Fair warning in case the title didn't warn you, this one is kinda angsty. It's just been one of those weeks.
Carole sneaked into Susan's room and peered through the dim light to watch her daughter's sleeping face.
She was still breathing.
Her chest rose and fell slowly, her lips puckered and sucked on the air in search of the pacifier that had fallen out of her mouth. She was fine.
After watching a few more moments Carole pinched her eyes shut and crossed the room to collapse into the soft glider by the window.
She was not going to cry. She wouldn't. Twenty-four years hadn't stopped the ache in her heart, but Susie wasn't Chris. She was strong and happy and healthy and everything anyone could want in a baby. Then again, Chris had been all those things too and had had the extra benefit of being born on time, not four weeks early with minor eating issues.
Carole shook her head again and wiped at her damp face. Susie was not Chris. She wouldn't die suddenly in her sleep. Carole was freaking out over nothing.
Of course, it wasn't nothing. The dream she just woke from, one of a string she thought she'd stopped having after Finn's first birthday, it wasn't nothing. It was a nightmare of the highest order, one she thought even outweighed the misery of learning about her husband's death.
There was nothing worse than losing your child.
Chris had been perfect. Completely unexpected and not entirely welcome, but perfect nonetheless. He was named after his father, the charismatic construction worker Carole met in a bar when she was twenty-one and in no way ready for a family. They'd only been dating about six months when Carole found out she was pregnant. The next year was a whirlwind of baby showers, apartment hunting and a shotgun wedding at the Justice of the Peace because everyone said that's what they should do.
It was chaotic and confusing, but they managed, and by the end of her pregnancy, Carole was excited about all the changes in her life. She'd be a mother.
She was terrified of how painful the birth would be, of course, but that was her only fear. She knew Christopher would be a great father and between the two of them they'd muddle along until they figured everything out.
Chris was a beautiful baby. He had his dad's warm brown eyes and Carole's nose and a funny habit of trying to stick his entire fist in his mouth.
Carole knew they made mistakes. The first week out of the hospital Chris was screaming bloody murder because they hadn't been cleaning him thoroughly enough during diaper changes. But they learned from their mistakes, consulted friends and family and baby books and thought they were figuring it out.
And then one night Carole put the baby to bed only to wake in a panic the next morning because he hadn't woken her for his 3 A.M. feeding.
He was dead.
He hadn't suffocated on anything during the night, he was dressed appropriately, nobody had hit him, he hadn't fallen off of anything. There was no solid evidence that anything had killed him, yet he was dead.
It was devastating.
Carole fell into a deep depression and barely let Christopher touch her for over a year. It nearly ended their marriage. In the end, Christopher joined the Marines, his long stretches away at training and on deployment a guilty relief. When Finn was born almost five years after they lost Chris, Carole hardly ever let him out of her sight. She couldn't stand to lose another child.
She lost Christopher instead.
Carole wiped the tears from her face. Finn didn't know any of this, of course. He was paranoid enough about breaking Susie somehow for her to add fears of SIDS to his list of things that could go wrong. She'd spare him that worry, maybe tell him in a few years when the threat wasn't so immediate. Or maybe she never would.
It still pained her too much to even think about it. Months ago, when she was still pregnant with Susan, she had barely been able to choke the story out to Burt.
She couldn't bear the thought of losing another child, of losing this child.
Carole quieted her breathing, needing to hear Susie's occasional soft snuffle. She'd sleep in the glider tonight, check on the baby periodically just to alleviate her fears and convince herself that she was being irrational.
It was something she simply had to do.
Susie would be fine, Carole knew she would, but she'd never stop worrying.