The Choice - Nicholas Sparks [77]
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