23
Upon learning Dilly was in labor, everyone thankfully forgot all about Faith’s pie snafu and scrambled for their cars in order to form a grand parade to the hospital. “See you all there,” Geary hollered as he climbed inside the truck.
“We’re going too?” she asked while snapping her seat belt in place.
“Well, yeah,” came his reply. “Of course we’re going. We shouldn’t be too late,” he added. “Dilly normally has her babies pretty quickly.”
Faith took a deep breath and considered her options. In her mind, the birth of a baby was meant to be a private and sweet moment between a husband and wife. Though she shouldn’t be surprised that the Marins thought differently.
In Geary’s family everything was meant to be shared.
They passed through the double glass doors of Conroe Regional Medical Center and headed through the three-story open atrium to the information desk. The woman behind the counter saw them approaching and pointed to the elevators. “Second floor.”
Geary nodded. “Thanks, Julie.”
They passed the darkened gift shop. “You know her?”
“Yeah, we went to high school together.”
In the waiting room, Veta passed out little pieces of paper and pens. “Okay, everybody. Listen up. Most of you know the drill.” She looked at Faith. “Except for you, dear. But you’ll catch on. Now, I want everyone to guess the time, weight, and sex of the baby. Write your answers on the paper for points. Highest score is the first to hold the baby.”
Gina Rudd’s eyes lit up. “Is the game just for family, or do we get to play too?”
Wendell grinned and patted Mr. Cheesey on the back. “Well, I don’t know why not. You’re all our church family. Although you’re just wasting your time. I have a special knack, you know. Won both Gabby and Sam.”
Veta piped up. “And I won Gunner.”
Faith looked around. “Where are Gabby, Gunner, and Sam?”
Geary placed the paper against his knee and wrote out his guesses. “They’re with Dilly and Bobby Lee.”
She raised her eyebrows. “In the birthing room?”
Veta smiled and passed her a pen. “It’s certainly not how we did things. But they have their own ideas. We’re just here to be a support.” She looked at Wendell. “Aren’t we, honey?”
He didn’t look so convinced. “I’m pretty old-school, I guess. Don’t really care for all that.”
Veta leaned close to Nancy Patrick and lowered her voice. “Dilly wanted all of us in there.” She pointed her thumb toward her husband. “But there was no budging Wendell on that one.”
Faith felt a sudden solidarity with her father-in-law. She wasn’t sure how, but she’d certainly have done her best to wiggle out of watching Dilly give birth too if she’d had to.
Veta moved about the waiting room and gathered up the contest entries.
Wendell handed his over, then popped her on the bottom. “I’m feeling pretty lucky tonight, Mama.”
The first hour passed and it was time for the ten o’clock news. Faith retrieved the television control from a nearby table. “Anybody mind if I change the channel?”
No one responded. Those seated in the stiff-backed chairs were far too busy chattering, especially the women who were trading stories about their own pregnancies.
Faith pointed the control at the television mounted on the wall and clicked. KIAM-TV’s opening news credits flashed on-screen. The late-night anchors led with a story about the rising price of gasoline.
From the chairs behind her, she could hear laughter. Veta recited a story about when she was pregnant with Geary.
“Back then, we didn’t have those fancy tests telling us whether we were going to have a girl or boy. Someone from the church told Wendell if we wanted to find out, all we had to do was combine equal amounts of early morning urine with liquid drain cleaner. Do you remember that, Wendell?” She laughed again. “Well, we were stupid enough to try it. Only no one told us not to put a lid on the mason jar.”
Wendell interrupted. “That’s right, and when Veta shook up that jar her eyes grew wide.”
“And I told you the jar was turning hot.”
Faith couldn’t help herself. She turned to listen.
Veta’s eyes sparkled with mirth. “It was. That jar heated up so fast I could barely hold on to the thing.”
“So she passed it off to me,” Wendell said, chuckling. “I immediately knew something was wrong and ran for the front door and gave the thing a toss.” He slapped his knee. “As soon as that jar hit the ground it exploded!”
Tears were now running down Veta’s face. She fanned herself with her shirt to cool down. “That’s right. Boom!”
Faith stared. “The jar exploded?”
“Oh, yes. Like to done scared us both to death.” Veta exchanged a knowing look with her husband.
Wendell grinned. “Moral of the story—”
“Moral of the story is don’t listen to your crazy husband and his knot-headed friends.”
“That friend was an engineer,” Wendell reminded her.
Veta brushed him off with a wave of her hand. “That friend is a sweet soul and a fool.”
Next to her, Geary chuckled. He patted Faith’s leg. “I think I’m going to go down for some coffee. Anyone else want some?”
When everyone declined, he turned to her. “Sure you don’t want something?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
When the baby hadn’t arrived by midnight, the people from church all said good night and headed home. Gina Rudd gave Veta a quick hug. “We’ll be praying. You call me in the morning and let me know, okay?”
Veta promised she would.
Faith wished she could leave as well. She didn’t know what Geary meant earlier when he’d said Dilly normally had her babies quickly. They’d already been here nearly four hours. In all likelihood, they would have to wait many more hours before the baby arrived.
Geary paced the floor, his third cup of coffee in hand. She motioned for him to sit. “Geary, you look pooped.”
He nodded and set his Styrofoam cup on the table. “Yeah, you too. Here, I’ll give you the keys and I’ll catch a ride with Mom and Dad.” He reached for his back pocket.
“No, that’s okay. I mean, I’ll stay with everybody.”
Suddenly, Bobby Lee burst into the waiting room. “Girl—seven pounds three ounces!”
Geary’s face brightened and he slapped his hands together. “Ha—I believe that makes me the winner.” He stood and shook hands with his brother-in-law.
“When can we see them?” Veta asked.
“Follow me.” Bobby Lee led them down the hall while inside Faith sighed with relief. Now it wouldn’t be much longer before she could go home with Geary.
Inside Dilly’s room, Faith held back and watched what could only be described as a miniature circus playing out, with Dilly the main attraction and Veta the ringmaster.
“Oh, will you just look at that,” Veta exclaimed. “No red hair on that one. I think she’s going to take after you, Bobby Lee.”
Dilly lifted her head in her husband’s direction. “You need to get that video off to your mama and dad in Tulsa.”
Bobby Lee lifted the camera to Faith. “I’m not all that great at this electronic stuff. You know all about this. Maybe you can help me. Says I need to compress the file?”
He shoved the camcorder in her direction. On the little monitor she heard Dilly moan, saw her—
Faith quickly averted her eyes. “Sorry, I’m not technical either.”
It was then that she noticed Bobby Lee’s blue scrubs were soaking wet. She also noted the lack of a delivery bed. In fact, this birthing suite looked nothing like she’d seen on television or in the movies.
Dilly sat in what looked like an oversized recliner. She wore a loose-fitting bathrobe and held a tiny bundle.
Over in the corner of the room, Faith heard splashing.
She looked past the cluster of bodies to a small whirlpool tub used for birthing. Gabby and Gunner sat on the edge, their legs dangling and splashing in the water. “You want to come swimming, Aunt Faith?”
She quickly declined. “Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
Geary stepped forward. “I’m the one with the highest score.” He held out his hands and his sister moved the little infant wrapped in pink into his waiting arms.
Bobby Lee beamed. “Ain’t she something?”
Geary peered down. “She sure is,” he said as he pulled the tiny cap from the infant’s head. His fingers brushed against the baby’s wispy black hair while Veta and Wendell stood close by, admiring their new granddaughter.
“You did good, sis.”
Veta stepped forward. “Okay, my turn.” She looked at Wendell. “And then we’re all going to pray over her.”
Reluctantly, Geary handed his little niece over to his mom’s waiting arms. Even then, he stayed close and fussed over how beautiful he found this newborn. Clearly her husband was enamored.
His attitude didn’t change, even on their way home.
“Bobby Lee said they are going to name her Violet Grace. I like that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty.” Faith rubbed at her temples. “Man, I need some serious sleep.” She pulled the visor mirror down and examined the dark circles under her eyes. “It’s going to take some thick concealer tomorrow to hide the fact I spent a good portion of the night in a stiff hospital chair.”
Geary’s expression turned soft. “Did you see her little eyes?”
She closed the visor. “Yeah, pretty cute. Bobby Lee and Dilly are sure going to have their hands full now.”
“And her mouth? Did you notice that perfect little mouth?”
“Mm-hmm.” She leaned against the headrest and closed her eyelids.
In a surprising move, he wove his fingers through hers and drew her hand to his lips, gently kissing one of her knuckles. “Faith, I know we haven’t really talked about this, but I don’t like where we’re at right now. You and me.”
She squeezed his hand and softly said, “I don’t either.”
“Can we just agree to move past whatever this is?” His face was troubled as he looked across at her.
She nodded, relishing the feel of his calloused hand against her own. An unexpected but not unwelcome surge of tenderness welled inside as his hand moved to the back of her neck and his fingers played in her hair. The way he used to do, before everything turned so sour.
The ride home was strangely quiet. Neither of them seemed to know what to say next. Or maybe, like her, Geary dared not venture into dangerous waters, afraid to poke past the surface of their discussion, scared this tenuous truce might sink under even the slightest pressure to go deeper.
At home, they entered the condo and made small talk.
“What’s this?” he asked, stopping in front of the counter.
She kicked off her shoes and realized how tired she really was. “That’s our new Keurig coffeemaker. You remember, we saw one in the Woodlands Mall and said we might want to try one someday. So I bought one.”
He nodded. “Great. That’s great.” He straightened the machine before turning and rifling through the stacks of bills placed next to the phone. Finally, he looked in her direction. “Well, guess we’d better get some sleep, huh?”
She agreed and followed him down the hall. “Yeah, I’m exhausted.”
Outside their darkened bedroom window, moonlight hit the surface of the lake, creating a shimmer that cascaded against the barest of ripples born of a gentle breeze blowing in from the Gulf.
Faith unbuttoned her blouse. Her husband sat on the edge of the bed removing his boots.
Together they slipped beneath the comforter. Geary pulled her to him and instinctively she wrapped her arms around his broad back. He put his hands into her hair and tilted her face toward his. Looking down, he murmured, “I’ve missed you, Faith.”
As she lay encircled in his arms, a surge of longing drew her to fasten her lips against his.
Unexpectedly, her eyes filled with tears as she clung to him, her body demanding and needy and lured by his own intensity, until finally the loneliness and ache of the last weeks subsided with their passion.
The following morning, Faith luxuriated in a hot shower while Geary cooked breakfast. She couldn’t help but smile to herself, remembering last night. In some ways, she felt like a new bride on the morning after her wedding day.
Her spirit felt as light as the gauzy curtains on the bathroom window. It was as if heaven heard her prayers and she and Geary had been given a fresh beginning.
She headed to the kitchen, where Geary stood in front of the stove holding a spatula. “Hey, how do you work this thing?” He pointed to their new coffee machine.
She laughed and moved to show him how the little K-cups fit in the holder, how to press the lever down and start the brewing. She leaned playfully against his shoulder. “Mmm, smells good. What are you cooking?”
“Bacon and scrambled eggs. And I’m baking banana bread using those long darkened things in the fruit basket you call bananas.”
“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.