The Good Father. Diane Chamberlain
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Название: The Good Father
Автор: Diane Chamberlain
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9781408969793
isbn:
“Robin!” The voice sounded far away. “Wake up, Robbie. You’re dreaming.”
I opened my eyes. In the darkness, the only thing I could see was the blue LED light from the small TV on my dresser. I was winded from running in my dream and confused about where I was. The hospital? My childhood bedroom? I touched my left breast through my tank top. Dry.
“Sit up, honey.” It was Dale’s voice. I was in the B and B, and Dale’s body was nearly wrapped around mine as he lifted my shoulders from the bed.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You’re breathing so hard. Is your heart—”
“It was just a dream,” I said, to myself as much as to him. I knew my heart was fine. It was probably stronger than his. It had come from a fifteen-year-old girl killed in a car accident. When I had nightmares, they were usually about her. I dreamed about her last moments, lying injured and alone in a car that had flipped over into a ravine. I dreamed about the life pouring out of her body and into mine. Sometimes I dreamed we both lived and I’d wake up feeling this impossible joy until I remembered.
“Whew.” I leaned forward and Dale massaged the back of my neck. I was embarrassed. “I hope I didn’t scream or anything.” I tried to laugh. “Freak out the guests.” When Dale and I became lovers, we experimented to see how much noise could be heard from my room in the guestroom right above. Dale went upstairs and I stayed in my room and made erotic-sounding noises and rocked the bed to make it squeak. He promised me he couldn’t hear a thing, but the whole thing cracked both of us up. “Was I actually screaming?” I asked now.
“No,” he said. “You were just whimpering and breathing hard.” He locked his arms around me and rocked me a little. He could be so sweet. “Tell me about the dream,” he said.
I hesitated a moment but could think of no reason not to tell him. “I had a baby in the dream,” I said. “She was crying and I couldn’t get to her. I couldn’t find my way through the house to her. It was very … I just wanted to get to her.” My tears were a sudden surprise and I was so glad it was dark in the room. This wasn’t the first time I’d had a dream about my baby in the two weeks since Hannah was born. During the daytime, I was fine. No problem. But when I was asleep and had no control over my thoughts, there she was, crying for me from a distance and I could never, ever reach her. In one of the dreams, I was upset that I didn’t know the baby’s name, just as I didn’t know the name of my own child. What had Travis named her? Was she happy and healthy? I knew she didn’t have my heart problem. My father told me they checked her out right after she was born and she was fine, which was a miracle because of the medications I’d been on when I got pregnant with her. Most of the time, I could push that baby out of my mind. Now, suddenly, she was trying to get in.
Dale laughed a little. “You’re spending way too much time with Alissa and Hannah,” he said. “Seriously, though,” he added quickly, “you’ve been such a help to her. She’s really … She’s not adjusting that well to motherhood, is she.”
“I think her hormones are still screwed up,” I said. “Once she’s back in school with her friends, she’ll probably be fine.” I didn’t really believe it. Alissa was right to be nervous about her future. None of her friends would have to run home after school to take care of a baby.
“You’re going to be such a great mother,” he said and I was glad it was so dark because I didn’t want him to see how I cringed. I’d told him I might never be able to have children. I’d been honest about it. The antirejection meds made it extremely risky. My doctor had said having children was “unlikely but not impossible” for me, and Dale seemed to have completely wiped the “unlikely” part of that sentence from his mind. “We’ll find a way,” he’d said, and I’d let it go, like I always let go of anything that might lead to conflict. I wanted children, but I would have been happy adopting. I knew from the way Dale and his parents reacted when Alissa said she wanted to place her baby up for adoption that it wasn’t an idea they’d take to easily.
I thought I heard the baby again, way in the distance, even though I was now wide-awake. I leaned away from Dale to turn on the light on my night table. The darkness was getting to me.
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