But Gabby was nothing if not persistent, and she started making small changes anyway. She prepared butter or cream or wine sauces and poured them over her portion of the chicken he cooked nearly every night. Her single request was that he at least smell it, and usually he had to admit the aroma was appetizing. Later, she took to leaving a small amount in the serving bowl, and after she’d poured some on her plate, she simply added some to his whether he wanted to try it or not. And little by little, to his own surprise, he did.
On their third anniversary, Gabby prepared a mozzarella-stuffed, Italian-flavored meat loaf; in lieu of a gift, she asked him to eat it with her; by their fourth anniversary, they were sometimes cooking together. Though his breakfast and lunch were as boring as usual and most evenings his dinners were still as bland as always, he had to admit there was something romantic about preparing meals together, and as the years rolled on, they started to do it at least twice a week. Often, Gabby would have a glass of wine, and while they cooked, the girls were required to stay in the sunroom, where the prominent feature was a Berber carpet the color of emeralds. They called it “green carpet time.” While Gabby and Travis chopped and stirred and conversed quietly about their day, he reveled in the contentment that she had brought him.
He wondered if he’d ever get the chance to cook with her again. In the first weeks after the accident, he’d been almost frantic about making sure the evening nurse had his cell number handy. After a month, because she was breathing on her own, she was moved from the ICU to a private room, and he was certain the change would wake her. But as the days passed with no change at all, his manic energy was replaced by a quiet, gnawing dread that was even worse. Gabby had once told him that six weeks was the cutoff—that after that, the odds of waking from a coma dropped dramatically. But still he held out hope. He told himself that Gabby was a mother, Gabby was a fighter, Gabby was different from all the rest. Six weeks came and went; another two weeks followed. At three months, he knew, most patients who remained in a coma were moved to a nursing home for long-term care. That day was today, and he was supposed to let the administrator know what he wanted to do. But that wasn’t the choice he was facing. His choice had to do with Kenneth and Eleanor Baker, and though he knew he couldn’t blame Gabby for bringing them into their lives, he wasn’t ready to think about them just yet.
Eighteen
The house they built was the kind of place in which Travis could imagine spending the rest of his life. Despite its newness, there was a lived-in quality from the moment they moved in. He attributed this to the fact that Gabby had worked hard to create a home that made people feel comfortable as soon as the door was opened.
She was the one who oversaw the details that had made the house come alive. While Travis conceived the structure in terms of square footage and building materials that could survive the salty, humid summers, Gabby introduced eclectic elements he’d never considered. Once, while in the process of building, they were driving past a crumbling farmhouse, long since abandoned, and Gabby insisted he pull over. By that point, he’d grown used to her occasional flights of fancy. He humored her, and soon they were walking through what was once a doorway. They stepped across floors carpeted with dirt and tried to ignore the kudzu that wove through broken walls and gaping windows. Along the far wall, however, was a fireplace, thick with grime, and Travis remembered thinking that she’d somehow known it was there. She squatted next to the fireplace, running her hand along the sides and beneath the mantel. “See this? I think it’s hand-painted tile,” she said. “There must be hundreds of pieces, maybe more. Can you imagine how beautiful it was when it was new?” She reached for his hand. “We should do something like this.”
Little by little, the house took on accents he’d never before imagined. They didn’t just copy the style of the fireplace; Gabby found the owners, knocked on their door, and convinced them to let her purchase the fireplace in its entirety for less than it cost to clean it. She wanted big oak beams and a vaulted, soft pine ceiling in the living room, which seemed to match the gabled roofline. The walls were plaster or brick or covered with colorful textures, some that resembled leather, all of them somehow resembling works of art. She spent long weekends shopping for antique furniture and knickknacks, and sometimes it seemed as if the house itself knew what she was trying to accomplish. When she found a spot in the hardwood floor that creaked, she walked back and forth, a big grin on her face, to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. She loved rugs, the more colorful the pattern the better, and they were scattered throughout the house with generous abandon.
She was practical, too. The kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms were airy and bright and sparkly modern, with large windows framing the gorgeous views. The master bathroom had a claw-foot tub and a roomy, glass-walled shower. She wanted a big garage, with plenty of room for Travis. Guessing that they’d spend a lot of time on the wraparound porch, she insisted on a hammock and matching rockers, along with an outdoor grill and a seating area located in such a way that during storms, they could sit outside without getting wet. The overall effect was one in which a person didn’t know whether he or she was more comfortable inside or out; the kind of home where someone could walk in with muddy shoes and not get in trouble. And on their first night in their new home, as they lay on the canopy bed, Gabby rolled toward Travis with an expression of pure contentment, her voice almost a purr: “This place, with you by my side, is where I’ll always want to be.”
The kids had been having problems, even if he didn’t mention them to Gabby.
Not surprising, of course, but most of the time, Travis was at a loss as to what to do. Christine had asked him more than once whether Mommy was ever going to come home, and though Travis always assured her that she would, Christine seemed uncertain, probably because Travis wasn’t sure he believed it himself. Kids were perceptive like that, and at eight years old, she’d reached an age where she knew the world wasn’t as simple as she’d once imagined it to be.
She was a lovely child with bright blue eyes who liked to wear neat bows in her hair. She wanted her room to always appear just so and refused to wear clothes that didn’t match. She didn’t throw temper tantrums when things weren’t right; instead, she was the sort of child who organized her toys or picked a new pair of shoes. But since the accident, she got frustrated easily, and temper tantrums were now the norm. His family, Stephanie included, had recommended counseling, and both Christine and Lisa went twice a week, but the temper tantrums seemed to be getting worse. And last night, when Christine went to bed, her room was a mess.
Lisa, who’d always been small for her age, had hair the same color as Gabby’s and a generally sunny disposition. She had a blanket she carried with her everywhere, and she followed Christine around the house like a puppy. She put stickers on all her folders, and her work in school usually came home covered in stars. Still, for a long time she’d cry herself to sleep. From downstairs, Travis could hear her weeping on the monitor, and he’d have to pinch the bridge of his nose to keep from joining in. On those nights, he would climb the stairs to the girls’ bedroom—since the accident, another change was that they wanted to sleep in the same room—and Travis would lie beside her, stroking her hair and listening as she whimpered “I miss Mommy” over and over, the saddest words Travis had ever heard. Almost too choked up to speak, he would simply say, “I know. I do, too.”
He couldn’t begin to take Gabby’s place, and he didn’t try; what that left, however, was a hole where Gabby used to be, an emptiness he didn’t know how to fill. Like most parents, each of them had carved out fiefdoms of expertise when it came to child care. Gabby, he knew now, had taken a far greater share of the responsibility than he had, and he regretted it now. There were so many things he didn’t know how to do, things that Gabby made seem easy. Little things. He could brush the girls’ hair, but when it came to braids, he understood the concept but found them impossible to master. He didn’t know what kind of yogurt Lisa referred to when
she said she wanted “the one with the blue banana.” When colds settled in, he stood in the aisle of the grocery store, scanning the shelves of cough syrup, wondering whether to buy grape or cherry flavoring. Christine never wore the clothes he set out. He’d had no idea that Lisa liked to wear sparkly shoes on Fridays. He realized that before the accident, he hadn’t even known their teachers’ names or where in the school, exactly, their classrooms were located.
Christmas had been the worst, for that had always been Gabby’s favorite holiday. She loved everything about the season: trimming the tree, decorating, baking cookies, and even the shopping. It used to amaze Travis that she could retain her humor as she pushed through frenzied crowds in department stores, but at night, after the girls had gone to bed, she’d drag out the gifts with a giddy sense of glee, and together they’d wrap the items she’d purchased. Later, Travis would hide them in the attic.
There was nothing joyous about last year’s holiday season. Travis did his best, forcing excitement when none was evident. He tried to do everything Gabby had done, but the effort of maintaining a happy facade was wearying, especially because neither Christine nor Lisa made things any easier. It wasn’t their fault, but for the life of him, he didn’t know how respond when at the top of both their holiday wish lists was the request for Mommy to get better. It wasn’t like a new Leapster or a dollhouse could take her place.
In the past couple of weeks, things had improved. Kind of. Christine still threw her tantrums and Lisa still cried at night, but they’d adapted to life in the house without their mom. When they walked in the house after school, they no longer called for her out of habit; when they fell and scraped their elbows, they automatically came to him to find a Band-Aid. In a picture of the family Lisa drew at school, Travis saw only three images; he had to catch his breath before he realized there was another horizontal image in the corner, one that seemed added almost as an afterthought. They didn’t ask about their mom as much as they used to, and they visited rarely. It was hard for them to go, for they didn’t know what to say or even how to act. Travis understood that and tried to make it easier. “Just talk to her,” he would tell them, and they would try, but their words would trail off into nothing when no response was forthcoming.
Usually, when they did visit, Travis had them bring things—pretty rocks they’d found in the garden, leaves they’d laminated, homemade cards decorated with glitter. But even gifts were fraught with uncertainty. Lisa would set her gift on Gabby’s stomach and back away; a moment later, she’d move it closer to Gabby’s hand. After that, she’d shift it to the end table. Christine, on the other hand, would move constantly. She’d sit on the bed and stand by the window, she’d peer closely at her mother’s face, and through it all, she’d never say a single word.
“What happened at school today?” Travis had asked her the last time she’d come. “I’m sure your mom wants to hear all about it.”
Instead of answering, Christine turned toward him. “Why?” she asked, her tone one of sad defiance. “You know she can’t hear me.”
There was a cafeteria on the ground floor of the hospital, and on most days Travis would go there, mainly to hear voices other than his own. Normally, he arrived around lunchtime, and over the past few weeks, he’d come to recognize the regulars. Most were employees, but there was an elderly woman who seemed to be there every time he arrived. Though he’d never spoken to her, he’d learned from Gretchen that the woman’s husband had already been in the intensive care unit when Gabby was admitted. Something about complications from diabetes, and whenever he saw the woman eating a bowl of soup, he thought about her husband upstairs. It was easy to imagine the worst: a patient hooked up to a dozen machines, endless rounds of surgery, possible amputation, a man barely hanging on. It wasn’t his business to ask, and he wasn’t even certain he wanted to know the truth, if only because it felt as though he couldn’t summon the concern he knew he’d need to show. His ability to empathize, it seemed to him, had evaporated.
Still, he watched her, curious about what he could learn from her. While the knot in his stomach never seemed to settle enough for him to swallow more than a few bites of anything, she not only ate her entire meal, but seemed to enjoy it. While he found it impossible to focus long enough on anything other than his own needs and his daughters’ daily existence, she read novels during lunch, and more than once, he’d seen her laughing quietly at a passage that had amused her. And unlike him, she still maintained an ability to smile, one she offered willingly to those who passed her table.
Sometimes, in that smile, he thought he could see a trace of loneliness, even as he chided himself for imagining something that probably wasn’t there. He couldn’t help wondering about her marriage. Because of her age, he assumed they’d celebrated a silver, perhaps even golden, anniversary. Most likely there were kids, even if he’d never seen them. But other than that, he could intuit nothing. He wondered whether they had been happy, for she seemed to be taking her husband’s illness in stride, while he walked the corridors of the hospital feeling as if a single wrong step would send him crumpling to the floor.
He wondered, for instance, whether her husband had ever planted rosebushes for her, something Travis had done for Gabby when she’d first become pregnant with Christine. Travis remembered the way she looked as she sat on the porch, one hand on her belly, and mentioned that the backyard needed flowers. Staring at her as she said it, Travis could no more have denied her request than breathed underwater, and though his hands were scraped and his fingertips bloody by the time he finished planting the bushes, roses were blooming on the day Christine had been born. He’d brought a bouquet to the hospital.
He wondered whether her husband had watched her from the corner of his eye the way Travis watched Gabby when their kids frolicked on the swings in the park. He loved the way Gabby’s expression would light up with pride. Often, he’d reach for her hand and feel like holding it forever.
He wondered whether her husband had found her beautiful first thing in the morning, with her hair askew, the way Travis did when he saw Gabby. Sometimes, despite the structured chaos always associated with mornings, they would simply lie together in each other’s arms for a few more minutes, as if drawing strength to face the upcoming day.
Travis didn’t know whether his marriage had been especially blessed or whether all marriages were like his. All he knew was that without Gabby he was utterly lost, while others, including the woman in the cafeteria, somehow found the strength to go on. He didn’t know whether he should admire the woman or feel sorry for her. He always turned away before she caught him staring. Behind him, a family wandered in, chattering excitedly and carrying balloons; at the register, he saw a young man digging through his pockets for change. Travis pushed aside his tray, feeling ill. His sandwich was only half-eaten. He debated whether to bring it with him back to the room but knew he wouldn’t finish it even if he did. He turned toward the window.
The cafeteria overlooked a small green space, and he watched the changing world outside. Spring would be here soon, and he imagined that tiny buds were beginning to form on the dogwoods. In the past three months, he’d seen every kind of weather from this very spot. He’d watched rain and sun and seen winds in excess of fifty miles an hour bend the pine trees in the distance almost to the point of snapping. Three weeks ago, he’d seen hail fall from the sky, only to be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it’s important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion.
Nineteen
By midafternoon, the sky was turning cloudy, and it was time for Gabby’s afternoon routine. Though she’d completed the exercises from the morning, and a nurse would come by later in the evening to do another workout, he’d asked Gretchen if it
would be okay if he did the same thing in the afternoon as well.
“I think she’d like that,” Gretchen had said.
She walked him through the process, making sure he understood that every muscle and every joint needed attention. While Gretchen and the other nurses always started with Gabby’s fingers, Travis started with her toes. He lowered the sheet and reached for her foot, flexing her pinkie toe up and down, then again, before moving to the toe beside it.
Travis had come to love doing this for her. The feel of her skin against his own was enough to rekindle a dozen memories: the way he’d rubbed her feet while she’d been pregnant, the slow and intoxicating back rubs by candlelight during which she’d seemed to purr, massages on her arm after she’d strained it lifting a bag of dog food one-handed. As much as he missed talking to Gabby, sometimes he believed that the simple act of touch was what he missed most of all. It had taken him over a month before he’d asked Gretchen’s permission to help with the exercises, and during that time, whenever he’d stroked Gabby’s leg, he’d felt somehow as if he were taking advantage of her. It didn’t matter that they were married; what mattered was that it was a one-sided act on his part, somehow disrespectful to the woman he adored.
But this . . .
She needed this. She required this. Without it, her muscles would atrophy, and even if she woke—when she woke, he quickly corrected himself—she would find herself permanently bedridden. At least, that’s what he told himself. Deep down, he knew he needed it as well, if only to feel the heat from her skin or the gentle pulse of blood in her wrist. It was at such times he felt most certain that she would recover; that her body was simply repairing itself.