Later, after the girls had gone to bed, he would put away the albums. It was one thing to look at them with his daughters and tell stories in an attempt to keep their spirits up, it was another thing to gaze at them alone. He couldn’t do that. Instead, he would sit alone on the couch, weighed down by the sadness he felt inside. Sometimes Stephanie would call. Their conversations were filled with their usual banter but it was somehow stilted at the same time, for he knew she wanted him to forgive himself. Despite her sometimes flippant remarks and her occasional teasing, he knew what she was really saying: that no one blamed him, that it wasn’t his fault. That she and others were worried about him. To head off her reassurances, he’d always say that he was doing fine, even when he wasn’t, for the truth was something he knew she didn’t want to hear: that not only did he doubt he’d ever be fine again, but he wasn’t even sure he ever wanted to be.
Seventeen
Warm bands of sunlight continued to stretch toward them. In the silence, Travis squeezed Gabby’s hand and winced at the pain in his wrist. It had been in a cast until a month ago, and the doctors had prescribed painkillers. The bones in his arms had fractured and his ligaments had torn in half, but after his first dose, he’d refused to take the painkillers, hating the woozy way they made him feel.
Her hand was as soft as always. Most days he would hold it for hours, imagining what he would do if she squeezed his in return. He sat and watched her, wondering what she was thinking or if she was thinking at all. The world inside her was a mystery.
“The girls are good,” he began. “Christine finished her Lucky Charms at breakfast, and Lisa was close. I know you worry about how much they eat, since they’re on the small side, but they’ve been pretty good about nibbling on the snacks I put out after school.”
Outside the window, a pigeon landed on the sill. It walked a few steps one way, then back again, before finally settling in place as it did on most days. It seemed, somehow, to know when it was time for Travis to visit. There were times he believed it was an omen of sorts, though of what, he had no idea.
“We do homework after dinner. I know you like to do it right after school, but this seems to be working out okay. You’d be excited at how well Christine is doing in math. Remember at the beginning of the year when she didn’t seem to understand it at all? She’s really turned it around. We’ve been using those flash cards you bought pretty much every night, and she didn’t miss a single question on her latest test. She’s even doing her homework without me having to walk her through it. You’d be proud of her.”
The sound of the cooing pigeon was barely audible through the glass.
“And Lisa’s doing well. We watch either Dora the Explorer or Barbie every night. It’s crazy how many times she can watch the same DVDs, but she loves them. And for her birthday, she wants a princess theme. I was thinking about getting an ice-cream cake, but she wants to have her party at the park, and I’m not sure they’d get to the cake before it melts, so I’ll probably have to get something else.”
He cleared his throat.
“Oh, did I tell you that Joe and Megan are thinking of having another kid? I know, I know-it’s crazy considering how many problems she had with the last pregnancy and the fact that she’s already in her forties, but according to Joe, she really wants to try for a little boy. Me? I think Joe’s the one who wants a son and Megan’s just going along with it, but with those two, you never really know, do you.”
Travis forced himself to sound conversational. Since she’d been here, he’d been trying to act as naturally as he could around her. Because they talked incessantly about the kids before the accident, because they discussed what was happening in their friends’ lives, he always tried to talk about them when he visited her. He had no idea whether she heard him; the medical community seemed divided on that. Some swore that coma patients could hear-and possibly remember-conversations; others said just the opposite. Travis didn’t know whom to believe, but he chose to live his days on the side of the optimists.
For that same reason, after glancing at his watch, he reached for the remote. In her stolen moments when she hadn’t been working, Gabby’s guilty pleasure was watching Judge Judy on television, and Travis had always teased her about the way she took an almost perverse delight in the antics of those unfortunate enough to find themselves in Judge Judy’s courtroom.
“Let me turn on the television, okay? Your show’s on. I think we can catch the last couple of minutes.”
A moment later, Judge Judy was speaking over both the defendant and the plaintiff, just to get them to shut up, which seemed to be the predictable, recurring theme of the show.
“She’s in rare form, huh?”
When the show was over, he turned it off. He thought about moving the flowers closer, in the hope that she would smell them. He wanted to keep her senses stimulated. Yesterday, he’d spent some time brushing her hair; the day before, he’d brought in some of her perfume and added a dab to each wrist. Today, however, doing any of those things seemed to take more effort than he could summon.
“Other than that, not much new is going on,” he said with a sigh. The words sounded as meaningless to him as they no doubt did to her. “My dad’s still covering for me at the clinic. You’d be amazed at how well he does with the animals, considering how long ago he retired. It’s like he never left. People still adore him, and I think he’s happy being there. If you ask me, he never should have stopped working in the first place.”
He heard a knock at the door and saw Gretchen walk in. In the past month, he’d come to depend on her. Unlike the other nurses, she maintained an undying faith that Gabby would emerge from all of this just fine and consequently treated Gabby as if she were conscious.
“Hey, Travis,” she chirped. “Sorry for interrupting, but I’ve got to hook up a new IV.”
When Travis nodded, she approached Gabby. “I’ll bet you’re starving, honey,” she said. “Just give me a second, okay? Then I’ll give you and Travis your alone time. You know how I am about interrupting two lovebirds.”
She worked quickly, removing one IV bag and replacing it with another, all the while keeping up a steady stream of conversation. “I know you’re sore from your workout this morning. We really went at it, didn’t we? We were like those folks you see on those infomercials. Working this, working that. I was really proud of you.”
Every morning and again in the evening, one of the nurses came in to flex and stretch Gabby’s limbs. Bend the knee, straighten it out; flex the foot up, then push it down. They did this for every joint and muscle in Gabby’s body.
After she finished hanging the bag, Gretchen checked the flow and adjusted the sheets, then turned to Travis.
“Are you doing okay today?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
Gretchen seemed sorry she’d asked. “I’m glad you brought flowers,” she said, nodding in the direction of the windowsill. “I’m sure Gabby appreciates it.”
“I hope so.”
“Are you going to bring in the girls?”
Travis swallowed through the lump in his throat. “Not today.”
Gretchen pursed her lips and nodded. A moment later, she was gone.
Twelve weeks ago, Gabby was rolled into the emergency room on a gurney, unconscious and bleeding heavily from a gash on her shoulder. The physicians concentrated first on the gash because of the heavy blood loss, though in retrospect, Travis wondered whether a different approach would have changed things.
He didn’t know, nor would he ever. Like Gabby, he’d been rolled into the emergency room; like Gabby, he’d spent the night unconscious. But there the similarities had ended. The following day, he woke up in pain with a mangled arm, while Gabby never woke up at all.