At First Sight - Nicholas Sparks [81]
She put her hand on his arm, cutting him off. “Are you always going to be like this?”
“Like what?”
“This. What you’re doing. Being Mr. Precise. Or Mr. Literal. I wasn’t asking so we could get into a deep philosophical discussion. I was just asking.”
“I think we’ll be happy,” he ventured. “I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life without you.”
She squeezed his arm, as if satisfied. “I think that, too,” she said. “But sometimes . . .”
Jeremy looked at her. “What?”
“I just wonder how we’re going to do as parents. I worry about that sometimes.”
“We’ll be great,” he said. “You’ll be great.”
“You say that, but how do we know? What if she ends up being one of those angry teenagers who dresses in black and does drugs and sleeps around?”
“She won’t.”
“You can’t say that.”
“I can,” Jeremy said. “She’s going to be a wonderful girl. How can she not, with you as her mother?”
“You think it’s simple, but it’s not. Kids are people, too, and once they start getting older, they make their own decisions. There’s only so much you can do.”
“It all goes back to the upbringing. . . .”
“Yes, but sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do. We can put her in piano lessons and soccer, we can bring her to church every Sunday, we can send her to cotillion to learn her manners, and we can shower her with lots of love. But once she becomes a teenager . . . well, sometimes there’s nothing you can do. With or without you, in the end, children grow up to become the people they were meant to be.”
Jeremy thought about what she’d said, then pulled her closer. “Are you really worried about this?”
“No. But I think about it. Don’t you?”
“Actually, I don’t. Kids are supposed to become who they were meant to be. All parents can do is to do their best to lead them in the right direction.”
“But what if that isn’t enough? Doesn’t that worry you?”
“No,” he said. “She’s going to be fine.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because she will,” Jeremy said. “I know you and believe in you, and you’re going to be a fantastic mother. And don’t forget, I have written articles about the subject of nature and nurture. Both are important, but in the vast majority of cases, environment is a greater indicator of future behavior than anything genetic.”
“But—”
“We’ll do the best we can. And I’m sure she’ll turn out okay.”
Lexie thought about what he said. “You really wrote articles on the subject?”
“Not only that, I did in-depth research beforehand. I know what I’m talking about.”
She smiled. “You’re pretty smart,” she said.
“Well . . .”
“Not about your conclusions, but what you just said. I don’t care whether it’s true or not, but it was exactly what I wanted to hear.”
“That’s the baby’s heart, right there,” the doctor said the next day, pointing at the fuzzy image on the computer monitor. “And those are the lungs and the spine.”
Jeremy reached over and squeezed Lexie’s hand on the examination table. They were at the OB-GYN’s office in Washington, which Jeremy had to admit wasn’t his favorite place. Granted, he was looking forward to seeing the baby again—the first grainy pictures from the sonogram were still hanging on the refrigerator—but the earlier sight of Lexie on the table with her legs in stirrups . . . well, it made him feel as if he were interrupting something better done in private.
Of course, Dr. Andrew Sommers—tall and trim, with wavy dark hair—did his best to make both Lexie and Jeremy feel as if he were doing nothing more extraordinary than taking her pulse, and Lexie seemed more than content to play along. While Dr. Sommers was checking and poking, they talked about the recent spate of hot weather, a story on the news concerning forest fires in Wyoming, and the fact that the doctor still wanted to drive out to Boone Creek to eat at Herbs, a place that more than one of his patients had raved about. Every now and then he would work more typical questions into the conversation, inquiring about her Braxton-Hicks contractions, for example, or whether she ever felt dizzy or light-headed. Lexie responded as easily as if they were