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“Oof…oh boy.” He blows out a whistle, then makes a face. I see what he’s seeing. Smell what he’s smelling. The poop, more like diarrhea, has leaked out of Isa’s diaper and dripped down her dimpled thighs. Like rivulets of melted milk chocolate.
Undoing the Velcro tabs of her tiny diaper, he says, “Ava, I need a warm, moist washcloth, some wipes, a fresh diaper…and a new onesie.” He utters the words with the precision and calmness of a surgeon in the middle of an operation, talking to his chief nurse. Like the doctor who performed my cesarean.
I’m at his beck and call and scurry around the room after fetching a wet washcloth from the guest bathroom.
Five minutes later, Isa is all cleaned up. In a fresh diaper and a brand-new pink floral onesie. And she’s back in her crib, lying on her back. Content and sound asleep.
Gabe and I watch over her. Her chest rising and falling. Our bodies almost touching, I heave a breath.
“Gabe, thank you.” My voice is as small as a worn-out soldier’s. “That was epic.”
His voice is small too. “Yeah.”
“You’re the best godfather ever.” If only my husband could be half of what his best friend is. A real hands-on partner. Sadness sweeps over me.
Leaning against the crib, Gabe surveys the room. He beams. “Ava, you did an awesome job decorating this room. My bookshelf looks great where you put it.” His eyes roam the book-lined shelves, from top to bottom.
He moves closer to the corner bookshelf, me by his side. “What’s that on the floor next to it?”
“A Barbie Dreamhouse.”
“That’s what I thought. One of my nieces has one, but it’s bigger and looks a lot different.”
“That’s because mine is vintage.” A reflective pause. “It was a Christmas present from my father.” His last one.
“Is he here with your mom?”
“No. He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, Ava.” There’s genuine compassion in his voice.
“Don’t be. He died when I was young.”
“Can I ask how he died?”
“In a terrible car accident.” Disfigured beyond recognition.
A memory: my nine-year-old self coming home from school. My mother telling me, my heart shattering. My beloved daddy was dead. I’d never see him again. And I never got to say goodbye.
“What did he do?” asks Gabe, bringing me back to the present.
“He was a scientist…a molecular biologist. I actually don’t know much about him. My mother’s always been very closemouthed…making me think he was some kind of government agent or spy, especially since I’ve never found anything online about a scientist named Isaac Miller.”
All I know is I loved him and have always missed him. My mind flits to the photo of him holding me when I was toddler that I keep in my top drawer. My one and only. The rest, my mother told me, got lost in one of our moves. He was a tall, broad, serious-looking man with wavy chestnut hair and chiseled features. His green eyes the same shape and color as mine.
“That must have been hard growing up without a father. I can’t imagine not having one.”
I recall how close Gabe is to his parents. To both his mother and father. “Yeah…growing up alone with my mother was challenging. After my father died, my mother sold our big house and we went to live in Vegas. Money was tight. Whenever we were strapped, she pawned a piece of jewelry.”
Or hit the crap tables, I think to myself.
“We moved around a lot. Each place smaller and smaller. There was only one constant…this dollhouse. It came with me wherever we moved.”
“It must mean a lot to you.”
I give a thin smile. “Yes, it does. It’s a connection to my father. He helped me assemble it. Plus, I think it inspired my career to become an interior designer.”
I go on. “My mother never bought me a Barbie, no matter how much I begged for one, so I pretended I was her. That I could be anything I wanted. So, I became ‘interior designer Barbie’…well, in those days, ‘decorator Barbie.’ I was always changing around the furniture, looking for new pieces at garage sales, and making things out of scraps of fabric to decorate it with. Curtains…pillows…spreads. And hanging tiny paintings I made on the walls.”
