Page 26 of At First Sight

Jeremy took his seat, terrified and battling an urge to break into tears. He wasn't ready for this. He needed Lexie, he needed to grieve, and he needed time. He saw Doris's face again just beyond the glass; he thought he saw her smile ever so slightly. The nurse drew nearer, handling the baby with the ease and comfort of someone who had done this a thousand times.

Jeremy held up his hands and felt the gentle weight of Claire as she came down into them. A moment later, she was nestled in his arms.

A thousand emotions swept through Jeremy at that moment: the failure he'd felt in the physician's office with Maria, the shock and horror he'd experienced in the delivery room, the emptiness of the walk down the hallway, the anxiety he'd experienced only a minute before.

In his arms, Claire stared up at him, her silvery eyes seeming to focus on his face. All he could think was that she was all that was left of Lexie. Claire was Lexie's daughter, in features and spirit, and Jeremy found himself holding his breath. Visions of Lexie coursed through his mind: Lexie, who'd trusted him enough to have a child with him; Lexie, who had married him knowing that while he would never be perfect, he would be the kind of father Claire deserved. Lexie had sacrificed her life to give her to him, and all at once he was struck by the certainty that had there been a choice, she would have done it all over again. Doris was right: Lexie wanted him to love Claire in the same way that Lexie would have, and now Lexie needed him to be strong. Claire needed him to be strong. Despite the emotional upheaval of the past hour, he stared at his child and blinked, suddenly certain that what he was doing now was the sole reason he'd been placed on this earth. To love another. To care for someone else, to help another person, to carry her worries until she was strong enough to carry them on her own. To care for someone unconditionally, for in the end that was what gave life meaning. And Lexie had given her life, knowing that Jeremy could do that.

And in that instant, while staring at his daughter through a thousand tears, he fell in love and wanted nothing more than to hold Claire and keep her safe forever.

Epilogue

February 2005

Jeremy's eyes fluttered open with the ringing of the phone. The house was still quiet, cocooned in a dense quilt of fog, and he forced himself to sit up, amazed that he'd slept at all. He hadn't slept the night before, nor had he slept more than a few hours a night for the last couple of weeks. His eyes felt swollen and red, his head pounded, and he knew he looked as exhausted as he felt. The phone sounded again; he reached for it and pressed the button to answer.

"Jeremy," his brother said, "what's up?"

"Nothing," Jeremy grunted.

"Were you sleeping?"

Jeremy instinctively checked the clock. "Only twenty minutes. Not enough to do any damage."

"I should let you go."

Spying his jacket and keys on the chair, Jeremy thought again about what he wanted to do tonight. It would be another night of little sleep, and he was suddenly grateful for his unexpected nap.

"No. I won't fall sleep again. It's good to hear from you. How are you?" Glancing down the hall, he listened for Claire.

"I was calling because I got your message," his brother said, sounding guilty. "The one you left a couple of days ago. You sounded really out of it. Like you were a zombie or something."

"Sorry," Jeremy said. "I was up all night."

"Again?"

"What can I say?" Jeremy replied. "It happens."

"Don't you think it's been happening a little too often lately? Even Mom is worried about you. She thinks that if this keeps up, you're going to get seriously sick."

"I'll be fine," he said, stretching.

"You don't sound fine. You sound like you're half-dead."

"But I look like a million bucks."

"Yeah, I'll bet you do. Listen, Mom told me to tell you to get more sleep, and I'm going to second that motion. Now that I woke you up, I mean. So go back to bed."

Despite his exhaustion, Jeremy laughed. "I can't. Not now, anyway."

"Why not?"

"It wouldn't do any good. I'd just end up lying here all night long."

"Not all night," he said.

"Yes," Jeremy said, correcting him, "all night. That's what insomnia means."

He heard his brother hesitate on the other end. "I still don't get it," he said in a baffled voice. "Why can't you sleep?"

Jeremy glanced out the window. The sky was impenetrable, silver fog everywhere, and he found himself thinking of Lexie.

"Nightmares," he said.

The nightmares had begun a month ago, just after Christmas, for no apparent reason.

The day had started out ordinary enough; Claire had helped Jeremy make scrambled eggs, and they'd eaten together at the table. Afterward, Jeremy brought Claire to the grocery store and then dropped her off with Doris for a couple of hours in the afternoon. She watched Beauty and the Beast, a movie she'd already seen dozens of times. They had turkey and macaroni and cheese for dinner, and after her bath, they read the same stories they always did. She was neither feverish nor upset when she went to bed, and when Jeremy checked on her twenty minutes later, she was sound asleep.

But just after midnight, Claire woke up screaming.

Jeremy raced into her bedroom and comforted her as she cried. Eventually she calmed, and he pulled up the covers before kissing her on the forehead.

An hour later, she woke up screaming again.

Then again.

It went on like this most of the night, but in the morning she seemed to have no memory of what had happened. Jeremy, glassy-eyed and exhausted, was just thankful it was over. Or so he thought. However, the same thing happened that night. And the next. And the night after that.

After a week, he brought Claire to the doctor and was assured there was nothing physically wrong with her, but that night terrors were, if not common, not completely out of the ordinary, either. They would pass in time, the doctor said.

But they didn't. If anything, they seemed to be getting worse. Where once she would wake two or three times a night, now it was four or five, as if she were having a nightmare in every dream cycle, and the only thing that seemed to calm her were the soft words Jeremy would whisper as he rocked her afterward. He'd tried moving her to his bed, as well as sleeping in hers, and he held her for hours as she slept in his lap. He tried music, adding and removing night-lights, and changing her diet, adding warm milk before bedtime. He'd called his mother, he'd called Doris; when Claire had spent the night at her grandmother's, Claire woke up screaming there, too. Nothing seemed to help.

If the lack of sleep made him tense and anxious, Claire was tense and anxious as well. There had been more temper tantrums than usual, more unexpected tears, more sassiness. At four, she was unable to control her outbursts, but when Jeremy found himself snapping back, he couldn't use immaturity as an excuse. Exhaustion left him frustrated, always on edge. And the anxiety. That's what really got to him. The fear that something was wrong, that if she didn't start sleeping regularly again, something terrible would happen to her. He would survive, he could take care of himself, but Claire? He was responsible for her. She needed him, and somehow he was failing her.

He remembered how his father had been the day his older brother David had been in an auto accident. Later that night, eight-year-old Jeremy had found his father sitting in the easy chair, staring ahead vacantly. Jeremy remembered thinking he didn't recognize his dad. He seemed smaller somehow, and for an instant, Jeremy thought that he'd misunderstood his parents earlier when they had explained that David was fine. Maybe his brother had died and they were afraid to tell him the truth. He remembered feeling suddenly short of breath, but just as he was about to burst into tears, his father emerged from the spell he seemed to be under. Jeremy crawled into his lap and felt the sandpaper of his father's whiskers. When he asked about David, his father shook his head.

"He'll be fine," his father said, "but that doesn't stop the worries. As a parent, you always worry."

"Do you worry about me?" Jeremy asked.

His father pulled him close. "I worry about all of you, all the time. It never ends. You think it will, that once they get to a certain age you can stop. But you never do."

Jeremy thought about that story as he peeked in on Claire, aching with the desire to hold her close, if only to keep the nightmares at bay. She'd been down for an hour, and he knew it was only a matter of time before she would wake up screaming again. Inside the bedroom, he watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

As always, he found himself wondering about the nightmares, wondering what images her mind was conjuring up. Like all children, she was developing at an extraordinary rate, mastering language and nonverbal communication, developing coordination, testing limits of behavior, and learning the rules of the world. Since she didn't understand enough about life to be obsessed with the fears that kept adults awake at night, he assumed her nightmares were either a product of her overactive imagination or her mind's attempt to make sense of the complexity of the world. But in what way did that manifest itself in her dreams? Did she see monsters? Was she being chased by something frightening? He didn't know, couldn't even fathom a guess. The mind of a child was a mystery.

Yet he sometimes wondered if he was somehow at fault. Did she realize that she was unlike other children? Did she recognize that when they went to the park, he was often the only other father in attendance? Did she wonder why everyone seemed to have a mother while she didn't? He knew that wasn't his fault; it was no one's fault. It was, as he reminded himself frequently, the result of a tragedy without blame, and one day he would tell Claire exactly what his own nightmare was about.

His nightmare always took place in a hospital, but for him it was never just a dream.

He left her side, tiptoed toward the closet, and opened the door quietly. Pulling a jacket from a hanger, he paused to look around the room, remembering Lexie's surprise when she realized he'd decorated the nursery.

Like Claire, the room had changed since then. Now it was painted in yellow and purple pastels; halfway up the wall was a wallpaper border displaying angelic little girls dressed for church. Claire had helped him pick it out, and she'd sat cross-legged in the room as Jeremy papered the walls himself.

Above her bed hung two of the first items he would reach to save in the event of a fire. When Claire had been an infant, he'd arranged for a photographer to take dozens of close-up photos in black and white. A few shots were of Claire's feet, others of her hands, still others of her eyes and ears and nose. He'd mounted the photos in two large framed collages, and whenever Jeremy saw them, he remembered how small she'd felt when he held her in his arms.

In those weeks immediately following Claire's birth, Doris and his mother had worked in tandem to help Jeremy and Claire. Jeremy's mother, who changed her plans and came down to stay for an extended visit, helped him learn the rudiments of parenting: how to change a diaper, the proper temperature for formula, the best way to give medicine so Claire wouldn't spit it back up. For Doris, feeding the baby was therapeutic, and she would rock and hold Claire for hours afterward. Jeremy's mother seemed to feel a responsibility to help Doris as well, and sometimes in the late evenings, Jeremy would hear the two of them talking quietly in the kitchen. Every now and then, he would hear Doris crying as his mother murmured words of support.

They grew fond of each other, and though both were struggling, they refused to allow Jeremy to wallow in self-pity. They allowed him time alone and assumed some of the responsibility of caring for Claire, but they also insisted that Jeremy do his share no matter how much he was hurting. And both of them continually reminded him that he was the father and that Claire was his responsibility. In this, they were united.

Bit by bit, Jeremy was forced to learn how to care for the baby, and as time passed, the grief began slowly to lift. Where once it had overwhelmed him from the time he woke until the time he collapsed in bed, now he found it possible to forget his anguish at times, simply because he was absorbed in the task of caring for his daughter. But Jeremy had been operating on autopilot then, and when the time came for his mother to leave, he panicked at the thought of being on his own. His mother went over everything half a dozen times; she reassured him that all he had to do was call if he had any questions. She reminded him that Doris was just around the corner and that he could always talk with the pediatrician if he felt worried about anything.

He remembered the calm way his mother had explained everything, but even so, he had begged her to stay for just a little while longer.

"I can't," she said. "And besides, I think you need to do this. She's depending on you."

On his first night alone with Claire, he checked on her more than a dozen times. She was in the bassinet beside his bed; on his end table was a flashlight that he used to make sure she was breathing. When she woke with cries, he fed and burped her; in the morning, he gave her a bath and panicked again when he saw her shivering. It took far more time to get her dressed than he thought it would. He laid her on a blanket in the living room and watched her as he sipped his coffee. He thought he would work when she went down for a nap, but he didn't; he thought the same thing when she went down for a second nap, but again he ignored his work. In his first month, it was all he could do simply to keep his e-mail up-to-date.

As the weeks rolled into months, he eventually got the hang of it. His work was gradually organized around the changing of diapers, feeding, bathing, and doctor's visits. He brought Claire in for shots and called the pediatrician when her leg was still swollen and red hours later. He buckled her in her car seat and brought her to the grocery store when he went shopping or to church. Before he knew it, Claire had begun to smile and laugh; she often stretched her fingers toward his face, and he found that he could spend hours watching her in the same way she watched him. He took hundreds of pictures of Claire, and he grabbed the video camera and recorded the moment when she let go of the end table and took her first steps.

Gradually, ever so gradually, birthdays and holidays came and went. As Claire grew, her personality became more distinct. As a toddler, she wore only pink, then blue, and now, at age four, purple. She loved to color but hated to paint. Her favorite raincoat had a Dora the Explorer patch on the sleeve, and she wore it even when the sun was shining. She could choose her own clothes, dress herself except for tying her shoes, and was able to recognize most of the letters in the alphabet. Her collection of Disney movie DVDs occupied most of the rack near the television, and after her bath, Jeremy would read her three or four stories before kneeling beside her as they said their prayers.

If there was joy in his life, there was tedium as well, and time itself played funny tricks. It seemed to vanish whenever he tried to leave the house--he was always ten minutes behind schedule--yet he could sit on the floor playing with Barbie or coloring in the Blue's Clues notebook for what seemed like hours, only to realize that only eight or nine minutes had actually passed. There were times when he felt he should be doing something more with his life, yet when he thought about it, he would realize that he had no desire to change it at all.

As Lexie had predicted, Boone Creek was an ideal place for Claire to grow up, and he and Claire often headed for Herbs. Though Doris moved a bit more slowly these days, she delighted in spending time with Claire, and Jeremy couldn't help but smile whenever he saw a pregnant woman enter the restaurant, asking for Doris. He supposed it was to be expected now. Three years ago, Jeremy had finally decided to take Doris up on her offer about the journal and had made arrangements for an experiment under controlled settings. In all, Doris met with ninety-three women and made her predictions, and when the records were unsealed a year later, Doris had been correct in each and every instance.

A year later, the short book he wrote about Doris stayed on the best-seller list for five months; in his conclusion, Jeremy admitted that there was no scientific explanation.

Jeremy made his way back to the living room. After tossing C

laire's jacket on the chair beside his, he moved to the window and pushed aside the curtains. Off to the side, nearly out of view, was the garden that he and Lexie had started after moving into the house.

He thought of Lexie often, especially on quiet nights like these. In the years since she'd passed away, he hadn't dated, nor had he felt any desire to do so. He knew that people were worried about him. One by one, his friends and family had talked to him about other women, but his answer was always the same: He was too busy taking care of Claire to even consider attempting another relationship. Although this was somewhat true, what he didn't tell them was that part of him had died along with Lexie. She would always be with him. When he imagined her, he never saw her lying in the hospital bed. Instead, he saw her smile as she'd gazed at the town from the top of Riker's Hill or her expression when they'd felt the baby kick for the first time. He heard the contagious joy of her laughter or saw the look of concentration as she read a book. She was alive, always alive, and he wondered who he would have been had Lexie never come into his life. Would he have ever married? Would he still live in the city? He didn't know, would never know, but when he thought back, it sometimes seemed as if his life had begun five years ago. He wondered whether in another few years he would remember anything at all about his life in New York or the person he used to be.

Yet he wasn't unhappy. He was pleased with the man he'd become, the father he'd become. Lexie had been right all along, for what gave his life meaning was love. He treasured those moments when Claire wandered down the stairs in the mornings, while Jeremy was reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. Half the time, her pajamas were askew, one sleeve up, her tummy showing, the pants slightly twisted, and her dark hair was poofed out in a messy halo. In the bright light of the kitchen, she would pause momentarily and squint before rubbing her eyes.

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