Not that things were always perfect. Years ago, he and Gabby had gone through a rough patch. The reasons were fuzzy now, lost in the recesses of time, but even then, there had never been a point when he truly believed their marriage to be in jeopardy. Nor, he suspected, had she. Marriage, each of them realized intuitively, was about compromise and forgiveness. It was about balance, where one person complemented the other. He and Gabby had that for years, and he hoped they could have it again. But right now they didn’t, and the realization left him wishing there was something, anything, he could do to restore that delicate balance between them.
Travis knew he couldn’t postpone seeing her any longer, and he rose from his seat. Holding the flowers, he started down the corridor, feeling almost disembodied. He saw a few nurses glance at him, and though he sometimes wondered what they thought, he never stopped to ask. Instead, he summoned his nerve. His legs were shaky, and he could feel the beginning of a headache, a dull throb at the back of his head. If he allowed himself to close his eyes, he felt sure he would sleep for hours. He was falling apart, a thought that made about as much sense as a square golf ball. He was forty-three, not seventy-two, and though he hadn’t been eating much lately, he still forced himself to go to the gym. “You’ve got to keep exercising,” his dad had urged. “If only for your own sanity.” He’d lost eighteen pounds in the last twelve weeks, and in the mirror he could see that his cheeks had hollowed out. He reached the door and pushed it open, forcing himself to smile as he saw her.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
He waited for her to stir, waited for any response to let him know that things were somehow returning to normal. But nothing happened, and in the long, empty silence that followed, Travis felt an ache like a physical pain in his heart. It was always like this. Stepping into the room, he continued to stare at Gabby as if trying to memorize her every feature, though he knew it was a pointless exercise. He knew her face better than his own.
At the window, he opened the blinds, allowing sunlight to spill across the floor. There wasn’t much of a view; the room overlooked a small highway that bisected the town. Slow-moving cars drifted past fast-food restaurants, and he could imagine the drivers listening to music on the radio, or chatting on cell phones, or heading to work, or making deliveries, or running errands, or going to visit friends. People going about their daily lives, people lost in their own concerns, all of them oblivious to what was going on in the hospital. He had once been one of them, and he felt the loss of his previous life.
He set the flowers on the sill, wishing he had remembered to bring a vase. He had chosen a winter bouquet, and the burnt orange and violet colors seemed muted, almost mournful. The florist considered himself an artist of sorts, and in all the years Travis had used him, he’d never been disappointed. The florist was a good man, a kind man, and sometimes Travis wondered how much the florist knew about their marriage. Over the years, Travis had purchased bouquets on anniversaries and birthdays; he’d purchased them as apologies or on the spur of the moment, as a romantic surprise. And each time, he’d dictated to the florist what he wanted written on the card. Sometimes he’d recited a poem he’d either found in a book or written on his own; at other times, he’d come straight to the point and simply said what was on his mind. Gabby had saved these cards in a tiny bundle held together by a rubber band. They were a kind of history of Travis and Gabby’s life together, described in tiny snippets.
He took a seat in the chair by the bed and reached for her hand. Her skin was pale, almost waxy, her body seemed smaller, and he noted the spidery lines that had begun to form at the corners of her eyes. Still, she was as remarkable to him as she had been the first time he’d ever seen her. It amazed him that he’d known her almost eleven years. Not because the length of time was extraordinary, but because those years seemed to contain more… life than the first thirty-two years without her. It was the reason he’d come to the hospital today; it was the reason he came every day. He had no other choice. Not because it was expected-though it was-but because he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. They spent hours together, but their nights were spent apart. Ironically, there was no choice in that, either, for he couldn’t leave his daughters alone. These days, fate made all his decisions for him.
Except for one.
Eighty-four days had passed since the accident, and now he had to make a choice. He still had no idea what to do. Lately he’d been searching for answers in the Bible and in the writings of Aquinas and Augustine. Occasionally he would find a striking passage, but nothing more than that; he would close the cover of the book and find himself staring out the window, his thoughts blank, as if hoping to find the solution somewhere in the sky.
He seldom drove straight home from the hospital. Instead, he would drive across the bridge and walk the sands of Atlantic Beach. He would slip off his shoes, listening as the waves crashed along the shore. He knew his daughters were as upset as he was, and after his visits to the hospital, he needed time to compose himself. It would be unfair to subject them to his angst. He needed his daughters for the escape they afforded him. When focusing on them, he didn’t focus on himself, and their joy still held an unadulterated purity. They still had the ability to lose themselves in play, and the sound of their giggling made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. Sometimes as he watched them, he was struck by how much they resembled their mother.
Always they asked about her, but usually he didn’t know what to tell them. They were mature enough to understand that Mommy wasn’t well and had to stay in the hospital; they understood that when they visited, it would seem as if Mommy were asleep. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell them the truth about her condition. Instead, he would cuddle with them on the couch and tell them how excited Gabby had been when she’d been pregnant with each of them or remind them about the time the family played in the sprinklers for an entire afternoon. Mostly, though, they would thumb through the photo albums Gabby had assembled with care. She was old-fashioned that way, and the pictures never ceased to bring a smile to their faces. Travis would tell stories associated with each, and as he stared at Gabby’s radiant face in the photos, his throat would tighten at the knowledge that he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
To escape the sadness that overtook him in such moments, he would sometimes raise his eyes from the album and focus on the large, framed photograph they’d had taken at the beach last summer. All four of them had worn beige khakis and white button-down oxfords, and they were seated amid the dune grass. It was the kind of family portrait common in Beaufort, yet it somehow struck him as entirely unique. Not because it was his family, but because he was certain that even a stranger would find himself filled with hope and optimism at the sight, for the people in the photo looked the way a happy family should.