In the house we rented in Raleigh, I had a recurring nightmare that I’d taken our newborn to the supermarket and then, not realizing it, I’d left it behind in a shopping cart in the parking lot. Still trapped in the dream, I’d leap out of bed to go back to the supermarket, until Carey calmed me down. “You’re going to be a great father,” she’d whisper when I got back in bed. “Nothing like that is ever going to happen. When our baby is born, she will be impossible to forget.” “Or he.” “Or he.” Despite her confidence in me, I still lost wallets and passports, missed flights, showed up at parties
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