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By Root 210 0

ahead, a group of people clustered in the hallway, peering through the glass wall of the nursery. They were pointing and smiling, and he could hear their murmurs: She’s got his nose, or, I think she’ll have blue eyes. He knew none of them, but suddenly he hated them, for they were experiencing the joy and excitement that should have been his. He couldn’t imagine having to stand next to them, to have them ask which child he had come to see, to listen to them as they would inevitably praise her sweetness or beauty. Beyond them, heading toward the offices, he saw the nurse who had been in the room when Lexie had died, going about her business as if the day had been utterly ordinary.

He was stricken by the sight of her, and as if knowing what he was feeling, Doris squeezed his arm and paused in midstep.

“That’s where you go in,” she said, motioning toward the door.

“You’re not coming with me?”

“No,” she said, “I’ll wait out here.”

“Please,” he pleaded, “come with me.”

“No,” she said. “This is something you have to do on your own.”

Jeremy stared at her. “Please,” he whispered.

Doris’s expression softened. “You’re going to love her,” she said. “As soon as you see her, you’ll love her.”

Is love at first sight truly possible?

He couldn’t fathom the possibility. He entered the nursery with tentative steps. The nurse’s expression changed as soon as she saw him; although she hadn’t been in the delivery room, the story had made the rounds. That Lexie, a healthy and vibrant young woman, had suddenly died, leaving behind a husband in shock and a motherless newborn. It would have been easy to offer sympathy or even turn away, but the nurse did neither. Instead, she forced a smile and pointed toward one of the cribs near the window.

“Your daughter is on the left,” she said. Her expression faltered, and it was enough to remind him of how wrong this scene was. Lexie should have been here, too. Lexie. He gasped, feeling suddenly short of breath. From somewhere far away, he heard her murmur, “She’s beautiful.”

Jeremy moved automatically toward the crib, wanting to turn back but wanting to see her, too. It seemed as if he were watching the process through someone else’s eyes. He wasn’t here. It wasn’t really him. This wasn’t his baby.

He hesitated when he saw Claire’s name written on the sheathed plastic band around her ankle, and his throat clenched again when he saw Lexie’s name. He blinked away his tears and stared down at his daughter. Tiny and vulnerable beneath the warming lights, she was wrapped in a blanket and wearing a hat, her soft skin a healthy pink. He could still see the ointment that had been applied to her eyes, and she had the strange mannerisms of all newborns: The movements of her arms were occasionally jerky, as if she were working hard to get used to breathing air as opposed to receiving oxygen from her mother. Her chest rose and fell quickly, and Jeremy hovered over her, fascinated by how oddly uncontrolled her movements seemed. Yet even as a newborn she resembled Lexie, in the shape of her ears, the slight point of her chin. The nurse appeared over his shoulder.

“She’s a wonderful baby,” she said. “She’s been sleeping most of the time, but when she wakes, she barely utters a cry.”

Jeremy said nothing. Felt nothing.

“You should be able to take her home tomorrow,” she continued. “There haven’t been any complications, and she’s already able to suck. Sometimes that’s a problem with little ones like her, but she took right to the bottle. Oh look, she’s waking up.”

“Good,” Jeremy mumbled, barely hearing her. All he could do was stare.

The nurse laid a hand on Claire’s tiny chest. “Hi, sweetie. Your daddy’s here.”

The baby’s arms jerked again.

“What’s that?”

“That’s normal,” the nurse said, adjusting the blanket. “Hi, sweetie,” she said again.

Beyond the window, Jeremy could feel Doris staring at him.

“Do you want to hold her?”

Jeremy swallowed, thinking she seemed so fragile that any movement would break her. He didn’t want to touch her, but the words came out before he could stop them. “Can I?”

“Of