The Choice

551/571it was the same bird. It had to be. It pacedback and forth, showing no fear of Traviswhen he approached the glass, and it had acoo that sounded . . . familiar somehow. Amillion people could tell him he was crazy,and part of him would know they were right,but still . . . It was the same pigeon, no matter howcrazy it sounded. He watched it in wonder, amazed, andthe following day, he brought some WonderBread and scattered a few pieces on the sill.After that, he glanced at the window regu-larly, waiting for the pigeon to reappear, butit never did. In the days following its visit, hefound himself depressed by its absence. So-metimes, in fanciful moments, he liked tothink that it had simply come to check onthem, to make sure Travis was still watchingover Gabby. Either that, he told himself, or itcame to tell him not to give up hope; that inthe end, his choice had been correct.

552/571 On the back porch, remembering thatmoment, he marveled that he could stare outat his happy daughters and experience somuch of their joy himself. He barely recog-nized this sense of well-being, the feelingthat all was right in the world. Had the ap-pearance of the pigeon heralded the changesthat took hold of their lives? He supposed itwas only human to wonder about suchthings, and Travis figured that he’d be tellingthe rest of the story as long as he lived. What happened was this: It was mid-morning, six days after the pigeon had re-appeared, and Travis was working at theclinic. In one room was a sick cat; in another,a Doberman puppy needing shots. In thethird room, Travis was suturing a mutt—halfLabrador, half golden retriever—that had re-ceived a gash while crawling through barbedwire. He finished the final stitch, tied off theknot, and was about to tell the owner how tokeep the gash from getting infected when an

553/571assistant entered the room without knock-ing. Travis turned in surprise at theinterruption. “It’s Elliot Harris,” she said. “He needs totalk to you.” “Can you take a message?” Travis asked,glancing at the dog and its owner. “He said it can’t wait. It’s urgent.” Travis apologized to the client and toldthe assistant to finish up. He walked to hisoffice and closed the door. On the phone wasa flashing light signaling Harris on hold. Thinking back, he wasn’t sure what he’dexpected to hear. He did feel, however,something ominous as he raised the receiverto his ear. It was the first—and theonly—time Elliot Harris had ever called himat the office. He steadied himself, thenpressed the button. “Travis Parker speaking,” he said into thephone.

554/571 “Dr. Parker, it’s Elliot Harris,” the direct-or said. His voice was calm and unreadable.“I think you should come down to the nurs-ing home as quickly as you can.” In the short silence that followed, a mil-lion thoughts raced through Travis’s mind:that Gabby had stopped breathing, that she’dtaken a turn for the worse, that somehow allhope had been lost. In that instant, Travisgripped the phone as if trying to ward offwhatever might come next. “Is Gabby okay?” he finally asked, thewords sounding choked. There was another pause, probably only asecond or two. A blink of an eye that wasyears in the making, is the way he describedit now, but the two words that followed madehim drop the phone.He was eerily calm as he left his office. Atleast, that’s what his assistants would tellhim later: that in looking at him, he gave no

555/571clues as to what had happened. They saidthat they’d watched as he drifted past thefront desk, oblivious to those who werewatching him. Everyone, from the staff to theowners who’d brought their animals to theclinic, knew that Travis’s wife was in thenursing home. Madeline, who was eighteenand worked at the front desk, stared at himwith wide eyes as he approached her. By thatpoint, nearly everyone in the office knew thatthe nursing home had called. In small towns,news is nearly instantaneous. “Would you call my dad and tell him tocome in?” Travis asked. “I have to go to thenursing home.” “Yes, of course,” Madeline answered. Shehesitated. “Are you all right?” “Do you think you could drive me? I don’tthink I should be behind the wheel rightnow.” “Sure,” she said, looking frightened. “Justlet me make the call first, okay?”

556/571 As she punched the number, Travis stoodas if paralyzed. The waiting room was silent;even the animals, it seemed, knew somethinghad happened. He heard Madeline speakingto his dad as if from a great distance; in fact,he was only dimly aware of where he was. Itwas only when Madeline hung up the phoneand told him that his father would be right inthat Travis seemed to recognize his sur-roundings. He saw the fear on Madeline’sface. Maybe because she was young anddidn’t know better, she asked the questionthat everyone seemed to be thinking. “What happened?” Travis saw empathy and concern etchedon their faces. Most of them had known himfor years; some had known him since he wasa child. A few, mostly the staff, knew Gabbywell and, after the accident, they had gonethrough a period that almost resembledmourning. It wasn’t anyone’s business andyet it was, because his roots were here.

557/571Beaufort was their home, and lookingaround, he recognized everyone’s curiosity assomething akin to familial love. Yet he didn’tknow what to say to them. He’d pictured thisday a thousand times, but now, however,everything was blank. He could hear himselfbreathing. If he concentrated hard enough,he believed that he would even be able to feelhis heart beating in his chest; but histhoughts seemed too far away to grasp, letalone put into words. He wasn’t sure what tothink. He wondered if he’d heard Harris cor-rectly or if it had all been a dream; hewondered if he’d somehow misunderstood.In his mind, he replayed the conversation,hunting for hidden meanings, trying to graspthe reality behind the words, but try as hemight, he couldn’t seem to focus long enoughto even feel the emotion he was supposed to.Terror kept him from feeling anything at all.Later, he would describe the way he was feel-ing then as like being on a teeter-totter, with

558/571ultimate happiness on one end and ultimateloss on the other, while he was stuck in themiddle, his legs on both sides, thinking thata single wrong move in either directionwould send him tumbling off. In the clinic, he put his hand on thecounter to steady himself. Madeline roundedthe counter with her keys dangling. Travislooked around the waiting room, then atMadeline, then at the floor. When he raisedhis eyes, all he could do was mimic exactlywhat he’d heard on the phone only momentsbefore. “She’s awake,” he finally said.Twelve minutes later, after thirty lanechanges and three traffic lights that weredefinitely yellow and perhaps even red,Madeline brought Travis to a halt at the en-trance to the nursing home. He hadn’t said aword since he’d been in the car, but he

559/571smiled his thanks as he pushed open the cardoor. The drive had done nothing to clear hismind. He hoped beyond hope and was ex-cited beyond all measure; at the same time,he couldn’t shake the thought that somehowhe’d misunderstood. Maybe she woke for aninstant and was in a coma again; maybesomeone had gotten the information wrongin the first place. Maybe Harris had been re-ferring to some obscure medical conditionthat improved brain function, rather thanthe obvious. His head spun with alternatingscenarios of hope and despair as he made hisway toward the entrance. Elliot Harris was waiting for him andseemed far more in control than Travis ima-gined himself ever being again. “I’ve already called the physician and theneurologist, and they’re going to be here in afew minutes,” he said. “Why don’t you go upto her room?”

560/571 “She’s okay, right?” Harris, a man Travis barely knew, put ahand on his shoulder, ushering him forward.“Go see her,” he said. “She’s been asking foryou.” Someone held the door open for him—nomatter how hard he tried, he couldn’t evenremember whether it had been a male or afemale—and Travis entered the facility. Aquick right led him to the stairs, and hebounded up them, becoming more wobblythe higher he got. On the second floor, hepulled open the door and saw both a nurseand an orderly waiting, as if expecting him.By their excited expressions, he assumedthey must have seen him come in andwanted to tell him what was happening, buthe didn’t stop, and they let him pass. As hetook the next step, he felt as if his legs wereabout to give way. He leaned against the wallto steady himself for a moment, then tookanother step toward Gabby’s room.

561/571 It was the second room on the left, andher door stood open. As he got closer, heheard the murmur of people talking. At thedoor, he hesitated, wishing he’d at leastbrushed his hair but knowing it didn’t mat-ter. He stepped inside, and Gretchen’s facelit up. “I was at the hospital next to the doctorwhen he got the page, and I just had to comesee. . . .” Travis barely heard her. Instead, all hecould register was the sight of Gabby, hiswife, propped up weakly on her hospital bed.She seemed disoriented, but her smile whenshe saw him told him everything he neededto know. “I know you two have a lot of catching upto do . . . ,” Gretchen went on in thebackground. “Gabby?” Travis finally whispered. “Travis,” she croaked. Her voice soundeddifferent, scratchy and hoarse from disuse,

562/571but somehow, it was Gabby’s voice just thesame. Travis moved slowly toward the bed,his eyes never leaving hers, unaware thatGretchen was already backing out, shuttingthe door behind her. “Gabby?” he repeated in near disbelief. Inhis dream, or what he thought was a dream,he watched as she moved her hand from thebed to her stomach, as if that took all thestrength she had. He sat on the bed beside her. “Where were you?” she asked, the wordsslurry but nonetheless full of love, unmistak-ably full of life. Awake. “I didn’t know whereyou were.” “I’m here now,” Travis said, and at thathe broke down, his sobs coming out in heav-ing bursts. He leaned toward Gabby, achingfor her to hold him, and when he felt herhand on his back, he began to cry evenharder. He wasn’t dreaming. Gabby washolding him; she knew who he was and how

563/571much she meant to him. It’s real, was all hecould think, this time, it’s real. . . .With Travis unwilling to leave Gabby’s side,his dad covered for him at the clinic for thenext few days. Only recently had he returnedto something resembling a full-time sched-ule, and on weekends like this, with hisdaughters running and laughing in the yardand Gabby in the kitchen, he sometimescaught himself grasping for details of thepast year. His memories of the days he spentin the hospital had a blurry, hazy quality tothem, as if he’d been only slightly more con-scious than Gabby. Gabby hadn’t emerged from her comaunscathed, of course. She had lost a greatdeal of weight, her muscles had atrophied,and a numbness persisted on most of her leftside. It took days before she could stand up-right without support. The therapy was mad-deningly slow; even now, she spent a couple

564/571of hours daily with the physical therapist,and in the beginning, she often grew frus-trated that she could no longer do simplethings she’d once taken for granted. Shehated her gaunt appearance in the mirrorand commented more than once that shelooked as if she had aged fifteen years. Inmoments like those, Travis always told hershe was beautiful, and he’d never been moresure of anything. Christine and Lisa took a bit of time toadjust. On the afternoon that Gabby wokeup, Travis asked Elliot Harris to call hismother so she could pick up the girls fromschool. The family was reunited an hourlater, but when they stepped into the room,neither Christine nor Lisa seemed to want toget close to their mother. Instead, they clungto Travis and offered monosyllabic answersto whatever Gabby asked. It took half anhour before Lisa finally crawled onto the bedalongside her mother. Christine didn’t open

565/571up until the following day, and even then shekept her feelings at bay, as if she were meet-ing Gabby for the first time. That night, afterGabby had been transferred back to the hos-pital and Travis brought the girls home,Christine asked whether “Mommy was reallyback, or if she’d go back to sleep again.”Though the physicians made it clear theywere fairly certain she wouldn’t, they hadn’truled it out completely, at least for the timebeing. Christine’s fears reflected his own,and whenever he found Gabby sleeping orsimply resting after a grueling round of ther-apy, Travis’s stomach would clench. Hisbreathing would get shallow, and he’d nudgeher gently, growing increasingly panickedthat she wouldn’t open her eyes. And whenshe finally stirred, he couldn’t mask his reliefand gratitude. While Gabby accepted hisanxieties in the beginning—she admitted thethought scared her as well—it had begun todrive her crazy. Last week, with the moon

566/571high in the sky and crickets chirping, Travisbegan to stroke her arm as she lay besidehim. Her eyes opened and she focused on theclock, noting it was a little after three in themorning. A moment later, she sat up in bedand glared at him. “You’ve got to stop doing this! I need mysleep. Unbroken, regular sleep, like everyoneelse in the world! I’m exhausted, can’t youunderstand that? I refuse to live the rest ofmy life knowing that you’re going to nudgeme awake every hour!” That had been the extent of her com-ments; it couldn’t even be classified as an ar-gument, since he didn’t have time to respondbefore she’d rolled over with her back to him,muttering to herself—but it struck Travis asso . . . Gabby-like that he breathed a sigh ofrelief. If she no longer worried about slippinginto a coma again—and she swore shedidn’t—then he knew he shouldn’t, either.Or, at the very least, he could let her sleep. If

567/571he was honest with himself, he wonderedwhether the fear would ever disappear com-pletely. Now, in the middle of the night, hesimply listened to the way she breathed, andwhen he noticed differences in the pattern,differences that hadn’t occurred when she’dbeen in a coma, he was finally able to rollover and go back to sleep. They were all adjusting, and he knew thatwould take time. Lots of it. They had yet totalk about the fact that he’d disregarded theliving will, and he wondered whether theyever would. He had yet to tell Gabby the ex-tent of the imaginary conversations she’dhad with him while she was in the hospital,and she had little to say about the coma it-self. She didn’t remember anything: noaromas, no sounds from the television, noth-ing about his touch. “It’s like time just . . .vanished.” But that was fine. It was all as it shouldbe. Behind him, he heard the screen door

568/571creak open and he turned. In the distance, hecould see Molly lying in the tall grass off tothe side of the house; Moby, old guy that hewas, was sleeping in the corner. Travissmiled as Gabby spied her daughters, notingher content expression. As Christine pushedLisa on the tire swing, both of them gigglingmadly, Gabby took a seat in the rocker be-side Travis. “Lunch is ready,” she said. “But I thinkI’ll let them play for a few more minutes.They’re having such a good time.” “They are. They wore me out earlier.” “Do you think that maybe later, whenStephanie gets here, we can all head over tothe aquarium? And maybe have some pizzaafterward? I’ve been dying for pizza.” He smiled, thinking he could stay in thismoment forever. “That sounds good. Ohyeah, that reminds me. I forgot to tell youthat your mom called when you were in theshower.”

569/571 “I’ll call her back in a little while. And I’vegot to call about the heat pump, too. Thegirls’ room just wouldn’t cool off last night.” “I can probably fix it.” “I don’t think so. The last time you triedto fix it, we had to buy a whole new unit.Remember?” “I remember you didn’t give me enoughtime.” “Yeah, yeah,” she teased. She winked athim. “Do you want to eat out here or inside?” He pretended to debate the question,knowing it wasn’t really important. Here orthere, they would all be together. He waswith the woman and daughters he loved, andwho could ever need or want anything morethan that? The sun shone bright, flowerswere blooming, and the day would pass witha careless ease that had been impossible toimagine the winter before. It was just a nor-mal day, a day like any other. But most of all,

570/571it was a day in which everything was exactlythe way it should be.

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