Tom Friend: EDMOND, Okla. — Something keeps calling Zane Fleming to the back bedroom, 10 years later. It’s not a voice he hears; it’s a throb in his temples, an outright ache to walk back there. Whenever he enters the room, he takes a whiff of his son’s cologne, lies on his son’s bed, closes his eyes and relives a day in the life of Nate Fleming.
Sometimes, he’ll find himself in a packed high school gym, surrounded by homemade posters that read “Nate the Great.” Sometimes he’ll find himself standing by a high school desk, watching Nate sail through a calculus exam. But a lot of times he’ll find himself remembering 10-month-old Nate, the most precocious baby he ever met.
He can picture it so clearly. Every night, after being placed in his crib, Little Nate would hop right out and curl into bed with his mother and father. If they told him no, Nate would cry, and Zane and Ann would cave in and let him stay. Zane had been told by friends that this was a bad precedent to set, that toddlers need to learn to separate from their parents at some point. So one night, he let Little Nate stay up until about 10 p.m., got him good and tired and laid him down in his crib. And in case the kid climbed out, Zane locked the master bedroom door.
The next morning, he woke up, thinking, wow, it worked. Then he looked over at his door and noticed a tiny hand underneath. Nate had again escaped the crib and fallen asleep trying to reach through the bottom of the door. All Zane could see was five baby fingers.
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