But over the years, as they continued to run into each other, Gabby noticed that Kenneth had changed. “She’s still going,” was the way he began to casually describe her condition. Where there had once been a light in his eyes when he spoke about Eleanor, there was now only blankness; where once there was love, now there seemed to be only apathy. His black hair had turned gray within a couple of years, and he’d become so thin that his clothes hung off him.
In the cereal aisle or frozen food section, Gabby couldn’t seem to avoid him, and he became something of a confidant. He seemed to need her, to tell her what was happening, and in those moments they met, Kenneth mentioned one horrible event after another: that he’d lost his job, lost his house, that he couldn’t wait to get all the kids out of the house, that the older one had dropped out of high school and the younger one had been arrested again for dealing drugs. Again. That was the word Gabby emphasized when she told Travis about it later. She also said she was pretty sure he’d been drunk when she’d run into him.
“I just feel so bad for him,” Gabby said.
“I know you do,” Travis said.
She grew quiet then. “Sometimes I think it might have been easier if his wife had died instead.”
Staring out the window, Travis thought about Kenneth and Eleanor Baker. He had no idea whether Eleanor was still in the nursing home or whether she was still alive. Since the accident, he’d replayed those conversations in his head nearly every day, remembering the things Gabby had told him. He wondered whether somehow Eleanor and Kenneth Baker had been brought into their lives for a reason. How many people, after all, knew anyone who’d been in a coma? It seemed so… fantastic, no more likely than visiting an island filled with dinosaurs or watching an alien spaceship blowing up the Empire State Building.
But Gabby worked in a hospital, and if there was some sort of reason for the Bakers to have come into their lives, what was it? To warn him that he was doomed? That his daughters would lose their way? Those thoughts terrified him, and it was the reason he made sure he was waiting when his daughters came home from school. It was the reason he would be taking them to Busch Gardens as soon as school let out, and it was the reason he let Christine spend the night at her friend’s house. He woke every morning with the thought that even if they were struggling, which was normal, he still insisted they behave at home and in school, and it was the reason that when they misbehaved, both of them were sent to their rooms for the night as punishment. Because those were the things Gabby would have done.
His in-laws sometimes thought he was being too hard on the girls. That wasn’t surprising. His mother-in-law, in particular, had always been judgmental. While Gabby and her dad could chat on the phone for an hour, conversations with her mother were always clipped. In the beginning, Travis and Gabby spent the mandatory holidays in Savannah and Gabby always came home stressed; once their daughters were born, Gabby finally told her parents she wanted to start her own holiday traditions and that while she would love to see them, her parents would have to come to Beaufort. They never did.
After the accident, however, her parents checked into a hotel in Morehead City to be close to their daughter, and for the first month, the three of them were often in Gabby’s room together. While they never said they blamed him for the accident, Travis could feel it in the way they seemed to keep their distance. When they spent time with Christine and Lisa, it was always away from the house-outings for ice cream or pizza-and they seldom spent more than a couple of minutes inside.
In time, they had to go back, and now they sometimes came up on weekends. When they did, Travis tried to stay away from the hospital. He told himself that it was because they needed time alone with their daughter, and that was partly true. What he didn’t like to admit was that he also stayed away because they continually, if unintentionally, reminded him that he was responsible for Gabby being in the hospital in the first place.
His friends had reacted as he’d expected. Allison, Megan, and Liz prepared dinners in shifts for the first six weeks. Over the years, they’d grown close to Gabby, and sometimes it seemed as if Travis had to support them. They would show up with red eyes and forced smiles, holding Tupperware containers filled to the brim with lasagna or casseroles, side dishes, and desserts of every kind. They always made a special point to mention that chicken was always used in place of red meat, to ensure that Travis would eat it.
They were particularly good with the girls. In the beginning, they often held the girls as they cried, and Christine grew especially fond of Liz. Liz braided her hair, helped her make beaded bracelets, and usually spent at least half an hour with Christine, kicking the soccer ball back and forth. Once inside, they would begin to whisper as soon as Travis left the room. He wondered what they said to each other. Knowing Liz, he was certain that if she felt it was something important, she’d tell him, but usually she’d simply say that Christine wanted to talk. Over time, he found himself simultaneously thankful for her presence and envious of her relationship with Christine.
Lisa, on the other hand, was closer to Megan. They would color at the kitchen table or sit beside each other watching television; sometimes Travis would watch Lisa curl her body against Megan’s in the same way she did with Gabby. In moments like those, they almost looked like mother and daughter, and for the briefest of moments, Travis would feel as if the family were reunited again.
Allison, on the other hand, was the one who made sure the girls understood that even if they were sad and upset, they still had responsibilities. She reminded them to pick up their rooms, helped them with their homework, and always prompted them to bring their dishes to the sink. She was gentle about it, but firm as well, and while his daughters sometimes avoided their chores on the nights Allison didn’t come, it happened less frequently than Travis would have guessed. On a subconscious level, they seemed to realize they craved structure in their lives, and Allison was exactly what they’d needed.
Between them and his mother-who was there every afternoon and most weekends-Travis was seldom alone with his daughters in the aftermath of the accident, and they were able to function as parents in a way that he simply couldn’t. He’d needed them to do that for him. It was all he could do to get out of bed in the morning, and most of the time, he felt on the verge of crying. His guilt hung heavy, and not simply because of the accident. He didn’t know what to do or where he was supposed to be. When he was at the hospital, he wished he were at home with his daughters; when he was at home with his daughters, he wished he were visiting Gabby. Nothing was ever right.
But after six weeks of dumping excess food in the garbage cans, Travis finally told his friends that while they were welcome to continue visiting, he no longer needed his dinners prepared. Nor did he want them coming by every day. By that point, with visions of Kenneth Baker playing in his mind, he knew that he had to take control over what was left of his life. He had to become the father he once had been, the father Gabby wanted him to be, and little by little, he did. It wasn’t easy, and while there were still times when Christine and Lisa seemed to miss the attention from the others, it was more than offset by the attention Travis began to show again. It wasn’t as if everything had reverted to normal, but now, at the three-month mark, their lives were as normal as could be expected. In taking responsibility for the care of his daughters, Travis sometimes thought he’d saved himself.