“Let’s go and find shells, sweet baby,” I tell her, knowing it is her favorite pastime. She squeals in delight just as I knew she would.
I lead her down the beach to the edge of the ocean and look out over the water, trying to get a rein on my thoughts and prepare myself for Max.
“Mom-mom!” Maddy yells, demanding attention. She’s squirming and pushing against my chest, doing her best to get down. She’s not been walking long, her feet are still unsteady, but I always let her go when we’re on the beach as long as I keep me between her and the water. It’s her favorite thing, she laughs when she falls, and the sound of my daughter’s laugh is, to me, the most beautiful sound in the world. I let her slide to the ground and lead her back to the beach away from the water. We sit down, and luckily it has been cloudy, so the sand isn’t too hot. I sit down, pulling Maddy between my legs and reach around helping her to shovel through the sand with our hands. Maddy laughs as the sand covers her feet, and I smile, despite my worries.
“Hi.”
It’s one word. One word, from a voice that I remember, but haven’t heard in so long, so long that I was beginning to forget the tone and the way the timber of it sends shivers of awareness through my system. I hold my gaze down on Maddy’s head and then slowly shift it to Max’s feet. Just as slowly, I let it travel the length of his body until I rest on his face. There should be something I could say here. Something—anything. Nothing comes though. My voice is frozen in my throat. My heart is pounding.
My daughter must pick up on the change in me because she stops laughing and cooing. The sand stops occupying her, and she looks up at Max. I’m being a wimp; I need to snap out of it. Maddy however, has nothing holding her back. She pushes up trying to get away from me. I help her stand, bracing my hands on her little hips. I’m letting her distract me from Max. I need her to, because, for the life of me, I can’t even manage to say hi back. I swallow; suddenly my mouth feels very dry.
“Da-Da!” Maddy says, jumping up and down, wanting to get away. “Da-Da!”
Of course she would recognize him. She’s only a year old, but I’ve done my best to show her picture to him every night after we read and say goodnight to Daddy. I wanted Max to be a part of her life in whatever small way I could manage it. When I look up and see Max’s face, my heart contracts. I let go of Maddy, and she takes her stumbling steps to him. The sand is hard for her but after falling once she makes the six or seven steps to him. She reaches up to him in complete trust, as only a child can, and my heart flips over as I watch Max hold his daughter for the first time.
46
Max
A one-year-old child unmans me. I hear her sweet voice, calling out da-da, as her chubby, little legs stumble to me, her hands opened wide and my heart bursts into a thousand pieces. I reach down to her, but my legs give out, and I drop down onto the sandy ground beneath, wrapping my arms around her and holding her to me. Tears sting my eyes, and I don’t worry about stopping them. I inhale deeply, taking in a mixture of the ocean’s salt air and the sweet smell of baby. My baby.
I thought I was prepared to meet her. Then she called me daddy…does she know me? How is that even possible? She squirms against my tight hold, so I let her go slightly, looking down at her little face. I wanted her to look like her mom, and I can see parts of Tess in her, but the truth is she looks like me. Her little hand slaps at my nose, and she laughs again.
“Da-Da! Da-Da!”
“She uh…doesn’t know many words yet,” Tess says, and her voice is gruff. Our eyes connect, and she has the same tears in hers that I do.
“How…” I clear my throat and try again when I can’t manage to get the words out the first time. “How does she know that I’m…”
I can’t finish the question. It’s just too big. I’m almost afraid of the answer.
Tess stands up, I can’t. I just sit there holding my daughter in my hands, feeling as if I’m drowning.
She comes to sit beside us and her sweet strawberry scent, a scent I’ve dreamed of and imagined for over a year and a half, closes around me and combines with that of the baby’s and feeling of rightness comes over me. A feeling of being right where I’m supposed to be. A feeling of being home.
“I have a picture of you. I keep it in a frame in Maddy’s room. Every night, after story time, we uh; we tell daddy goodnight.”
“Da-Da!” Maddy says, on cute her little hand slapping against my cheek.
“That’s right, baby, I am. I’m your daddy.” I say, and the words settle inside of me. I kiss her forehead again and hold her close for a second. I look over at the woman I love. The woman I’ve put through hell. The woman who despite everything has given me two of the most precious gifts in the world. Not only did she give me a child, she also taught that child who I was, even when I couldn’t be here—even when I pushed her away.