The first three years of Josephine’s life were a blur. I forgot how exhausting this stage is, especially on my own. But if I could do it once, then I can do it again for Josephine’s little brothers.
I’ll show ImNoAngel just how wrong she is about me.
The blaring alarm on my phone startles Sebastian, Benjamin, and me awake. At first, I’m confused, waking from my prone position on the beige, carpeted floor of the nursery. “Sorry to wake you, buddy,” I tell Benjamin when he rolls onto his back in his oak crib, kicking his feet in his sleep sack, scattering four of the ten different brands of pacifiers I had purchased, hoping he liked at least one. He’s so adorably bald, as Josephine and I were at his age.
My back aches like the dickens when I sit up, and my eyes are bleary from lack of sleep. It took another two hours to get the boys settled after we got home. I swipe my alarm off, groaning when I look at the time. At least I got five hours of sleep, broken or not. Without it I’d really be up the creek without a paddle before I have to get ready for work. It could be worse.
“Good morning, Sebastian. How’d you sleep?” I ask when he sits up, yawning wide enough to crack his jaw. Hopefully better than me.
Sebastian blinks his large, light-brown eyes with beautiful, long lashes. Then his face falls, tears welling along his bottom lash line. “I want Mommy.”
I knee walk to his bed. “I know, buddy. I’m so sorry she can’t be here.”
When I reach for him, he lunges into the corner, clutching a stuffed elephant that came home with him. “Mommy! I want Mommy!”
He’s breaking my heart, and I don’t know what to say, other than to keep telling him how sorry I am.
“Daddy?” Josephine walks into the room, rubbing her eyes.
I sweep her into a hug, loving that I can count on her to be happy to see me, as I always am to see her—an actual angel in looks and spirit.
“You stink,” she says, pushing away from me.
I catch a whiff of my armpits, and it just about knocks me over. I never did grab that shower last night, and now all the kids are awake. “Oh, geez. Sorry.” ImNoAngel hadn’t been lying. I reek.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask Josephine to watch the boys while I sneak away for a few minutes to shower, but I shut my mouth. If I’m going to do better, it starts now by not dumping my parenting responsibilities onto my child. I ease up off the floor with the groan of an old man as I consider what to do, lifting Benjamin from the crib. I hadn’t changed a diaper in close to eight years, but I think I got the hang of it again when the fresh diaper doesn’t immediately slip down Benjamin’s adorably chubby legs. Sebastian is a different story. He fights me tooth and nail when I try to change his potty training pants. I get it. I wouldn’t want a stranger manhandling me, even if it were for my own good.
After a quick breakfast of Pop-Tarts for Sebastian and Josephine, a bottle and sliced banana for Benjamin, I get readyto shower. Guilt rips through my chest as I leave Benjamin crying in the travel crib I’ve set up in my bedroom, within view of the open bathroom door. I’d leave Sebastian with him if I could trust that he wouldn’t climb out and make a run for it. While Josephine gets herself ready for school, I want to break down and cry when I have to wrangle Sebastian into the glass stall with me, both wearing swim trunks, so I can keep an eye on him while I shower and shave. At least he won’t show up on his first day at preschool smelling as bad as I did last night.
Actually, I’m starting to feel pretty good. Everything goes well when we walk Josephine into her new fifth-grade classroom at our neighborhood elementary school. Even the drive to the boys’ learning academy goes smoothly. I’d toured the academy after flying back from Missouri, where Lindsay and her husband, Nathaniel, had been living, to arrange childcare for Sebastian and Benjamin before I was legally granted custody. It was my only saving grace, giving me a thin margin of time to prepare as best as I could for their arrival.
None of the academy employees wrinkle their noses when I usher Sebastian ahead of me into the schoolhouse-shaped building, complete with a bell tower on top. Murals of loping animals and small children playing are painted along the hallways. No one gives me disapproving looks either, when Sebastian screams his head off and throws himself on the ground. It’s a small comfort that he’s not the only one in tears—many of the parents are too, at the thought of leaving their kids. Surprisingly, I am as well. I hate to see Sebastian so upset and leave him with even more strangers. If I thought my world was knocked off kilter with his parents’ passing, it has to be exponentially worse for him, especially since he’s too young to understand thewhyof it all.
Sebastian’s teacher gives me a sympathetic smile when shegreets us. “Hi, Sebastian. I’m Mrs. Hassan. Would you like to meet your new friends?”
Sebastian shakes his head vigorously, but after a few more soft-spoken questions from Mrs. Hassan, he finally allows his teacher to take his hand and lead him into the brightly lit classroom to a cozy reading corner with soft pillows and blankets. Benjamin, however, is all gummy smiles, showing off his tiny, adorable two front teeth, and happily reaches for his teacher, Mrs. Bertrand. I hand over his diaper bag to Ms. Coffey, Mrs. Bertrand’s co-teacher. It’s stuffed to the gills with all the brands of formula and pacifiers to continue testing which ones Benjamin likes. The tiny woman nearly collapses under the weight.
At the exit, I linger, looking back down the hallways. I’ve only had the boys for two, going on three days, yet it’s striking how attached I already am—leaving a little piece of my heart with my new sons as I head to work.Sons.How strange that I’m suddenly the dad to three children. One biological, two by tragedy, but all equally mine. I’m counting down the hours until I can pick up Josephine and the boys, take them home, and figure out this new life together.
My smile, though tired, is genuine when I get to work. An assistant, Barbara, greets me at the firm’s glass lobby doors of the standalone brick building. My new boss, Mr. Fischer, and I had spoken during my several rounds of Zoom interviews, and I’m looking forward to finally meeting him in person. My mood sinks with dread when I step inside Mr. Fischer’s office, and the last woman I want to see is the first to notice me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” ImNoAngel says, standing beside Mr. Fischer, seated behind his desk. “Stalker much?”
Chapter Three
Autumn
I reach for the bear spray in my purse, only to remember I left my bag in the bottom drawer of my desk. The man before me is nearly unrecognizable from the grimy one I met last night. His golden-blond hair is shiny and tidily combed, his jaw clean-shaven and sharply defined, looking mighty fine in his navy blue, three-piece suit.
BigDawg12kn goes white as a sheet and hurries forward, reaching for Dad’s hand. “Mr. Fischer. I promise I’m not a stalker.”
Dad’s bushy, light gray brows pull together when he stands from his rolling desk chair, letting BigDawg12kn’s hand hover in the air for a beat before finally accepting his handshake. “Mr. Woods,” Dad says. “What’s this about stalking my daughter?”
“You’re related?” He squeezes his eyes shut briefly, clutching the strap of the leather laptop bag hanging from his shoulder.
“Yes,” Dad says slowly, cutting me a look before drawingto his six-foot-four height, a few inches taller and easily twice the width of my stalker. Dad tugs on my elbow to pull me into his side. “This is my youngest daughter, Autumn Fischer. She interned over the summer and is now an Associate Advisor.”
“And you would be?” I ask BigDawg12kn, tipping my head with a smirk.
