” The idea sickened her. The magnitude of hurt and pain created by this monster—even at his young age—scraped at her emotions and left them raw.

Her eyes widened. “Wait—I wasn't alone that day.”

Dr. Viv shook her head cautiously. “No, you weren't.”

Faith rubbed at her limp left arm where feeling was beginning
to return. She concentrated, trying to turn the fragments of recollection into something solid she could hang on to.

She didn't have to. Dr. Viv had another article. And another photo.

The girl was young and pretty. Cute haircut. She worked as a media consultant out of Los Angeles.

An image suddenly flashed in Faith's mind—a mental picture of lifeless eyes and blood. Faith's entire body screamed in protest as she remembered the media consultant and how she had been shot in front of her.

Her breathing grew labored, and inside she felt her resolve to learn everything about that day crumple. “Her name was Lynna Scowcroft.” Her heart pounding, she let the article drop to her lap. “I—I didn't want her to cover the shoot with me that day.” A hole opened in her heart, and a wave of sadness rolled in and crashed against it. Tears welled.

The unchecked evil that had spread rampant that morning repulsed her, made her feel sick inside. “What about my cameraman? What about Scott Bingham?”

Dr. Viv shook her head. “I'm sorry.”

Faith's hand went to her throat. She struggled to breathe. “Dead?”

“Yes.”

A moan escaped Faith's lips. She bent and wrapped her right arm around her gut, then winced when she accidently hit the tender spot where a bullet fragment had torn into her flesh. She slowly shook her head. “I can't—I can't do this.”

Dr. Viv stood and placed her arm around Faith. “I'm here. And we'll only go as fast—or as slow—as you desire.”

Faith wiped at her eyes and tried to ignore the heaviness in her stomach. “Just give me a minute,” she finally said, trying to catch her breath.

“We're not running a race here. Take as long as you need.”

Scott Bingham had a wife and twin girls. He'd taken his family
to Estes Park in Colorado for Christmas last year where his parents met up with them. His daughters spent hours making snow angels in snow they'd never before seen. She'd seen photos on his Instagram account. That sweet family's loss could never be fully imagined. A senseless and cruel loss. As was Lynna's.

Even though she'd had professional reservations about Lynna Scowcroft, the bright young woman did not deserve to be mowed down and have her life ripped away. Faith's mind could see her yet again. Her eyes empty of life, her head resting in a garnet-red puddle.

Faith snatched the photo of the shooter from her lap. What kind of evil beast would disregard humanity and snuff these precious lives?

She shuddered.

The same monster who had aimed his gun at her.

T
here was an uncanny resemblance between a school cafeteria and the rehab lab at TIRR Memorial, down to the long tables lined with hard plastic chairs and the physical therapists who wandered the room like teachers monitoring students during a test.

From her wheelchair, Faith looked down at her left leg, willing the limb to move. Since she'd started rehab, some feeling had returned, thanks in part to the excruciating abduction exercises where physical therapists stretched and maneuvered her muscles in a fashion that alleviated atrophy and fostered brain-to-limb communication.

As painful as that early motion became, the therapy failed to compare to what was being asked of her now.

Debby Sparks, or Sparky as she was known on the PT floor, gave her an encouraging smile. “I know it hurts. But you won't always be broken. Try to remember that every tiny bit of success moves you that much closer to going home and back to your life.”

Could she really go back? Might there be some magic wand that could be waved, causing her long auburn hair to reappear, the skin across her abdomen to return smooth and without the hellish scar, her limbs to be healthy and whole again? Would she
really run to her car to get out of the rain? Or shop for a shirt that didn't button up the front?

Sparky lifted Faith's leg and flexed her knee again. “C'mon, Faith. You're not trying.”

She looked away, not bothering to respond. Instead she stared blankly at a large plaque on the wall that read,
Mile by mile, it's a trial; yard by
yard, it's hard; but inch by inch, it's
a cinch.

Sparky frowned and let out a sigh. “Okay, maybe that's enough leg work for today.”

Faith was then moved to another station where they expected her to do some hand exercises.

She knew her treatment plan, which included repetitive routines—long and often boring hours spent inching between parallel bars, rocking her weight on balance boards, and squeezing little rubber balls to gain flexibility—were all necessary to her physical recovery. But when a cute little PT intern gave her a dimpled smile and set three cans of Play-Doh in front of her, Faith had had enough.

“No,” she protested. “I'm done.”

Becky—at least that was what her name tag said—tilted her sweet little blonde head and urged her to reconsider. “C'mon, it'll be fun. You'll see.”

With her good hand, Faith shoved back from the table. “I'm not a child!”

The girl's smile slid from her face, replaced with wide-eyed horror. “I—I didn't claim you were.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “No?” She pointed to the little cans on the table with their brightly colored lids. “Look, I'm just done for today.” She turned and waved at Tom, the attendant who had wheeled her down to the first-floor therapy center earlier.

Thanks to recurring panic attacks, she was one of the patients with a yellow armband, designating she must be attended to for her safety when outside her room. She felt labeled, just like all
her personal belongings were labeled with her name and patient number.

She hated it. All of it.

What she detested most, besides the fact that she no longer owned her own life, was the way all the professionals—the physicians and case manager, the occupational and physical therapists, even Dr. Viv—kept reassuring her all this was temporary, that she would return to normal.

What a bunch of bunk!

There was no more normal. And she resented them playing that manipulation card.

She knew she was being cranky, that she should be grateful for all the superb medical help and facilities that were at her disposal to assist in her arduous recovery.

Back in her room, she closed her eyes and for a splinter of a second saw the woman she used to be—smart and hardworking, a researcher who could ferret out the most elusive facts of import to a story. A woman who also had the ability to connect with her guests and viewers on a personal level, someone witty and interesting.

And beautiful. She'd been beautiful.

She wiped a tear trickling down her cheek.

What the highly trained medical experts could never confirm is that she'd ever return to the anchor desk, to her job and duties at the station. Her recovery would take months, possibly even years. Her career was finished. Everything she'd worked so hard to attain, now a vapor whisked away by circumstances outside her control—circumstances her poor damaged brain couldn't even fully recall.

“You okay, Miss Faith?” Tom's big brown hands parked her chair next to her bed.

“Yeah, I'm fine.”

Tom nodded, knowing she was lying. “Well, you sit tight. One of the nursing staff will be right in to help you back in bed.”

She reached for the remote control on the bedside table and found the power button to the television. The clock showed it was nearly time for the noon broadcast, and she was glad she hadn't missed it.

She pressed the button and the monitor on the wall immediately lit, showing a commercial for financial services, followed by another showcasing the new line of Chevrolets. That sparked a new thought. Would she ever drive again?

Before an answer could form in her mind, the opening credits for the KIAM-TV news program flashed on the screen. The logo in the shape of an eye appeared with the slogan
Your Eye to the World
scrolling underneath. As the familiar tune played in the background, a sharp pain hit Faith's chest. Not the physical kind, but an emotional stab as sharp as a knife.

Her body's visceral reaction caught her off guard, and she struggled to catch her breath.

Given her severe injury and the hospital policy regarding limited visitors in acute care, she'd not connected with any of her co-workers since that horrible day. Of course, everyone at the station likely attended memorial services for Lynna Scowcroft and Scott Bingham, worried they'd have to don their black dresses and suits again for hers.

In some ways she wished they had. As ungrateful as that sounded, how could she face a future knowing her broadcasting dream was gone?

Worse, how could she live so dependent upon others? On Geary?

While she'd been told her brain would heal and that the medical team expected remarkable recovery ahead, currently she couldn't even dress or go to the toilet by herself. It was as if she'd blinked and someone had snuck in and robbed her of everything that really mattered.

For the first time, she understood her brother's plight.

There were some things in life you'd do anything to reverse.
The inability to change your circumstances only highlighted the cold reality that moving forward might even make things worse.

Her former coanchor, Mike Jarrett, was on the news desk. So was DeeAnne Roberts. Giving late-night favors to the boss had apparently paid off. That, and a shooter's bullet.

“And now for a story everyone here at KIAM-TV is delighted to report. Our friend and former anchor Faith Marin, who was shot several weeks ago by the same man who shot Senator Libby Heekin Rohny as well as thirty-six others that fateful day at the Johnson Space Center, was successfully transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann this week. Her physicians describe the brain-injured anchor as ‘doing great.'”

The screen flashed to Dr. Wimberly. “I'm very pleased to bring the news that Faith Marin's transfer from the acute care to our rehab facility here at Memorial Hermann went flawlessly. While the assassin's bullet did damage some portions of Ms. Marin's brain, she is recuperating remarkably well.”

The cameras returned to Mike and DeeAnne at the desk.

“We're told Faith's injuries could have been a lot worse,” Mike said. “As reported earlier, this was a tangential gunshot wound. Fortunately, the bullet's path did not travel crosswise through her brain.”

DeeAnne looked into the camera. “We're told Faith's physical therapy and rehabilitation will be a four- to six-month process. Her medical team projects a high level of recovery and then she'll be released home. Everyone here at the KIAM-TV station sends our love and prayers, and if our friend is watching we hope she knows we're all cheering her on.”

Faith pressed the button on the remote and the television faded to black.

She leaned back against the wheelchair and squeezed her eyes shut against tears. In so many ways, life within the hospital walls had become so insular. The broadcast reminded her of a life beyond antiseptic smells, needles, and a head heavily wrapped in
bandages. Of a life where she'd been a rising star, where she felt confident and beautiful and capable of anything.

She wanted her old life back, and if what Mike and DeeAnne reported was accurate, she'd be trapped inside this room for another four to six months. Nearly half a year.

While that thought nearly took her under, another idea pounded at her wounded and bloody soul.

In reality, she was no longer the woman Geary married.

How long before Geary tired of playing nursemaid?