Far Away Nearby (Part 4)

The rain. Nature's own song, which brings life sustaining water.
There is a no more perfect gift.
But at the moment, Calire did not see the rain as much of a gift. In fact, it seemed to her as if the rain were trying to test her patience.
After all, there had been no rain for four days, then the night she hung Aaron's nappies out to dry, it started pouring.
Not to mention that in addition to still getting the hang of a baby's unpredictable sleep patterns, the thunder kept waking Aaron up. So Claire was not getting much more than a handful of minutes of sleep.

So as she did her best to nurse Aaron back to sleep, Claire began to cry.
She tried to not draw attention to herself. She did not want their help, and she certainly did not want their pity. She found it rather odd, how when she was just pregneant, only Charlie would look her in the eye and not avoid her. Yet since Aaron's birth, everyone wants to be an expert on what Claire should be doing, and wanting to jump right in to help.
It's bad enough not understanding how to raise a baby...on an island on top of that! But Claire could not understand the logic behind many of these people's behavior. She could sense so much secrecy, so much going on that they were not talking about.
The knowing glances between Kate and Jack, when someone would make certain comments. The sudden silence of Hurley whenever Sayid pulled out that document with the numbers on them, that he got from Danielle. She noticed these things, yet no one was talking about it. It made her wonder what was really going on. It made her worry that things might be worse than she thought.

As she quietly sobbed, she heard a soft whisper of a familiar voice.

"I take it you're not having a red letter day." Whispered Charlie, as he sat down next to her, politely averting his eyes from Claire nursing.

"A what?" Claire asked, trying to wipe her eyes and not feel like a mess in front of Charlie.

"A red letter day." He said. "On a calendar, the special days have the numbers in red. I take it this isn't one of those for you."

"I'm fine." Claire said, failing to make her words sound true. "I'll be fine, Charlie."

"Claire. Look at me." Charlie said, softly, but with slight authority in his tone.

Claire looked at him, but had difficulty looking him in the eye for very long.

"You're stronger than you think." Charlie said. "If it were me in your position, I'd be so bloody scattered in the head, that I'd jump at the chance to have someone come in and fix it."

"No you wouldn't, Charlie." said Claire. "You risked your life to save Jack, when the cave collapsed. I never would have been able to do that."

"But see, that's where you're wrong, Claire." Charlie said, as he put his hand on her shoulder. "Being a new Mum, is hard in normal circumstances. But you're not in normal circumstances. We're all dealing every day with having to survive, and you're having to do that for yourself and for Aaron at the same time. That's something no one else on this island is having to deal with. So, there's going to be times when it's going to wear you down, when it's going to feel like a bit much. But you continue to make it through each day. Now, I'm no fancy psychiatrist, but it seems to me there's one thing you just don't seem to relaize about yourself."

"Oh, and what's that?" Claire asked.

"Two months ago you didn't want the responsibility of being a Mum. But look at you now. You're willing to put yourself second for your child. I'd go screaming into the woods like a loon, but you're staying put, and taking care of your child. So even though it gets to be a bit much for you sometimes, little Aaron gets to have red letter days, every day, because of you."

Claire started to cry.

Charlie got a confused look on his face. "Oh, hey, look, sorry. I was, um, I wasn't trying to make you cry."

Claire put her hand on Charlie's chest. "This isn't a bad cry, Charlie. That was so sweet of you to say. Thank you."

Charlie puffs out his chest, "So, that's a good cry then, right? I gave you a good kind of cry?"

Claire just nodded. The rain had slowed and the thunder was moving farther away, and Aaron was again sound asleep. So Claire put him back into his crib.

When she came back, and sat next to Charlie, she saw that he was holding something in his hands.

"What's that?" Claire asked.

"Stress food." Charlie grinned, as he showed her the jar of imaginary peanut butter.

"Oh, so that's where it went. I thought we ran out." Claire joked.

"Well, I just thought I'd save a jar. You know, for a rainy day."

They shared some laughter, and a lot of imaginary peanut butter, as the soft rain became just a light mist.

To Claire, in this moment, it had indeed become a red letter day.


~TO BE CONTINUED~