Николас Спаркс - The Choice

Except for one.

Eighty-four days had passed since the accident, and now he had to make a choice. He still had no idea what to do. Lately he’d been searching for answers in the Bible and in the writings of Aquinas and Augustine. Occasionally he would find a striking passage, but nothing more than that; he would close the cover of the book and find himself staring out the window, his thoughts blank, as if hoping to find the solution somewhere in the sky.

He seldom drove straight home from the hospital. Instead, he would drive across the bridge and walk the sands of Atlantic Beach. He would slip off his shoes, listening as the waves crashed along the shore. He knew his daughters were as upset as he was, and after his visits to the hospital, he needed time to compose himself. It would be unfair to subject them to his angst. He needed his daughters for the escape they afforded him. When focusing on them, he didn’t focus on himself, and their joy still held an unadulterated purity. They still had the ability to lose themselves in play, and the sound of their giggling made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. Sometimes as he watched them, he was struck by how much they resembled their mother.

Always they asked about her, but usually he didn’t know what to tell them. They were mature enough to understand that Mommy wasn’t well and had to stay in the hospital; they understood that when they visited, it would seem as if Mommy were asleep. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell them the truth about her condition. Instead, he would cuddle with them on the couch and tell them how excited Gabby had been when she’d been pregnant with each of them or remind them about the time the family played in the sprinklers for an entire afternoon. Mostly, though, they would thumb through the photo albums Gabby had assembled with care. She was old-fashioned that way, and the pictures never ceased to bring a smile to their faces. Travis would tell stories associated with each, and as he stared at Gabby’s radiant face in the photos, his throat would tighten at the knowledge that he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.

To escape the sadness that overtook him in such moments, he would sometimes raise his eyes from the album and focus on the large, framed photograph they’d had taken at the beach last summer. All four of them had worn beige khakis and white button-down oxfords, and they were seated amid the dune grass. It was the kind of family portrait common in Beaufort, yet it somehow struck him as entirely unique. Not because it was his family, but because he was certain that even a stranger would find himself filled with hope and optimism at the sight, for the people in the photo looked the way a happy family should.

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.