At First Sight - Nicholas Sparks [111]
“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