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Guilt consumes me. I’m torn with a huge part of who I am, but until this part of my life doesn’t look like a weather predictors spaghetti plot, this is the safest route. It’s the less messy route, that doesn’t put pressure on anyone except for me.
While I want to immerse every factor in my life with Sidney—God, I really do—this is a mess that I do not want to involve her in, at least not yet. It wouldn’t be fair to a new relationship. But neither is keeping this secret.
My ex, Amelia, to say the least isn’t the most welcoming individual at the moment, and everything is a fight. Needless to say, this whole entire situation hasn’t been amicable, but then again, what divorce really is?
I will admit to my wrongdoings. The fact that I wasn’t around when I said that I would be. The fact that I stopped caring for Amelia not too long after we were officially married.
We dated off and on through college, with a little pressure from my parents—we got married a year after graduation. I loved her, sure. But I wasn’t head over heels and in love with her. Not in the way that you see in the movies, and not in the way that I feel about Sidney. So, I know the difference.
With Amelia, I didn’t love the superficial ways about her, about where we lived, what we wore, and where we had to be seen. I worked at a publishing house, not in a flashy industry but none of that mattered to me. I didn’t love that she disrespected my choice in career, that she manipulated many work events to go her way and that she may or may not have had an affair.
After a lot of fighting, we decided that a possibility to fix our relationship would be to have a child. Which is by no means a reason to fix any relationship, at least not permanently. So, we scheduled in ‘sessions’ to create life, and that’s when I should have known that a child wouldn’t fix anything.
Having Kady put a band-aid on the relationship and gave both of us something to love with our whole beings, despite not loving one another. Amelia started to back off of me and doted on Kady. I spent as much time as I could when I wasn’t working, to focus on Kady’s needs. We did all this separately, never together. During that time, I had learned Amelia had a jealous streak, and she started to get jealous of our daughter. And that’s when the band-aid fell off and that we learned that the relationship was unrepairable. We quietly separated, quickly divorced and moved on. Then, she ended up moving away, back to Los Angeles where her family lived, and coincidently, mine.
I do love my daughter. Sure, I’m angry with Amelia. But I am thankful for the fact that we did create a perfect little person to fill our lives, even if it’s separately, with so much love.
So, it all boils down to that I’m so angry at Amelia for moving across the country to spite me without talking it over with me. I’m so frustrated with her for not allowing me to see her for extended periods of time.
Right now, Sidney is a shining light in my life. She brings me a happiness that I haven’t felt in a long time. And I know that I’m fucking it up by not being honest. It kills me to lie to her about going to work on the weekends when I get to spend the days with Kady instead.
Would all this scare her away? It would definitely make me pause, maybe that’s another reason why I’ve been hesitant to say anything.
Would she accept Kady or would she hold her at an arm’s length?
The birthday party at my parents was the first time since moving to Los Angeles that Amelia allowed—yes allowed—me to have Kady without her shadowing me. As much as I wanted Sidney with me to celebrate my little girl’s birthday, I also needed this time with my daughter more than anything.
My parents, of course showered her with their form of love—presents. Then they would glare at me with looks of disapproval.
And I got to spend the day after her fifth birthday with her. I got to hold her tiny hand, have her sit on my lap and just be in her presence. She doesn’t understand what’s happening between her mother and I, and I don’t intend to make her privy to all the nasty that is surrounding her.
During the day, I did have to deal with my parents. It was hard to hide, but in between Kady off playing in the yard and trying to make small talk with one of the parents around the neighborhood, it was bearable.
I dealt with the criticism, the snide comments, and the how they felt about the divorce. But at the end of the day, my daughter was happy, and my head was hurting. I was exhausted from being mentally chastised, but my body was elated for being in Kady’s presence. It was warring with happiness and annoyance that by the end of the night, I was fully zapped.
Goodbyes were said to my parents and I took the liberty of the alone time with Kady, to top off the day with hot cocoa with marshmallows before dropping her off at Amelia’s house.
“Daddy, are you and mommy not friends anymore?” She asks with a whipped cream mustache.
“No honey, we’ll always be friends.” I tell her wiping off the corner of her mouth with my thumb.
“Mommy has a new friend, what does that mean?” she asks.
God, this wasn’t something that I was expecting to discuss with her today.
“Well, Kady darling, it just means that there are more people in your life to love you.” I want to know more details, but it would be wrong to grill your own daughter, despite that’s all I want to do in this moment.
“I don’t like him. He makes me eat trees.”
I think about it for a moment and then smile. Broccoli.
“I would have to agree with him, eating trees is good for your body and helps with a lot of things that you need to be a healthy person.” I say in agreeance with this stranger who is in my daughter’s life, telling her what to eat.
“But wouldn’t that be taking away the air, we need trees for the air.”
“That is a different kind of tree, kiddo. We don’t eat those trees.”
“Maybe. I still don’t like him. I want to see you more than I see him. You know why? Because you’re my daddy,” she says hitting me with the cuteness.
