At First Sight - Nicholas Sparks [88]
On the carpet was a throw rug decorated with ducks; in the corner, the crib—with a soft cotton sheet on the mattress and colorful bumpers already attached—sat beneath the mobile they’d purchased a lifetime ago. The curtains matched the rug and the small towels atop the chest of drawers. The changing table was fully stocked with diapers, ointments, and wipes. A small musical merry-go-round, playing quietly, sparkled in the soft yellow light from a decorative lamp.
“I figured that since we’ll be moving soon, I should go ahead and get this room out of the way.”
Lexie moved to the bureau and picked up a small porcelain duck. “Did you pick this?”
“It matched the rug and the curtains. If you don’t like it—”
“No, I do. It’s just that I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“When we went shopping, you didn’t seem that into it.”
“I guess I’m finally getting used to the idea. And besides, I couldn’t let you have all the fun. Do you think she’ll like it?”
She moved to the window, running her finger over the curtain. “She’s going to love it. I love it.”
“I’m glad.”
Lexie let the curtain drop and moved to the crib. She smiled when she saw the small stuffed animals, but all at once it faded. She crossed her arms, and Jeremy knew that the worries had returned.
“We should be able to move in this weekend,” he said, wishing he knew what else to say. “In fact, the painters said we can begin moving our things in anytime. We might have to keep some furniture in the bedrooms while they finish painting the living room for a while, but the other rooms are ready. I was thinking about setting up my office next, then maybe the master bedroom. But either way, since you’re working, I’ll take care of it.”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Okay.”
Jeremy put his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been thinking about the baby’s name,” he said. “And don’t worry, it’s not Misty.”
She glanced over at him, one eyebrow raised.
“I don’t know why it didn’t come to me earlier.”
“What is it?”
He hesitated, remembering how it would look on a page in Doris’s journal, remembering how it looked when he saw it on the headstone adjacent to Lexie’s father’s. He took a deep breath, strangely nervous.
“Claire,” he said.
He couldn’t read Lexie’s expression, and for an instant he wondered whether he’d made a mistake. But when she started toward him, she had the trace of a smile on her lips. Up close, she put her arms around him and then leaned her head against his chest. Jeremy wrapped her in his arms, and they stood in the nursery together, still afraid but no longer alone.
“My mother,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “I can’t imagine our daughter with any other name.”
That night, Jeremy found himself praying for the first time in years.
Though he’d been raised Catholic and had continued to attend both Christmas and Easter Mass with his family, he seldom felt any connection with either the service or his faith. It wasn’t that he doubted God’s existence; despite the skepticism upon which he’d based his career, he felt that belief in God was not only natural, but rational. How else could there be such order in the universe? How else could life have evolved the way it did? Years ago, he’d written a column expressing his doubts that life existed elsewhere in the universe, using mathematics to bolster his point, making the case that despite the millions of galaxies and trillions of stars, the odds of any advanced life in the universe were almost nonexistent.
It had been among his most popular columns, one that elicited a great deal of mail. While most people wrote that they agreed with his belief that God created the universe, there were those who differed and offered the big bang theory as an alternative. In a follow-up column, Jeremy wrote about the big bang in layman’s terms, essentially laying out the point that, according to the theory, it meant that all matter in the universe had at one point been compressed into a dense sphere no larger than a tennis ball. It then exploded, creating the universe as we know it. He concluded the column with the question “On the surface,