The Choice (23 page)
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Her smile was pained. “That’s what I was thinking about today, even though it hurts me to say it. I love you, Travis, I really do. If I thought of this as a weekend fling, I’d put it behind me now and then go back to imagining a future with Kevin. But it’s not going to be that easy. I have to make a choice between the two of you. With Kevin, I know what to expect. Or at least until you came along, I thought I did. But now . . .”
She paused, and Travis could see her hair moving slightly in the breeze. She hugged her arms tightly to her body.
“We’ve only known each other for a few days, and while we were on the boat, I found myself wondering how many other women you’d taken out like that. Not because I was jealous, but because I kept asking myself what brought those relationships to an end. And then I started wondering whether you would feel the same way about me in the future as you do right now, or whether this will just end up like all your previous relationships. As much as we think we know each other, we don’t. Or at least, I don’t. All I know is that I fell in love with you, and I’ve never been more frightened about anything in my entire life.”
She stopped. Travis stayed silent, letting her words penetrate before saying anything.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “Your choice is different from mine. But you’re wrong if you think this was just a fling for me. I might have started out thinking along those lines, but . . .” He reached for her hand. “That’s not how it ended up. Spending time with you showed me what I’ve been missing in my life. The more time we spent together, the more I could imagine it lasting in the future. That’s never happened to me before, and I’m not sure it’ll ever happen again. I’ve never been in love with anyone before you came along—not real love, anyway. Not like this, and I’d be a fool if I let you slip away without a fight.”
He ran a hand through his hair, drained.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you, other than that I can imagine spending the rest of my life with you. I know that sounds crazy. I know we’re just getting to know each other, and even admitting what I just did might make you think I’m nuts, but I’ve never been more sure about anything. And if you give me a chance—if you give
us
a chance—I’m going to live the rest of my life proving to you that you made the right decision. I love you, Gabby. And not just for the person you are, but for the way you make me think that
we
can be.”
For a long moment, neither of them said anything. In the darkness, Gabby could hear the crickets calling from the foliage. Her mind was whirling—she wanted to run away, and she wanted to stay here forever, her warring instincts a reflection of the impossible bind she’d gotten herself into.
“I like you, Travis,” she said earnestly. Then, realizing how it sounded, she struggled on. “And I love you, too, of course, but hopefully you already know that. I was just trying to tell you that I like the way you talk to me. I like the fact that when you say something, I know that you really mean it. I like the fact that I can tell when you’re teasing or telling the truth and when you’re not. It’s one of your more endearing qualities.” She patted his knee. “Now will you do something for me?”
“Of course,” he said.
“No matter what I ask?”
He hesitated. “Yeah . . . I guess.”
“Will you make love to me? And not think it might be the last time it ever happens?”
“That’s two things.”
She didn’t dignify his answer with a response. Instead, she held out her hand to him. As they moved toward the bedroom, she broke into the tiniest of smiles, finally knowing what she had to do.
February 2007
T
ravis tried to shake free of those memories from nearly eleven years ago, wondering why they’d resurfaced with such clarity. Was it because he was now old enough to realize how unusual it was to fall in love so quickly? Or simply because he missed the intimacy of those days? He didn’t know.
Lately, it seemed he didn’t know a lot of things. There were people who claimed to have all the answers, or at least the answers to the big questions of life, but Travis had never believed them. There was something about the assurance with which they spoke or wrote that seemed self-justifying. But if there were one person who could answer any question, Travis’s question would be this: How far should a person go in the name of true love?
He could pose the question to a hundred people and get a hundred different answers. Most were obvious: A person should sacrifice, or accept, or forgive, or even fight if need be . . . the list went on and on. Still, even though he knew that all these answers were valid, none would help him now. Some things were beyond understanding. Thinking back, he recalled events he wished he could change, tears he wished had never been shed, time that could have been better spent, and frustrations he should have shrugged off. Life, it seemed, was full of regret, and he yearned to turn back the clock so he could live parts of his life over again. One thing was certain: He should have been a better husband. And as he considered the question of how far a person should go in the name of love, he knew what his answer would be. Sometimes it meant a person should lie.
And soon, he had to make his choice as to whether he would.
The fluorescent lights and white tile underscored the sterility of the hospital. Travis moved slowly down the corridor, certain that even though he’d spotted Gabby earlier, she hadn’t seen him. He hesitated, steeling himself to head over and talk to her. It was the reason he’d come, after all, but the vivid parade of memories earlier had drained him. He stopped, knowing a few more minutes to collect his thoughts wouldn’t make any difference.
He ducked into a small reception room and took a seat. Watching the steady, rhythmic movement in the corridor, he realized that despite the never-ending emergencies, the staff had a routine here, much as he had his own routines at home. It was inevitable for people to try to create a sense of normalcy in a place where nothing was normal. It helped one get through the day, to add predictability to a life that was inherently unpredictable. His mornings were a case in point, for every one was the same. Six-fifteen alarm; a minute to get out of bed and nine minutes in the shower, another four minutes to shave and brush his teeth, and seven minutes to get dressed. A stranger could set a watch by following his shadowed movements through his windows. After that, he’d hurry downstairs to pour cereal; he’d check backpacks for homework and make peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for lunches while his sleepy daughters ate their breakfast. At exactly quarter past seven, they’d troop out the door and he’d wait with them at the end of the driveway for the school bus to arrive, driven by a man whose Scottish accent reminded him of
Shrek.
After his daughters got on and settled into their seats, he’d smile and wave, just as he was supposed to. Lisa and Christine were six and eight, a bit young for first and third grade, and as he watched them venture out to start another day, he often felt his heart clench with worry. Perhaps that was common—people always said that parenting and worrying were synonymous—but recently his worries had grown more pronounced. He dwelled on things he never had before. Little things. Ridiculous things. Was Lisa laughing at cartoons as much as she used to? Was Christine more subdued than normal? Sometimes, as the bus would pull away, he would find himself replaying the morning over and over, searching for clues to their well-being. Yesterday he had spent half the day wondering whether Lisa had been testing him by making him tie her shoes or whether she had just been feeling lazy. Even though he knew he was bordering on obsession, when he’d crept to their rooms last night to adjust their strewn-about blankets, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering whether the nighttime restlessness was new or something he’d just never noticed before.
It shouldn’t have been like this. Gabby should have been with him; Gabby should have been the one tying shoes and adjusting the blankets. She was good at things like that, as he’d known she would be from the very beginning. He remembered that in the days that followed their first weekend together, he would find himself studying Gabby, knowing on some deep level that even if he spent the rest of his life looking, he’d never find a better mother or more perfect complement to him. The realization often hit in the strangest of places—while pushing the cart in the fruit aisle of the grocery store or standing in line to buy movie tickets—but whenever it happened, it made something as simple as taking her hand an exquisite pleasure, something both momentous and gratifying.
Their courtship hadn’t been quite as uncomplicated for her. She was the one torn between two men vying for her love. “A minor inconvenience,” was the way he described it at parties, but he often wondered when exactly her feelings for him finally overwhelmed those she’d had for Kevin. Was it when they sat beside each other, gazing at the nighttime sky, and she quietly began naming the constellations she recognized? Or was it the following day, when she held him tight as they rode on the motorcycle before their picnic? Or was it later that evening, when he took her in his arms?
He wasn’t sure; capturing a specific instant like that was no more possible than locating a specific drop of water in the ocean. But the fact remained that it left Gabby to explain the situation to Kevin. Travis could remember her pained expression on the morning she knew Kevin would be arriving back in town. Gone was the certainty that had guided them the previous days; in its place was the reality of what lay ahead for her. She barely touched her breakfast; when he kissed her good-bye, she responded with only the flicker of a smile. The hours had crawled by without word, and Travis busied himself at work and made calls to find homes for the puppies, knowing it was important to her. Eventually, after work, Travis went to check on Molly. As if sensing she’d be needed later, she didn’t return to the garage after he let her out. Instead, she lay in the tall marsh grass that fronted Gabby’s property, staring toward the street as the sun sank lower in the sky.
It was well after dark when Gabby turned in the drive. He remembered the steady way she looked at him as she stepped out of the car. Without a word, she took a seat beside him on the steps. Molly wandered up and began to nuzzle her. Gabby ran her hand rhythmically through her fur.
“Hey,” he said, breaking the silence.
“Hey.” Her voice sounded drained of emotion.
“I think I found homes for all of the puppies,” he offered.
“Yeah?”
He nodded, and the two of them sat together without speaking, like two people who’d run out of things to talk about.
“I’m always going to love you,” he said, searching and failing to find adequate words to comfort her.
“I believe you,” she whispered. She looped her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder. “That’s why I’m here.”
Travis had never liked hospitals. Unlike the veterinary clinic, which closed its doors around dinnertime, Carteret General Hospital struck him as the endless turning of a Ferris wheel, with patients and employees hopping on and off every minute of every day. From where he was sitting, he could see nurses bustling in and out of rooms or clustering around the station at the end of the hall. Some were frazzled while others seemed bored; the doctors were no different. On other floors, Travis knew that mothers were giving birth and the elderly were passing away, a microcosm of the world. As oppressive as he found it, Gabby had thrived working here, energized by the steady buzz of activity.
There’d been a letter in the mailbox months earlier, something from the administrator’s office announcing that the hospital planned to honor Gabby’s tenth year working at the hospital. The letter didn’t allude to anything specific that Gabby had accomplished; it was nothing more than a form letter, something no doubt sent out to a dozen other people who’d started working around the same time she had. A small plaque, the letter promised, would be hung in Gabby’s honor in one of the corridors, along with other recipients’, though as yet it hadn’t happened.
He doubted that she cared. Gabby had taken the job at the hospital not because she might one day receive a plaque, but because she’d felt she hadn’t much choice. Though she had alluded to some problems at the pediatrician’s office during their first weekend together, she hadn’t been specific. He’d let the comment pass without pressing her, but he knew even then that the problem wasn’t simply going to go away.
Eventually, she told him about it. It was the end of a long day. He’d been called out the previous night to the equestrian center, where he found an Arabian sweating and pawing the ground, its stomach tender to the touch. Classic signs of equine colic, though with a bit of luck, he didn’t think it would require surgery. Still, with the owners in their seventies, Travis wasn’t comfortable asking them to walk the horse for fifteen minutes every hour, in case the horse became more agitated or took a turn for the worse. Instead, he decided to stay with the horse himself, and though the horse gradually improved as the day rolled on into the next evening, he was exhausted by the time he left.
He arrived home, sweaty and filthy, to find Gabby crying at her kitchen table. It took a few minutes before she was able to tell him the story—how she’d had to stay late with a patient who was waiting for an ambulance for what she was fairly certain was appendicitis; by the time she was able to leave, most of the staff had gone home. The attending physician, Adrian Melton, had not. They left together, and Gabby didn’t realize that Melton was walking with her toward her car until it was too late. There, he laid a hand on her shoulder and told her that he was heading to the hospital and would update her on the patient’s condition. When she forced a smile, however, he leaned in to kiss her.
It was a clumsy effort, reminiscent of high school, and she recoiled before he could finish. He stared at her, seemingly put out. “I thought this was what you wanted,” he’d said.