One Last Thing

(Season One Finale)

I don’t know; maybe I do have another book in me after all, dear Reader. Sure, there’s all that writing that needs to occur, and honestly, I don’t really have time for that, especially as a new parent. Do I really want to put myself through all that excitement, doubt, and possible failure again? It’s a lot to go through for this one thing. On the other hand, it’s for you, and you’re all the reason I need.

I hope that in reading this, you’ve gained a clearer understanding of where you came from, something you can hand to your therapist when the time comes. Please let them know that I did my best not to completely screw you up. Although you were conceived untraditionally, the love we felt for you throughout the entire process was the same any parent would feel.

If I’m being completely honest, you’re the most satisfying ending that I’ve ever written.

Here I sit once again, taking note of my surroundings so I can accurately provide you with the unfettered truth. Of course, by now you know there will be a little fettering here and there, given the delicate circumstances. Glancing around this small room, I must admit that it’s a bit depressing. I always imagined finishing this in a fancy home office with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Instead, I’m in our bathroom.

It’s clean, at least. There’s an old vintage vanity with a small sink directly in front of me; a shower and tub from the late seventies or early eighties, filled with an assortment of bath toys ranging from a yellow puffer fish to a green motorboat to various Sesame Street characters; and an old door that leads to our back patio. I’m sitting as quietly as possible so as not to divulge my current location. I didn’t even turn on the light when I entered. I did, however, close and lock the door in order to avoid any unwanted interruptions.

My iPad peeks out of the top of my bag beside my feet. I know the idea of bringing it into the bathroom might seem unnecessary or even unsanitary.

David spotted me carrying it in with me one afternoon and stopped me before I could close the door.

“An iPad? How long do you plan on being in there?” he asked.

“For as long as I can get a quiet moment to focus,” I said.

“Okay. You do know that you could just write notes in your phone, right?”

“This is my creative process,” I said, and shut the door on him.

“It’s weird and borderline gross,” he said through the door.

“I’m not actually using the bathroom. I’m simply going in here for some peace and quiet,” I said.

“You could go to another room,” he replied.

“She’ll find me,” I started to explain again, and then stopped.

Your radar can pick me up from anywhere, dear Reader, and once you lock in on my location, it’s game over. Nine times out of ten, this secretly delights me. However, I am also determined to finish this story for you. And that means writing in the bathroom.

I open my document to where I last left off. I see that I once again typed details to help me remember this day for you: “vintage vanity,” “puffer fish,” “awkward,” “exhausted.” Not necessarily the most idyllic scene, but here we are. I kick off my sneakers and make myself as comfortable as I possibly can.

It’s exactly eleven days before my forty-ninth birthday. The relative calm I felt with previous approaching birthdays is long gone. It’s not that I have an impending sense of terror about my own life; I’m just in a near-constant state of worry about yours. Will you get into a good preschool? Are we giving you too much dairy? Are you happy with me as your dad?

I seriously hope you inherit your papa’s laid-back mentality and not my neurosis. However, judging by your demands that I smooth out every wrinkle in your bedsheet before you go to sleep, I fear you might be stuck with that character flaw of mine.

Over the last six months, I’ve been incredibly focused on finishing this part of the story for you, dear Reader. Today, like I did nearly four years ago when I began this process, it would appear that I have a bit more discipline than usual, despite my unconventional surroundings. Inspiration certainly strikes at the most inopportune times.

As I continue to write, I receive a text from David: “Hey, good morning! I know you’re not passed out next to me, and I don’t see an espresso on my nightstand, so where are you?” When I don’t respond right away, he adds, “Ah, you’re in the bathroom! Do you want me to FaceTime in?”

I text back, “Ew. Absolutely not.”

David: “Okay, but our daughter just woke up, and she’ll be looking for you.”

Me: “Stop texting me! I want to finish this section.”

David: “Ugh, fine. Love you. But hurry up!”

I glance down at the slim silver band around my finger and shake my head. The above exchange couldn’t summarize the dynamic of our relationship any better since we had a kid.

Last night, like countless nights before, he sat up in bed and worked on the New York Times crossword with a small glass of tequila within reach. His love for tequila is eternal. He’ll be thirty-nine in about a month. He remains classically handsome, tall, and fit, with just a few more gray hairs peppering his head to match the sparse but beautiful wrinkles that frame the corners of his eyes. They, of course, light up to an entirely new level when you enter the room. Conversely, his devilish smile is one you recognize, because you share in his mischief like no one else. I’m happily outnumbered and overruled. He is so patient and gentle and nurturing with you that seeing him as a dad makes my heart swell, as utterly corny as it sounds.

Oh, and remember all the negative, competing voices I’d heard at countless dinner parties that subsequently took up residence in my head? “Why do you want to have kids?” “Isn’t that the fun of being gay, not having kids?” “Kids at your age, really?” Those stopped. Or maybe they didn’t, and I just got better at ignoring them. After all, chasing around a two-and-a-half-year-old leaves me very little time to care.

We’d be out to eat with friends, and you’d announce, “Dada, I have to poop,” bringing any adult conversation to an abrupt end. I’d try my best to continue whatever discussion I was having, but it was futile.

To their credit, our friends without kids have taken it all in stride. Whenever we offer to hire a sitter so we can have an “adults” evening, they insist that Georgia come along.

Fred, our French bulldog, passed away a few months ago. Fortunately, he got to spend a lot of time with you before he left this earth. I still wake up almost every morning at five o’clock, and I’m usually fast asleep by nine. Like I said from the start, our lifestyle was already conducive to being parents. It just took us a little longer to get here.

Last week, we took you to the grocery store, just a quick run for milk and bananas. Nothing dramatic. The automatic doors whooshed open, and you marched straight in and plopped in the front of the shopping cart and navigated the aisles like you owned the place.

I’ve been in that store hundreds of times. For years, I knew exactly where every product was located, which times of day were quiet, which checkers would chat and which would barely look up. It was all calibrated. Managed. Predictable.

Now I push a cart with a toddler singing “Let It Go” at the top of her lungs, getting the words wrong in the same spot every time. You wave at everyone. You assume the world is kind.

We were in the produce section when a woman, not much older than me, glanced over. Then glanced again. Not at you, at us. David and me. Two men, one cart, one very opinionated two-year-old pointing at blueberries.

“Is she yours?” she asked.

David smiled. “She is.”

“Both of you?” she said.

“Both of us,” I replied.

She nodded slowly. “She’s cute,” she said, and moved on.

That was it. Nothing hostile. Nothing overt. Just a question. But I realized my jaw was clenched. My shoulders were tight. That old familiar scan of the room, Who’s watching? Who’s whispering?, flickered back on like a motion sensor light.

David reached over and squeezed my tense shoulder, his signal that this wasn’t a big deal, that we didn’t have to engage any further. You, oblivious, were still singing to the fruits. How apropos.

I thought about that interaction for the rest of the grocery run. Then in the car. Then as I watched you fall asleep that night, clutching your stuffed animal with one hand and my shirt with the other. I wasn’t sure what this nagging, but familiar feeling was bubbling up inside me.

That’s when it hit me: the walls I built to protect myself as a gay man of a certain age, the careful calibration of which spaces felt safe and which didn’t, those walls are going to have to come down now. Because you don’t know they exist. And you shouldn’t have to.

Suddenly, there’s an enormous, startling knock on the bathroom door. I nearly shatter my iPad.

You’ve found me.

“Dada!” a tiny voice shouts from the other side of the door.

I freeze. I slow my breathing. I don’t move a muscle.

The doorknob swivels back and forth. I look at it again to triple-confirm that it’s locked. You press your face against the door, searching for any signs of life.

Silence.

You lift your head, and your feet take a step backward. I am in the clear.

Until my FaceTime begins to ring.

I contemplate not answering, but it’s futile. He will only call back.

“What?” I shout-whisper at David.

“Are you bringing me a coffee?” he asks.

“What?”

“A coffee. Like you do every morning. Hello?”

Pounding on the door begins in rapid-fire. “Dada! Dada! Dada!”

“Dada’s on the potty, sweetie,” I say.

“Open!” you shout.

I have been in here for maybe twenty minutes. Thirty, tops. If I have any hope of finishing this part of the story for you, this is my only opportunity.

David’s footsteps echo down the narrow hallway leading to the bathroom. “Is everything okay?” he asks. “What’s going on in there?”

“Papa, open!” you demand.

“Dada? Dada? Your daughter wants you,” David says, teasing.

“I’ll be out shortly,” I say through gritted teeth.

“We’ll be down the hall watching the same movie on repeat, should you need anything,” he says, his voice muffled.

“Great,” I reply, ignoring his obvious sarcasm.

Where was I, dear Reader? Oh yes. I was bringing you up to date.

I feel my phone vibrate on the floor by my feet. I pick it up and answer. “Oh. My. God. Why are you FaceTiming me?”

“When are you coming out?” David asks. “Your daughter is asking for you.”

“You are the worst,” I say with a laugh.

“I think you mean, the best,” he responds.

I shake my head.

“Wait, is that your iPad? What are you doing with that? Not again. Get out of there and stop pretending you don’t have a family to deal with.”

I fall silent. He knows that no matter how hard I try to stay focused, I’m easily distracted. It’s a personality trait you’ve already witnessed multiple times reading this.

“You have one job: be a parent. Stop writing and get out here.”

“Okay, okay. I’m just wrapping up here.”

“I’m available to do your edits,” David offers.

“I’m good, but thank you so much.”

“Love you. Bye,” he says, and hangs up.

I suppose I really do need to wrap this up. I hope that by reading this, you’re able to grasp how much I love you. My wish is that through these essays, you now understand just how badly we wanted to bring you into this world, no matter how crazy it still is at this very moment. Your laughter, your hugs, and your love are the antidote to all the ills of the world. You inspire me every day, even when I don’t want to be. You inspired me to finish this, so I’d like to thank you, dear Reader.

I stand up and flush the toilet out of reflex, despite never having gone. I’m about to close my iPad when I hear your voice outside the door again.

“Dada! Come play!”

I could stay here a few more minutes. Add one more perfect thought. One more tidy ending.

But the truth is, there is no tidy ending. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Because the hard part, the part I’ve been putting off by hiding in this bathroom, by focusing on the past instead of the present, the hard part is just beginning. The preschool applications. The birthday parties. The playgrounds where other parents will ask questions I’m still learning how to answer. The airports, the doctors’ offices, the grocery store aisles where we’ll be visible in ways I spent decades trying not to be.

I wanted a family. I got one. Now I have to figure out how to bring you into a world I’ve spent so long protecting myself from.

I unlock the door and open it. You’re waiting, arms outstretched.

“Hi, Dada,” you say, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Hi, honey,” I say back.

One last thing before I go, dear Reader: I’m so glad we met.

Now let’s see if I’m brave enough to show you to everyone else.

Thank you for reading Old Dad, New Kid. We’ll be back in January with all new stories. If you like what you’ve read so far, please consider subscribing.