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My eyes narrow and I open my mouth to say something, but my mom cuts me off.
“We love you, Colton. But it has been three months since Melody died. You’ve had three months to figure out how to pick yourself up and keep moving, like every person on this earth has to do when death makes a surprising visit. And instead of doing that, instead of figuring out how to continue on living for the sake of your son, you’ve retreated into this…” She widens her hands as if to say this shithole. “…place, into yourself, into your despair. And it’s our job as your parents to help you dig yourself out. So the first, most important, best thing we can do is make sure Teddy is fully taken care of so you have the freedom to take care of yourself.”
My nose burns and I can feel something like a vise begin to tighten around my neck.
“We know you’re doing your best, son,” my dad says, crossing toward me and resting a hand on my shoulder. “And I know it’s not easy. Everyone handles grief differently.”
I want to laugh at that.
What I feel isn’t grief. It’s betrayal. It’s rage and fury and disgust. It’s disappointment and letdown and the most epic sense of failure.
“But it’s time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Time to sort out what’s next.”
“A nanny will help Teddy,” my mother continues, “not hurt him. He needs consistency right now, more than ever. And I’m sorry, darling, but that’s not what you’ve been providing him.”
I lick my lips and stare at her. At the woman who raised me and has always wanted the best for my life, even when it pissed me off. Even when I was young and stupid and thought I knew better than she did.
But right now, it feels like she’s against me. Like she thinks I’m a shitty dad who’s letting down his kid and falling apart.
It feels like she’s confirming all of my worst fears about myself.
At that thought, my heart breaks for my beautiful son who is upstairs asleep while I’m downstairs shouting and screaming and throwing a tantrum like a child.
That vise continues to choke me, and I swallow thickly, trying to push my unwelcome thoughts and feelings aside.
“I’ll meet her, but she’s not meeting Teddy unless I give the go-ahead. Is that understood?”
My father nods, and I take that as enough, spinning back around and jogging up the stairs, heading for my bathroom and the solitary confines of the small guest room where I’ve been living since the day of the funeral.
I rip off my clothes and storm into the bath, turning the hot water on until it’s blistering. It isn’t until the scalding water is pummeling my back that I allow myself to fully think about what I’ve just agreed to.
Even the idea of a nanny makes me feel like…god, I don’t even know how it makes me feel.
When Mel got pregnant, we both agreed she would continue working and I’d be the stay-at-home parent until Teddy went into junior high. That way, during those first ten formative years of adolescence, we’d be giving him the direct attention he really needed.
My parents come from traditional values, though, and there aren’t too many stay-at-home dads in South Carolina. So even though they didn’t comment on it more than a handful of times, I know my mom and dad never actually approved of the decision we made for me to stop working.
Which is why this nanny thing feels like such a slap in the face.
I don’t doubt that they want Teddy taken care of. But they are also taking advantage of a situation that forces me back to work. This is about Teddy needing a feminine hand at home instead of a masculine one. About removing this gender-role swap, as my dad has referred to it in the past, from our home life and replacing it with something they think is more conventional.
I clench my fist and lean forward, resting my forehead against the tiles of the shower wall.
My life feels like this shower right now: a tiny space, a box almost. There’s nowhere to turn. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to go to avoid the endless anger and frustration at…everything.
How is it fucking fair that I’m left here with all of this shit to sort through and Melody gets to just die and get out of facing the consequences of her actions? She doesn’t have to look at a sobbing child or an angry partner. She doesn’t have to deal with the fighting that would have come if I’d known about her affair.
Excuse me, affairs.
Apparently that Sean guy wasn’t alone.
Since Melody’s death, I’ve learned of two other affairs. The guy who taught her cycling class in town, and another man who also works at the hospital, but in the HR department, which feels particularly egregious since they had a no-fraternization clause in their HR policy.
I close my eyes tightly, willing it all away. Wishing I could forget it all and move on happy with my life with Teddy and without Melody.
I wish I could not know about the affairs. Wish she could have died leaving me with the idea that we’d really started over, fresh and in love and imperfect but committed just the same.
Instead, now I can’t help but wonder about everything. Every single thing she’s ever said to me is now called into question. Every instance when she left in the middle of the night because her work pager went off—was that real work or a chance to sneak off to be with one of the many men she chose over her family?
