At First Sight - Nicholas Sparks [91]
Though he hadn’t technically lied to his editor, he’d omitted the truth, and after hanging up the phone, he felt guilty. He hadn’t realized that when he’d called him, Jeremy had subconsciously expected to be told to pack it in, that they’d find someone else to do his column or just cancel it outright. He’d been prepared for that; what he hadn’t been prepared for was how understanding he’d been. Which made his guilt even more acute.
Part of him wanted to call the guy back and tell him everything, but common sense prevailed. His editor had been understanding, well, because he had to be. What else could he have said: Oh, sorry to hear about your wife and baby, but you’ve got to understand, a deadline’s a deadline, and you’ll be canned if I don’t have something in my hands in the next five minutes? No, he wouldn’t have said that—couldn’t have said that—especially considering what he’d said afterward: that the magazine wanted a chance to publish his next big article. The one he’d supposedly been working on.
He didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t think about it; the fact that he couldn’t even write a column was bad enough. But he’d accomplished what he’d needed to do. He’d bought himself four weeks, maybe eight. If he didn’t come up with something by then, he’d tell his editor the truth. He’d have to. He couldn’t be a writer if he couldn’t write, and there’d be no use pretending anymore.
But what was he going to do then? How would he pay the bills? How would he support his family?
He didn’t know. Nor did he want to think about it. Right now, he had enough on his mind with Lexie and Claire. In the grand scheme of things, those were far more important than worries about his career, and Jeremy knew he would have put his concerns about them first even if he had been writing. But the simple fact was that right now he had no choice.
Eighteen
How could he describe the next six weeks? How would he remember them when reflecting back on his past? Would he remember spending his weekends with Lexie as they browsed garage sales and antique shops, finding just the right pieces to finish decorating their house? That Lexie turned out not only to have exquisite taste, but an ability to see how everything would fit into their decorating scheme? That her instincts as a bargain shopper enabled them to spend far less than he’d imagined they would? That by the end even Jed’s gift looked as if it belonged in the house?
Or would he remember finally making the call to his parents about the pregnancy—a call in which he ended up crying uncontrollably, as if he’d bottled up his fears for far too long and only now had a chance to let his emotions flow freely, without worrying Lexie?
Or perhaps he would remember the endless nights he’d spent at the computer, trying and failing to write, alternately despairing and angry, as he felt the clock ticking toward the end of his career.
No, he thought, in the end he would remember it as a period of anxious transition—one divided into two-week increments between ultrasounds.
Though their fears remained the same, the initial shock had begun to wear off, and their worries no longer dominated their thoughts day and night. It was as if some survival mechanism kicked in to counter the unsustainable weight and turmoil of their emotions. It was a gradual, almost imperceptible process, and it wasn’t until several days after the last ultrasound had passed that he realized he’d spent most of an afternoon without his worries paralyzing him. The same gradual change had come over Lexie as well. During that six-week period, they had more than one romantic dinner, laughed through a couple of comedies at the cinema, and lost themselves in the books they read before bedtime. Though the worries still arose unexpectedly and without warning—when seeing another baby at church, for example, or when a particularly painful Braxton-Hicks contraction occurred—it was as if they both accepted the fact that there was nothing they could do.
There were times, moreover,