eremy was numb as he made his way down the corridor. The doctor walked half a step behind him, saying nothing.

He didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t force himself to process the doctor’s words. He had made a mistake, Jeremy thought; Lexie wasn’t really gone. While the doctor had been talking, someone had noticed something, brain activity or a faint heartbeat, and they’d sprung into action. Right now, they were working on her and she was somehow getting better. It was like nothing they’d ever seen, even miraculous, but Jeremy knew she would make it. She was young and strong. She’d just turned thirty-two and she couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t be.

The doctor stopped outside a room near the intensive care unit, and Jeremy felt his heart leap in his chest at the thought that he might be right.

“I had her moved here, so you could have some privacy,” the doctor said. His face was grim, and he placed a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Take all the time you need. I’m so very sorry.”

Jeremy ignored the doctor’s words. His hand trembled as he reached for the door. It weighed a ton, ten tons, a hundred, but somehow he was able to open it. His eyes were drawn to the figure in the bed. She lay unmoving, with no equipment hooked up, no monitors, no IVs. She’d looked this way a hundred times in the mornings. She was sleeping, her hair spread over the pillow . . . but strangely, her arms were at her sides. Straight, as if they’d been placed in that position by someone who didn’t know her.

His throat clenched and his vision became a tunnel, everything black except her. She was the only thing he could see, but he didn’t want to see her like this. Not this way. Not with her arms like that. She had to be okay. She was only thirty-two. She was healthy and strong and a fighter. She loved him. She was his life.

But those arms . . . those arms were wrong . . . they should have been bent at the elbows, one hand over her head or on her belly. . . .

He couldn’t breathe.

His wife was gone . . .

His wife . . .

It wasn’t a dream. He knew that now, and he let the tears flow unchecked, sure they would never stop.

Sometime later, Doris came in to say good-bye as well, and Jeremy left her alone with her granddaughter. He moved through the hallway in a trance, only vaguely noticing the nurses he passed in the hallway and the volunteer who was pushing a cart past him. They seemed to ignore him completely, and he didn’t know whether they avoided looking his way because they knew what happened or because they didn’t.

He returned to the room where he’d met the doctor, feeling drained and weak. He couldn’t cry anymore. There was nothing left, and he simply didn’t have the energy. It was all he could do not to collapse. He replayed the images from the delivery room countless times, trying to figure out the exact instant the embolism had been triggered, thinking he might have seen something to warn him of what was coming. Had it been when she gasped? Had it happened a moment later? He couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt, as if he should have convinced her to have a cesarean section, or at least not to strain as much as she had, as if her strenuous efforts had triggered it. He was angry with himself, angry with God, angry with the doctor. And he was angry with the baby.

He didn’t even want to see the baby, believing that somehow, in the act of receiving life, the baby had taken one in exchange. If it weren’t for the baby, Lexie would still be with him. If it weren’t for the baby, their last months together would have been devoid of stress. If it weren’t for the baby, he might have been able to make love to his wife. But all that was gone now. The baby had taken all of it. Because of the baby, his wife was dead. And Jeremy felt dead as well.

How could he ever love her? How could he ever forgive her? How could he see her or hold her and forget that she’d taken Lexie’s life in exchange for her own? How was he not supposed to hate her for what she had done to the woman he loved?

He recognized the irrationality of his feelings and sensed their insidious, evil character. It was wrong, it went against everything a parent was supposed to feel, but how could he silence his heart? How could he possibly say good-bye to Lexie in one moment and say hello to the baby in the next? And how was he supposed to act? Was he supposed to scoop her in his arms and coo sweetly, as other fathers would be doing? As if nothing at all had happened to Lexie?

And then what? After she came home from the hospital? At the moment, he couldn’t imagine having to take care of someone else; it was everything he could do not to curl up on the floor right now. He knew nothing about infants, and the only thing he was certain about was that they were supposed to be with their mothers. It was Lexie who had read all the books; it was Lexie who’d baby-sat as a child. Throughout the pregnancy, he’d been comfortable in his ignorance, assured that Lexie would show him what to do. But the baby had other plans. . . .

The baby who had killed his wife.

Instead of heading to the nursery, he collapsed into one of the chairs in the waiting room again. He didn’t want to feel this way about the baby, knew he shouldn’t feel this way, but . . . Lexie had died in childbirth. In the modern world, in a hospital, that just didn’t happen. Where were the miracle cures? The made-for-television moments? Where in God’s name was any semblance of reality in all this? He closed his eyes, convincing himself that if he concentrated hard enough, he could wake from the nightmare that his life had suddenly become.

Doris eventually found Jeremy. He hadn’t heard her enter the room, but at the touch of her hand on his shoulder, his eyes flew open, taking in the swollen, tear-streaked wreck of her face. Like Jeremy, she seemed to be on the verge of breaking apart.

“Have you called your parents?” she said, her voice ragged.

Jeremy shook his head. “I can’t. I know I should, but I just can’t do it right now.”

Her shoulders began to shudder. “Oh, Jeremy,” she gasped.

Jeremy rose and wrapped his arms around her. They cried together, holding on, as if trying to save each other. In time, Doris pulled back and swiped at her tears.

“Have you seen Claire?” she whispered.

The name brought all his feelings rushing back.

“No,” Jeremy said. “Not since I was in the delivery room.”

Doris gave a sad smile, one that nearly crushed what was left of his heart. “She looks exactly like Lexie.”

Jeremy turned away. He didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to hear anything about the baby. Was he supposed to be happy about that? Would he ever be happy again?

He couldn’t imagine it. What was supposed to be the most joyous day of his life had suddenly become the worst, and nothing in life could prepare someone for that. And now? Not only was he supposed to survive the unimaginable, but he was supposed to take care of someone else? The little one who had killed his wife?

“She’s beautiful,” Doris said into the silence. “You should go see her.”

“I . . . uh . . . I can’t,” Jeremy mumbled. “Not yet. I don’t want to see her.”

He felt Doris watching him, as if reading him through the fog of her pain.

“She’s your daughter,” Doris said.

“I know,” Jeremy responded, but all he could feel was the dull anger pulsing beneath his skin.

“Lexie would want you to take care of her.” Doris reached out to take his hand. “If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for your wife. She would want you to see your child, to hold your child. Yes, it’s hard, but you can’t say no. You can’t say no to Lexie, you can’t say no to me, and you can’t say no to Claire. Now come with me.”

Where Doris found the strength and composure to deal with him, he was never certain, but with that, she took his arm and marched him down the corridor toward the nursery. He was moving on autopilot, but with each step he felt his anxiety growing. He was frightened at the thought of meeting his daughter. While he knew that the anger he felt toward her was wrong, he was also afraid that he wouldn’t be angry when the time came, and that seemed wrong as well-as if somehow that meant he could forgive her for what happened to Lexie. All he knew for certain was that he wasn’t ready for either possibility.

But Doris wouldn’t be dissuaded. She pushed through a set of swinging doors, and in the rooms on either side, Jeremy saw pregnant women and new mothers, surrounded by their families. The hospital buzzed with activity, nurses moving purposefully around them. He passed the room where the embolism had occurred and had to put a hand to the wall to keep from falling.

They passed the nurses’ station and rounded the corner, toward the nursery. The gray-speckled tile was disorienting, and he felt dizzy. He wanted to break free from Doris’s grasp and escape; he wanted to call his mother and tell her what happened. He wanted to cry into the phone, to have an excuse to let go, to be released from this duty. . . .

Up 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 course,” the nurse replied. She scooped Claire into her arms, leaving Jeremy to wonder how babies could be handled with such matter-of-fact efficiency.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “I’ve never done this before.”

“It’s easy,” the nurse replied, her voice soft. She was older than Jeremy but younger than Doris, and Jeremy suddenly wondered if she had children of her own. “Have a seat in the rocker and I’ll hand her to you. All you do is hold her with one arm under her back, and make sure you support her head. And then, most importantly, love her for the rest of her life.”

Jeremy took his seat, terrified and battling an urge to break into tears. He wasn’t ready for this. He needed Lexie, he needed to grieve, and he needed time. He saw Doris’s face again just beyond the glass; he thought he saw her smile ever so slightly. The nurse drew nearer, handling the baby with the ease and comfort of someone who had done this a thousand times.

Jeremy held up his hands and felt the gentle weight of Claire as she came down into them. A moment later, she was nestled in his arms.

A thousand emotions swept through Jeremy at that moment: the failure he’d felt in the physician’s office with Maria, the shock and horror he’d experienced in the delivery room, the emptiness of the walk down the hallway, the anxiety he’d experienced only a minute before.

In his arms, Claire stared up at him, her silvery eyes seeming to focus on his face. All he could think was that she was all that was left of Lexie. Claire was Lexie’s daughter, in features and spirit, and Jeremy found himself holding his breath. Visions of Lexie coursed through his mind: Lexie, who’d trusted him enough to have a child with him; Lexie, who had married him knowing that while he would never be perfect, he would be the kind of father Claire deserved. Lexie had sacrificed her life to give her to him, and all at once he was struck by the certainty that had there been a choice, she would have done it all over again. Doris was right: Lexie wanted him to love Claire in the same way that Lexie would have, and now Lexie needed him to be strong. Claire needed him to be strong. Despite the emotional upheaval of the past hour, he stared at his child and blinked, suddenly certain that what he was doing now was the sole reason he’d been placed on this earth. To love another. To care for someone else, to help another person, to carry her worries until she was strong enough to carry them on her own. To care for someone unconditionally, for in the end that was what gave life meaning. And Lexie had given her life, knowing that Jeremy could do that.

And in that instant, while staring at his daughter through a thousand tears, he fell in love and wanted nothing more than to hold Claire and keep her safe forever.

Epilogue

February 2005

Jeremy’s eyes fluttered open with the ringing of the phone. The house was still quiet, cocooned in a dense quilt of fog, and he forced himself to sit up, amazed that he’d slept at all. He hadn’t slept the night before, nor had he slept more than a few hours a night for the last couple of weeks. His eyes felt swollen and red, his head pounded, and he knew he looked as exhausted as he felt. The phone sounded again; he reached for it and pressed the button to answer.

“Jeremy,” his brother said, “what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Jeremy grunted.

“Were you sleeping?”

Jeremy instinctively checked the clock. “Only twenty minutes. Not enough to do any damage.”

“I should let you go.”

Spying his jacket and keys on the chair, Jeremy thought again about what he wanted to do tonight. It would be another night of little sleep, and he was suddenly grateful for his unexpected nap.

“No. I won’t fall sleep again. It’s good to hear from you. How are you?” Glancing down the hall, he listened for Claire.

“I was calling because I got your message,” his brother said, sounding guilty. “The one you left a couple of days ago. You sounded really out of it. Like you were a zombie or something.”

“Sorry,” Jeremy said. “I was up all night.”

“Again?”

“What can I say?” Jeremy replied. “It happens.”

“Don’t you think it’s been happening a little too often lately? Even Mom is worried about you. She thinks that if this keeps up, you’re going to get seriously sick.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, stretching.

“You don’t sound fine. You sound like you’re half-dead.”

“But I look like a million bucks.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you do. Listen, Mom told me to tell you to get more sleep, and I’m going to second that motion. Now that I woke you up, I mean. So go back to bed.”

Despite his exhaustion, Jeremy laughed. “I can’t. Not now, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“It wouldn’t do any good. I’d just end up lying here all night long.”

“Not all night,” he said.

“Yes,” Jeremy said, correcting him, “all night. That’s what insomnia means.”

He heard his brother hesitate on the other end. “I still don’t get it,” he said in a baffled voice. “Why can’t you sleep?”

Jeremy glanced out the window. The sky was impenetrable, silver fog everywhere, and he found himself thinking of Lexie.

“Nightmares,” he said.

The nightmares had begun a month ago, just after Christmas, for no apparent reason.

The day had started out ordinary enough; Claire had helped Jeremy make scrambled eggs, and they’d eaten together at the table. Afterward, Jeremy brought Claire to the grocery store and then dropped her off with Doris for a couple of hours in the afternoon. She watched Beauty and the Beast, a movie she’d already seen dozens of times. They had turkey and macaroni and cheese for dinner, and after her bath, they read the same stories they always did. She was neither feverish nor upset when she went to bed, and when Jeremy checked on her twenty minutes later, she was sound asleep.

But just after midnight, Claire woke up screaming.

Jeremy raced into her bedroom and comforted her as she cried. Eventually she calmed, and he pulled up the covers before kissing her on the forehead.

An hour later, she woke up screaming again.

Then again.

It went on like this most of the night, but in the morning she seemed to have no memory of what had happened. Jeremy, glassy-eyed and exhausted, was just thankful it was over. Or so he thought. However, the same thing happened that night. And the next. And the night after that.

After a week, he brought Claire to the doctor and was assured there was nothing physically wrong with her, but that night terrors were, if not common, not completely out of the ordinary, either. They would pass in time, the doctor said.

But they didn’t. If anything, they seemed to be getting worse. Where once she would wake two or three times a night, now it was four or five, as if she were having a nightmare in every dream cycle, and the only thing that seemed to calm her were the soft words Jeremy would whisper as he rocked her afterward. He’d tried moving her to his bed, as well as sleeping in hers, and he held her for hours as she slept in his lap. He tried music, adding and removing night-lights, and changing her diet, adding warm milk before bedtime. He’d called his mother, he’d called Doris; when Claire had spent the night at her grandmother’s, Claire woke up screaming there, too. Nothing seemed to help.

If the lack of sleep made him tense and anxious, Claire was tense and anxious as well. There had been more temper tantrums than usual, more unexpected tears, more sassiness. At four, she was unable to control her outbursts, but when Jeremy found himself snapping back, he couldn’t use immaturity as an excuse. Exhaustion left him frustrated, always on edge. And the anxiety. That’s what really got to him. The fear that something was wrong, that if she didn’t start sleeping regularly again, something terrible would happen to her. He would survive, he could take care of himself, but Claire? He was responsible for her. She needed him, and somehow he was failing her.

He remembered how his father had been the day his older brother David had been in an auto accident. Later that night, eight-year-old Jeremy had found his father sitting in the easy chair, staring ahead vacantly. Jeremy remembered thinking he didn’t recognize his dad. He seemed smaller somehow, and for an instant, Jeremy thought that he’d misunderstood his parents earlier when they had explained that David was fine. Maybe his brother had died and they were afraid to tell him the truth. He remembered feeling suddenly short of breath, but just as he was about to burst into tears, his father emerged from the spell he seemed to be under. Jeremy crawled into his lap and felt the sandpaper of his father’s whiskers. When he asked about David, his father shook his head.

“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 would hear the two of them talking quietly in the kitchen. Every now and then, he would hear Doris crying as his mother murmured words of support.

They grew fond of each other, and though both were struggling, they refused to allow Jeremy to wallow in self-pity. They allowed him time alone and assumed some of the responsibility of caring for Claire, but they also insisted that Jeremy do his share no matter how much he was hurting. And both of them continually reminded him that he was the father and that Claire was his responsibility. In this, they were united.

Bit by bit, Jeremy was forced to learn how to care for the baby, and as time passed, the grief began slowly to lift. Where once it had overwhelmed him from the time he woke until the time he collapsed in bed, now he found it possible to forget his anguish at times, simply because he was absorbed in the task of caring for his daughter. But Jeremy had been operating on autopilot then, and when the time came for his mother to leave, he panicked at the thought of being on his own. His mother went over everything half a dozen times; she reassured him that all he had to do was call if he had any questions. She reminded him that Doris was just around the corner and that he could always talk with the pediatrician if he felt worried about anything.

He remembered the calm way his mother had explained everything, but even so, he had begged her to stay for just a little while longer.

“I can’t,” she said. “And besides, I think you need to do this. She’s depending on you.”

On his first night alone with Claire, he checked on her more than a dozen times. She was in the bassinet beside his bed; on his end table was a flashlight that he used to make sure she was breathing. When she woke with cries, he fed and burped her; in the morning, he gave her a bath and panicked again when he saw her shivering. It took far more time to get her dressed than he thought it would. He laid her on a blanket in the living room and watched her as he sipped his coffee. He thought he would work when she went down for a nap, but he didn’t; he thought the same thing when she went down for a second nap, but again he ignored his work. In his first month, it was all he could do simply to keep his e-mail up-to-date.

As the weeks rolled into months, he eventually got the hang of it. His work was gradually organized around the changing of diapers, feeding, bathing, and doctor’s visits. He brought Claire in for shots and called the pediatrician when her leg was still swollen and red hours later. He buckled her in her car seat and brought her to the grocery store when he went shopping or to church. Before he knew it, Claire had begun to smile and laugh; she often stretched her fingers toward his face, and he found that he could spend hours watching her in the same way she watched him. He took hundreds of pictures of Claire, and he grabbed the video camera and recorded the moment when she let go of the end table and took her first steps.

Gradually, ever so gradually, birthdays and holidays came and went. As Claire grew, her personality became more distinct. As a toddler, she wore only pink, then blue, and now, at age four, purple. She loved to color but hated to paint. Her favorite raincoat had a Dora the Explorer patch on the sleeve, and she wore it even when the sun was shining. She could choose her own clothes, dress herself except for tying her shoes, and was able to recognize most of the letters in the alphabet. Her collection of Disney movie DVDs occupied most of the rack near the television, and after her bath, Jeremy would read her three or four stories before kneeling beside her as they said their prayers.

If there was joy in his life, there was tedium as well, and time itself played funny tricks. It seemed to vanish whenever he tried to leave the house-he was always ten minutes behind schedule-yet he could sit on the floor playing with Barbie or coloring in the Blue’s Clues notebook for what seemed like hours, only to realize that only eight or nine minutes had actually passed. There were times when he felt he should be doing something more with his life, yet when he thought about it, he would realize that he had no desire to change it at all.

As Lexie had predicted, Boone Creek was an ideal place for Claire to grow up, and he and Claire often headed for Herbs. Though Doris moved a bit more slowly these days, she delighted in spending time with Claire, and Jeremy couldn’t help but smile whenever he saw a pregnant woman enter the restaurant, asking for Doris. He supposed it was to be expected now. Three years ago, Jeremy had finally decided to take Doris up on her offer about the journal and had made arrangements for an experiment under controlled settings. In all, Doris met with ninety-three women and made her predictions, and when the records were unsealed a year later, Doris had been correct in each and every instance.

A year later, the short book he wrote about Doris stayed on the best-seller list for five months; in his conclusion, Jeremy admitted that there was no scientific explanation.

Jeremy made his way back to the living room. After tossing Claire’s jacket on the chair beside his, he moved to the window and pushed aside the curtains. Off to the side, nearly out of view, was the garden that he and Lexie had started after moving into the house.

He thought of Lexie often, especially on quiet nights like these. In the years since she’d passed away, he hadn’t dated, nor had he felt any desire to do so. He knew that people were worried about him. One by one, his friends and family had talked to him about other women, but his answer was always the same: He was too busy taking care of Claire to even consider attempting another relationship. Although this was somewhat true, what he didn’t tell them was that part of him had died along with Lexie. She would always be with him. When he imagined her, he never saw her lying in the hospital bed. Instead, he saw her smile as she’d gazed at the town from the top of Riker’s Hill or her expression when they’d felt the baby kick for the first time. He heard the contagious joy of her laughter or saw the look of concentration as she read a book. She was alive, always alive, and he wondered who he would have been had Lexie never come into his life. Would he have ever married? Would he still live in the city? He didn’t know, would never know, but when he thought back, it sometimes seemed as if his life had begun five years ago. He wondered whether in another few years he would remember anything at all about his life in New York or the person he used to be.

Yet he wasn’t unhappy. He was pleased with the man he’d become, the father he’d become. Lexie had been right all along, for what gave his life meaning was love. He treasured those moments when Claire wandered down the stairs in the mornings, while Jeremy was reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. Half the time, her pajamas were askew, one sleeve up, her tummy showing, the pants slightly twisted, and her dark hair was poofed out in a messy halo. In the bright light of the kitchen, she would pause momentarily and squint before rubbing her eyes.

“Hi, Daddy,” she would say, her voice almost inaudible.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he would answer, and Claire would go into his arms. As he lifted her and leaned back, she would relax against him, head on his shoulder, her small arms twined around his neck.

“I love you so much,” Jeremy would say, feeling the shallow movement of her chest as she breathed.

“I love you, too, Daddy.”

At moments like those, he ached that she never knew her mother.

It was time. Jeremy slipped on his jacket and zipped it up. Then, heading down the hall with her jacket, hat, and mittens, he went into Claire’s bedroom. He placed his hand on her back and felt the quick rhythm of her heartbeat.

“Claire, sweetie?” he whispered. “I need you to wake up.”

He shook her slightly, and she rolled her head from one side to the other.

“C’mon, sweetie,” he said, reaching for her. He slowly scooped her into his arms, thinking how light she seemed. In just a few years, he would no longer be able to do this.

She moaned slightly. “Daddy?” she whispered.

He smiled, thinking she was the most beautiful child in the world.

“It’s time to go.”

Her eyes were still closed as she answered, “Okay, Daddy.”

He sat her on the bed, slipped her rubber boots over the thick pajamas she’d worn to bed, and draped her jacket around her shoulders, watching as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. He slid on her mittens, then her hat, and picked her up again.

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

She yawned. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to take a ride,” Jeremy said, carrying her through the living room. As he adjusted her in his arms, he patted his pocket, making sure he had the keys.

“In the car?”

“Yes,” he said, “in the car.”

She looked around, her face showing the youthful confusion that he’d come to adore. She turned toward the window.

“But it’s dark,” she said.

“Yes,” Jeremy said again. “And it’s foggy, too.”

Outside, the air was crisp and moist, and the lonely stretch of road that passed by his house looked as if a cloud had been dropped upon it. In the sky, neither the moon nor the stars were evident, as if the universe itself had been erased. He shifted Claire in his arms so that he could reach for his keys, then placed her in the booster seat.

“It’s scary out here,” she said. “Like on Scooby-Doo.”

“Kind of,” he admitted, buckling her in. “But we’ll be safe.”

“I know,” she said.

“I love you,” he added. “Do you know how much?”

She rolled her eyes as if she were an actress. “More than there are fishes in the sea and higher than the moon. I know.”

“Ah,” Jeremy said.

“It’s cold,” she added.

“I’ll turn the heater on just as soon as I start the car.”

“Are we going to Grandma’s?”

“No,” he said. “She’s sleeping. We’re going to a special place.”

Beyond the window of the car, the streets of Boone Creek were quiet, and the town seemed to be asleep. With the exception of porch lights, most of the homes were dark. Jeremy drove slowly, navigating carefully through the fog-covered country hills.

After pulling to a stop in front of Cedar Creek Cemetery, he removed a flashlight from the glove compartment. He unbuckled Claire from her car seat and headed into the cemetery, Claire’s hand wrapped in his own.

Checking his watch, Jeremy noted that it was past midnight, but he knew he still had a few minutes. Claire was holding the flashlight, and as he walked beside her, he could hear the rustle of leaves underfoot. The fog made it impossible to see more than a few steps in any direction, but it had taken Claire only an instant to realize where they were.

“Are we going to see Mommy?” she asked. “Because you forgot to bring flowers.”

In the past, when he brought her here they always brought flowers. More than four years ago, Lexie had been buried next to her parents. It had required a special dispensation from the county commissioners to have her buried here, but Mayor Gherkin had forced it through at the request of Doris and Jeremy.

Jeremy paused. “You’ll see,” he promised.

“Then what are we doing here?”

He squeezed her hand. “You’ll see,” he repeated.

They walked a few steps in silence. “Can we see if the flowers are still there?”

He smiled, pleased that she cared and also that coming here in the middle of the night didn’t frighten her. “Of course we can, sweetheart.”

Ever since the funeral, Jeremy visited the cemetery at least once every couple of weeks, usually bringing Claire with him. It was here she learned about her mother; he told her of their visits to the top of Riker’s Hill, told her that it was here he’d first known he loved Lexie, told her that he’d moved here because he couldn’t imagine a life without her. He talked mainly as a way of keeping Lexie alive in his memory, doubting whether Claire was even listening. Yet even though she was not yet five, she could now recite his stories as if she’d lived them. The last time he’d brought her here, she’d listened quietly and seemed almost withdrawn by the time they’d left. “I wish she didn’t die,” she’d said on their way back to the car. That had happened a little after Thanksgiving, and he wondered whether it had anything to do with her nightmares. They hadn’t started until a month later, but he couldn’t be sure.

Trudging through the moist and chilly night, they finally reached the graves. Claire aimed the flashlight toward them. He could see the names James and Claire; beside them was the name Lexie Marsh and the flowers they’d placed in front of the grave on the day before Christmas.

After leading Claire to the spot where he and Lexie had first seen the lights, he sat down and pulled his daughter onto his lap. Jeremy remembered the story Lexie had told about her parents and the nightmares she’d had as a child, and Claire, sensing something special was about to happen, barely moved.

Claire was Lexie’s daughter in more ways than he realized, for when the lights began their dance across the sky, he felt Claire leaning against him. Claire, whose great-grandmother assured her that ghosts were real, stared transfixed at the show taking place before her. It was only a feeling, but as he held her, he knew that Claire would have no more nightmares. Tonight they would end, and Claire would sleep peacefully. No, he couldn’t explain it-and later he would be proven correct-but in the last few years, he’d learned that science didn’t have all the answers.

The lights, as always, were a celestial wonder, rising and falling in spectacular fashion, and Jeremy found himself mesmerized along with his daughter. Tonight the lights seemed to last a few seconds longer than normal, and in the brightness, he could see the expression of awe on his daughter’s face.

“Is it Mama?” she finally asked. Her voice was no louder than the wind in the leaves above them.

He smiled, his throat tight. In the quiet of the night, it seemed as if they were the only two people in the world. Jeremy took a long breath, remembering Lexie, believing that she was here with them, and knowing that if he could see her now, she would be smiling with joy, content in the knowledge that her daughter and husband were going to be okay.

Yes,” he said, holding her tight. “I think she wanted to meet you.”