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“Look what I’ve got!” she said, producing a drawing of me, her mother, her brother, and her.
“Let me see that.” I smiled, placing the bottle on the column before me and reaching for her drawing. My son didn’t cry. He just smacked his lips and tongue together as he slept. The photo brought forth an unexpected well of emotions from me.
“Daddy, are you okay?” she asked.
I reached forward and pulled her into a hug. “I’m more than okay, sweetie. This is perfect.” My heart bloomed because it was.
My little family.
Family was all I ever wanted. And for a while, Mario, Anthony, and Jared filled the hole my parents left open. They became my brothers. In some ways, they had helped me to understand what it meant to be a brother and to jump into that role for my little sister. In college, they were there for me and when I chose a different path, they didn’t judge me even though my parents did.
But brothers didn’t sleep with their sisters. And maybe knowing they were sleeping with Tiffany woke me up to the fact that though they felt like my brothers, they truly weren’t. It broke through my illusion of the family bond I thought we shared. Before I could even get the chance to come to terms with that realization, I found out they were banging my sister. I didn’t get the liberty of being eased into the idea of losing them as brothers and seeing them only as my friends who perhaps had a thing for my sister.
They couldn’t even be my friends and at least consider my feelings, much less be brothers. They robbed me of the time to come to terms with everything. They just tossed me off a cliff, hoping I had a parachute to keep me suspended in the air. Because of their selfishness, I lost my brothers and best friends all at once, in the blink of an eye. They neglected my feelings in the same way my parents did.
Yet as I looked at my daughter, I was reminded of Tiffany’s words. My daughter took after me in some of her features, and my son took after his mother. But since my daughter looked like me, and Tiffany and I looked alike, I could see Tiffany in my daughter, and it broke my heart. My daughter just wanted to be loved and taken care of. That was all both of my children needed. And maybe Tiffany needed that too. Perhaps, even in the previous perception of her perfection, she felt just as lost and as empty as I did. And maybe like me, Jared, Mario, and Anthony filled the empty space within her that our parents failed to.
Should she be punished for that?
Okay, we weren’t kids anymore but no matter how old we got, there would always be a kid within us. And the kids within us needed nurturing. It was the reason I ran from the betrayal of my best friends and my sister back into the arms of the parents who emotionally neglected me. It was so painful, I sought shelter in their cold and distant arms, knowing they knew how to cause pain. And I wanted to cause pain. To the replacement family that was Jared, Mario, and Anthony and to my sister, with whom I was trying to build a family bond.
In some sick and twisted way, my pain and my need to cause pain made the original family who hurt me not appear so bad after all. And through it all, I ended up losing myself in the dark.
But today, holding both of my children in my arms, the light turned on again. My sister and my ex-friends didn’t deserve to have their whole lives turned upside down because of what they consented to do with each other in private, did they? Tiffany was right about what she said last night. It was nobody’s business. And though she didn’t consider my feelings, maybe she didn’t have to take on that responsibility since she wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong.
My daughter shuffled out of my arm, and my son grew fussy, so I moved him to rest against my shoulder as I burped him.
“Where’s Mommy?” my daughter asked.
As I patted my son’s back, I smiled down at my daughter in her yellow poofy dress that she chose to wear to preschool today. “Mommy needed a little self-love day today, so she’s out relaxing,” I told her.
She scrunched her nose up. “But I wanted to show her my drawing,” she said in her sweet baby voice.
“Oh, and I’m sure she’ll be excited to see it when she gets home. Why don’t you go and ask the babysitter to put it in our room,” I said, and her eyes lit up before she took off running through the house, calling the babysitter’s name.
My wife got a few relaxation days every now and then because she deserved it. She was the one home with the kids most of the time and even with a babysitter, it got a bit hectic at times. She needed a break, and I loved to ensure that she got it. Maybe in that way, I understood my dad. He loved my mom and would do anything for her, while I loved my wife and would do anything for her. But the difference between me and my dad or at least the difference I was trying to cultivate was that I didn’t love my wife more than my kids. I loved my wife just as much as my kids. With everything within me. And while as an adult, my wife was capable of tending to her own needs most of the time, our kids relied on us for guidance, for us to help them move through the world as they grew into their own person.
There was a different responsibility toward my wife and kids. But the amount of love I had for them was equal. My dad must have forgotten about the part where my mother was a capable adult responsible for herself emotionally and mentally. While I was sure that she needed him in some ways, we needed him in other ways. Ways in which he failed to show up for us. Just like she did. So, as much as I may have understood that my dad loved my mother, I wouldn’t make any excuses for the way they both neglected to love us.
“Okay, so I just made her a sandwich,” the babysitter said, startling me as she referred to my daughter. “Would you like me to put him down for a nap?” she asked me, stretching her arms out for my son.
I was about to tell her I’d do it, so he could stay in my arms a little longer, until my daughter ran through the door once again.
“Daddy, Daddy, wanna play dollhouse?” she asked.
Smiling at my daughter, I nodded at the babysitter, handing my son to her.
“Thank you,” I said before turning to my daughter and scooping her up in my arms. “I’d love to play dollhouse!” I said, realizing how silly it sounded for a grown-ass man like myself to be saying that, which made me grin at myself. Any game with my kids was fun for me, even if it meant playing with dolls. “But first, you’ve got to have a bath and eat your sandwich. Then we can play. Does that sound like fun?”
“But Daddy, I wanna… But I wanna play dollhouse now, before I eat and… and, before I shower,” she said with her adorable pout.
“I know you do, sweetheart. But if you have your bath and eat first, we’ll get to play even longer before bedtime. Wouldn’t you like that?” I asked her.
She nodded, but she didn’t smile because she wasn’t entirely convinced, and it made me laugh again. Moments later, she was racing to find me in my home office after the babysitter gave her a bath.
“Daddy, I’m ready to play now,” she said, bursting through the door.
“Is that right?” I asked. “Did you eat your sandwich?”
