The Choice - Nicholas Sparks [48]
“Maybe she’s jealous,” he said. “Here you are, making your own life with your own goals and dreams, dreams independent of the world you grew up in, the world she expected you to inhabit—simply because she did. It takes courage to do something different, and maybe what you think is disappointment in you is actually, on some deeper level, disappointment in herself.”
He took a bite of chicken and waited for her reaction. Gabby was flummoxed. It was something she’d never considered.
“That’s not it,” she finally forced out.
“Maybe not. Have you ever asked her?”
“Whether she felt disappointed in herself? I don’t think so. And don’t tell me that you’d confront your parents that way, either. Because . . .”
“I wouldn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Not a chance. But I have a feeling that both of them are probably extremely proud of you, even if they don’t know how to show it.”
His comment was unexpected and strangely affecting. She leaned toward him slightly. “I don’t know whether you’re right, but thanks anyway. And I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I mean, we talk on the phone every week and we’re civil. It’s just that I sometimes wish things were different. I’d love to have the kind of relationship where we really enjoyed spending time together.”
Travis said nothing in response, and Gabby found herself relieved that he didn’t try to offer a solution or advice. When she’d related similar feelings to Kevin, his first instinct had been to come up with a game plan to change things. Pulling up her legs, she wrapped her arms around her knees. “Tell me—what’s the best thing about being a vet?”
“The animals,” he said. “And the people. But that’s probably what you expected me to say, right?”
She thought about Eva Bronson. “The animals I can understand. . . .”
He held up his hands. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure that some of the people I deal with are a lot like some of the people you have to deal with.”
“You mean pushy? Neurotic? With tendencies toward hypochondria? In other words, crazy?”
“Of course. People are people, and a lot of them consider their pets members of the family. Which, of course, means that if they even suspect anything is wrong with their pet, they demand a full exam—which means they bring them in at least once a week, sometimes more. Almost always it’s nothing, but my dad and I have a system in place to deal with it.”
“What do you do?”
“We put a yellow sticker on the inside flap of the pet’s file. So if Mrs. Worried comes in with Pokie or Whiskers, we see the sticker, do a cursory exam, and tell them that we don’t currently see anything wrong, but we’d like to see the dog or cat in a week just to make sure. Since they were going to bring their pet in anyway, it helps get them in and out of the office quickly. And everyone is happy. We’re the caring veterinarians, and the owners are assured that their pets are okay, but that they’d been right to worry, since we wanted to see them again.”
“I wonder how the doctors in my office would react if I started putting yellow stickers on a few files.”
“That bad?”
“Sometimes. Every time there’s a new issue of Reader’s Digest, or some news show that identifies a rare disease with specific symptoms, the waiting room fills up with kids who naturally have exactly those symptoms.”
“I’d probably be the same way with my kid.”
She shook her head. “I doubt that. You strike me more as the walk-it-off or sleep-it-off kind of guy. And as a parent, I don’t think you’ll be any different.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he admitted.
“Oh, I’m right.”
“Because you know me?”
“Hey,” she said, “you and your sister started it.”
For the next half hour, they sat together, talking in a way that felt remarkably familiar. She talked more about her mother and father and their polar personalities; she told him a bit about her sisters and what it was like to grow up with so much pressure to conform. She filled him in on college and PA school and shared some of her memories of the evenings she