Worth a Thousand Words (20 page)

“You looking good, girl,” he told her, and she did. She had put on about five pounds, but on her thin frame, even that small amount made a difference. “Are you taking care of yourself?”

She nodded. “I’m getting ready for your wedding—big brother,” she said and smiled.

Those words made him feel almost as good as being commissioned. He was starting a new chapter today, and he was thankful.

This morning, he had asked God to purge his temptations and to help him leave them here in Newport, along with his civilian status, his ties to Craig, and anything else that might hinder him.

He was Officer Brian Harper now, and life was good.

39

W
ith all of the talk and laughter, the two-hour drive from Jubilant to Houston seemed to take just half an hour.

Brian had driven back to Austin with his parents last week, but was spending this weekend in Jubilant, visiting Indigo and helping with wedding preparations. He was staying with Gabe and Rachelle, and they had offered to treat him and Indigo to dinner.

On a whim, Gabe and Rachelle decided to take the young couple to one of their favorite spots in Houston. Gabe made the reservation and steered them toward his SUV. Brian sat in the front passenger seat so he and Gabe could chat while Gabe drove.

“I’m telling you,” Gabe insisted, “engineering is the career of the future. Tate said just yesterday that he wants to be a doctor and I tried to talk him out of it.”

“Gabe!” Rachelle leaned forward and lightly spanked her husband’s shoulder. “Don’t do that to your son. If he wants to follow in your footsteps, you’re supposed to encourage him.”

Rachelle shook her head and looked at Indigo.
Men!
she mouthed.

Indigo chuckled. It was funny to see their dynamic as a couple and how, despite the fact that they loved each other deeply, that didn’t necessarily translate to agreeing on everything.

“You know I love what I do, Rachelle,” Gabe said as he weaved in and out of traffic in downtown Houston. “But having to deal with these insurance company rules and treating patients based on what their plans allow or don’t allow is nerve-wracking and, in some instances, borders on making me ineffective as a surgeon.

“If I can’t, as the expert, determine what type of care or testing my patients need based on the gravity of their condition versus what the insurance company is going to approve, then my hands are tied. It strips me of the power to ‘first do no harm,’ in many cases,” Gabe said. “An engineer can do well and not have to deal with all of that. That’s all I’m suggesting to Tate.”

Gabe pulled in front of Pesce Restaurant and the four of them climbed out of the Range Rover so the waiting attendant could valet park it. Once inside, they were ushered to a corner table with a candlelight view of the city and an interior aquarium.

“This is beautiful,” Indigo said. “Thanks for treating us. You guys are something else.”

“No, you guys are.” Gabe looked at Brian. “Graduating from Officer Candidate School with honors—congrats, man.”

Then he looked at Indigo. “Winning a photo contest in
O Magazine
that comes with a monthlong internship. How often does that happen?”

Indigo and Brian smiled at each other. Their mutual pride was evident.

“How are you going to fit in an internship with grad school—and a wedding?” Rachelle asked.

“I’ve talked to the magazine’s photo editor and we’ve agreed that I’ll do the internship in New York, working about ten hours a week, around my grad school courses,” Indigo said. “I’ll get settled into grad school, get the wedding behind me, and start the internship in March or April of next year. They’re really flexible.”

Rachelle shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re doing all of this. Remember how torn up you were about learning about the glaucoma and about leaving the newspaper? Do you see how God works?”

Indigo laughed. “You should hear Aunt Melba walking around the house preaching about it. Between her recovery and all the exciting things going on with me, she’s beside herself. And there’s more.”

Rachelle raised an eyebrow. “You won a Pulitzer Prize?”

They all laughed.

“No,” Indigo said. “Even better. Claude Ingram, the photography editor at the
Herald
, called last week and asked if I would be interested in a photo column that would feature the pictures that I’ve been snapping at the salon all summer, and any future shots of local residents that would be fitting. He’ll pay me a freelance column fee and run the photos once a month, on Sundays.”

“Did you accept?” Rachelle asked.

“Of course,” Indigo said, and dug into the calamari appetizer the waitress brought to the table. “That’ll cover my meals while I’m in grad school.

“But what’s even better is that
Reader’s Digest
called. They want to reprint my photo of Ms. Harrow delivering flowers to the salon.”

Indigo laughed as Rachelle covered her mouth with her hand to contain a mock scream.

“
Reader’s Digest
?!” Rachelle said. “Are you sure you need to go to grad school? You’re on your way.”

Rachelle leaned across the table and grasped Indigo’s hand. “I’m only kidding about ditching grad school—you get all of the education you can,” she said. “But this is so exciting, so blessed. I’m just thrilled.”

Indigo nodded and grinned. “I know—and there’s more.”

Rachelle sat back and put her wrist in front of Gabe. “Check my heart rate, Doc, I don’t know if I can stand any more.”

“A staff photographer for
O
who helped judge the contest mentioned to a friend of hers—a recruiter for Ford Models—that one of the photos I submitted was a picture of an aspiring model—Yasmin. The agency wants to talk to Yasmin about doing some work for them.”

Rachelle bowed her head. Indigo wasn’t sure if she was praying or crying, but when she lifted her eyes, Indigo saw that she had been doing both.

“God is doing some amazing things in our family right now,” she said softly. “We need to be sure to remember this season. What does Aunt Irene say about Yasmin possibly modeling?”

Indigo took a sip of water. “She’s a little nervous, but she’s willing to go along with it, as long as Yasmin’s counselor gives her the okay. We’re all concerned about Yas lapsing into the bulimia. Mama and Daddy are willing to let her try this, as long as she continues working with Dr. Danvers and as long as one of them can be with her at all times. Right now, though, everything’s still in the talking stage. When they take me up to grad school, they’ll take Yasmin for a visit with the model recruiter. Yasmin is about to die from excitement. I
told
her my photos would take her places.”

Gabe leaned forward and raised his palm so Indigo could give him a high five.

“Anything else—from either of you—that we need to know about before we order all the champagne in this place?” he asked.

“I’m done!” Indigo said and laughed. Gabe knew she didn’t drink, but she appreciated his enthusiasm. “I’m still pinching myself about it all too.”

Brian looked at her and smiled. “There’s no way I can compete with all of that. I’m just getting ready to go to flight school so I can become a little old Navy pilot. No excitement and glamour there.”

He laughed, but Gabe looked at him soberly.

“I know you’re joking,” Gabe told Brian, “but a lot of this is unfolding just as you two are planning to become husband and wife. That’s a lot to consider. These changing dynamics can have a big impact on your relationship.”

Indigo hadn’t told anyone she’d been troubled by the same concerns. It was one thing for the husband to be the top dog, but what happened if she outshone him and gained more notoriety for her work than he did for his? She didn’t want to be like Whitney Houston at a long-ago awards show, trying to make her man feel better by declaring to the audience that he was the king. She was thankful to have the issue raised by someone else, and a man at that.

“What do you mean?” Brian asked Gabe. “I do what I do and she does what she does. We’re in two different worlds so it’s not like I’m competing with her.”

Rachelle looked him in the eyes. “I’m glad you see it that way, Brian, but our society operates differently. It was okay for me to be Mrs. Gabe Covington, wife of a renowned heart surgeon. But it took some of the polish off his brass buckle when my title changed to Dr. Rachelle Covington. You can have the best of intentions, but you need to be honest with yourself, in your heart, about what you want in a wife and what your expectations are from Indigo, given that she’s already locked into a career that she loves.”

Brian and Indigo looked at each other.

“You need to be careful too,” Rachelle told Indigo. “I can tell you from experience that it’s easy to set aside your goals and dreams and dismiss opportunities that come your way because you don’t want to make your husband feel insecure or inferior.

“That seems noble and all, but that’s not what love is about,” Rachelle told both of them. “At the end of the day, the key to a solid marriage partnership is not just love. You also have to be with someone who respects you deeply and who is looking out for your best interest. If you connect with someone who makes those two qualities a priority in your relationship, you’ll be okay.”

Indigo wanted to ask a question but hesitated.

Rachelle noticed. “Go ahead. Let’s get it all on the table. We love you both and want you to succeed. If our being honest helps you get there, we’re willing and ready to listen or talk.”

“What about you and Gabe?” Indigo finally asked. “I know you struggled for a while. What was missing and how did you get things back on track?”

Gabe looked at Rachelle. “You go first,” he said.

“I got married for the wrong reasons,” Rachelle said. “I wanted to please my parents and I was looking for security, and it just happened to come wrapped in a handsome and successful package named Gabe.

“When we started out, we were very much like you two. I was beginning my work as an optometrist and he was finishing a residency. We both were on track to pursue our dreams. But at some point,
my
dream got lost in
our
dream.”

Rachelle took a deep breath, as if the memory of that period still weighed her down. “Gabe kept his individual goals—to become a heart surgeon, to work at a leading hospital in Houston, to become a valued member of the community. He also was committed to our goals as a family. When we had Tate and Taryn, he wanted them to be exposed to certain things and be educated a certain way. I became the facilitator for making him look good and helping him reach his goals, and making sure the kids got everything we had agreed upon. There was no time left for me to pursue the things that had once mattered to me.”

She looked at Gabe. “He loved me, but I’m not sure that the respect was there or that he had my best interest at heart, especially when my needs competed with his. I have to be honest about that. Things started turning around for us when I decided to stand up for myself and make myself a priority again. I realized, in doing that, I was also helping him be less selfish and teaching our children that everybody’s needs matter.”

Gabe sat forward. “Rachelle’s version is correct. But I have to say for my part, I had to realize that the world didn’t revolve around me and my needs. That was huge, because at work, it did. In the community, it did. Even at home, Rachelle made sure that it did.”

He reached for Rachelle’s hand and smiled at her. “So when she had this ‘early life crisis’ and decided to change the terms of our unwritten contract, I wasn’t too happy. Two things happened. I went on a mission trip to Uganda with a Christian friend and his wife and saw the beauty in a relationship that didn’t require either partner to be subservient. And I felt a connection with God, for the first time ever. Both of those experiences were humbling. I realized that it didn’t matter who I was back in Houston, on paper or in the hospital. What mattered was who God said I was, and who Rachelle needed me to be.”

He looked at Brian. “It’s sounds easy, right? But trust me, it hasn’t been. I came home from that trip really afraid to let go of the way life had been. I had promised Rachelle before I got home that I was willing to change and do better, but when I walked into my home in a suburb not far from here, the old Gabe came back. I was in charge and that was the way it was going to be.

“When I realized that I might lose my wife, though, I finally woke up. We went to counseling for about a year and worked through some of the things we’ve mentioned tonight. But the most important thing I took away from that time was exactly what Rachelle first pointed out—I couldn’t
say
that I loved her if I wasn’t going to treat her with respect and do whatever I could to help her reach her highest potential.

“And ultimately,” Gabe said, “it all boiled down to facing truths. I had to take a long, hard look at myself and accept that I was arrogant and selfish. Until I did that, there was no hope of me changing for the better.”

Rachelle nodded. “And I had to be truthful with myself and own the fact that I had married him for prestige and security, and on the rebound from a first marriage that my parents had not approved of. I had to look at myself and honestly determine if I was a gold digger or manipulator or what. Acknowledging what had led me down the path to becoming Gabe’s wife and accepting life on his terms instead of our terms freed me to make new decisions that were better for me, and to be okay with that.”

Indigo was speechless. Her cousins had bared their souls, without making it pretty. She was grateful. It hit home that marriage wasn’t about the beautiful dress she had ordered or the logistics of where she and Brian would live or even whether they’d support each other in their individual endeavors.

Brian said it before she could formulate the words. “This all boils down to truth, doesn’t it?” he said pensively. “Being honest with ourselves and with each other.”

“With nothing held back,” Gabe said. “Truth has to be your foundation. If you can reveal your flaws and mistakes and misgivings to each other honestly, and sometimes even painfully, and still look into each other’s eyes and want to be together, there’s nothing that, with the help of God, you can’t overcome.”