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“Arie, I need you to wake up. I need you to confirm you’re with me. We need to have a talk.”
I shake my head a little, trying to wiggle loose the cobwebs of sleep. “Yes, I’m awake. What is it?”
“Arie…I have something very important to tell you. You don’t have pancreatic cancer.”
For a second, all of the blood in my body stops flowing. “I… what?”
“I’m going to be straight with you, Arie. If you had pancreatic cancer, you would have been dead by now. So, I’ve been running some tests and looking through all of your scans and charts. I believe you have something called intestinal ischemia, or more specifically, acute mesenteric artery ischemia. Basically, you have blood clots all through your intestines, causing blockages. It has all the same symptoms of pancreatic cancer, but it takes a lot longer to do you in. You had a mass in your pancreas, but once that was removed, that part of your illness was all resolved.”
I try to sit up, but the pain stops me, so I just prop myself on the pillow and reach out for Doctor Gould’s arm. “What
does this mean? Am I still going to die? Is there a way to treat it?”
“We’re going to have to do surgery to confirm, and if I’m right, we’ll have to remove the clots, and possibly remove damaged sections of your intestine. You may have to be on medications to prevent infections, and future clots from forming again. But Arie… if this is the answer, then you won’t just live. You’re going to feel 99% better again in less than a month.”
She barely finishes her sentence before I burst into tears. I never imagined a future in which I’d be alive, let alone feel normal again. The concept is so overwhelming I can’t even process it. A flood of thoughts and emotions overtake me all at once, and then, two thoughts win out.
Oh god… the loan sharks.
Oh god… my Chloe.
Pierce
New York City, Present Day
I hear the sound of a crash from the kitchen, then a scream, and I almost knock over my laptop trying to scramble up to my feet from the couch. The last time I saw Chloe, she was sitting safely in the confines of a playpen just on the other side of the living room, playing happily with her blocks. I took my eyes off her long enough to answer some emails from the office, and apparently, that was all she needed to jimmy open the lock on the playpen gate and toddle her way into the kitchen. By the time I get to her only seconds later, I find her on the floor, covered in the flour and sugar she has somehow knocked off the counter by yanking down a dish towel. She looks up at me with a grin, and I have to stifle down every ounce of exasperation I’m feeling at having to give her a bath for the third time today.
If it isn’t already clear, I have no idea what I’m doing. In fact, I have less than no idea. Sometimes, I think I might have been reverse engineered to the point I am incapable of taking care of a child. On the day the lawyer dropped Chloe off at the office, I’d called my mother to come help. Of course, little did she know, I had intended to hand her Chloe and request that she watch her. Just until she was eighteen or so. Mom had walked in my office, cooed and fussed over what a beautiful baby Chloe was, said how happy she was to have a grandchild, and then smacked me across the back of the head with a well-manicured hand.
“You made this mess. You figure it out. I’m not a babysitter. And I’ve already raised two children. I’m happy to be a grandparent, but you’re the father.”
Dad had not only backed her up, but made it crystal clear that anything other than welcoming my child into the family with open eyes was going to be a PR nightmare (thanks, Dad). So that night, Dad had all my things moved over to a penthouse apartment owned by the company in a newly-renovated high-rise in midtown, bought me a bunch of baby stuff I had no clue how to use, shook my hand, and told me, “Good luck, son! See you at work tomorrow. Be sure to utilize our fabulous company daycare program!”
Seriously. Thanks, Dad.
I wish I could say I feel like Chloe’s father, that there was some kind of instantaneous bond and I knew she was mine from the moment I saw her. But the truth is, sometimes I still feel like I’m living with a tiny roommate who screams at me for food and wakes me up in the middle night for no reason. Of course, the family insisted on a blood test, which unequivocally confirmed she is mine, but there are days when I look at her and she feels like a stranger.
Maybe if I’d had time to adjust to the idea of being a father. But as it stands, she may as well have been left on my doorstep in a basket. I know things will change, maybe even soon, but right now? Being a single dad sucks. After work, all I want is a nap, a beer, and five minutes to myself to watch a football game. Instead, I have this tiny creature literally crawling into my lap and biting me. Which she has done. Several times.
As I get Chloe into the bath and begin rinsing the partially-formed cake batter out of her curly blonde tendrils, my phone starts ringing. I see it’s my mother and put it on speaker.
“Hello, Pierce? It’s your mother, Carol.”
Why does she announce herself like we’ve never met before? Every damn time.
“I know who you are, Mother. What is it? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Well, darling, Your father and I have decided that you are spreading yourself too thin and need some help with Chloe. We’ve placed inquiries with a local agency about hiring someone to come in and watch her nights and weekends, just at first on a trial basis. Then maybe full time if you all get on well enough. Your father thinks it’s a little unseemly for his grandchild to be using the free employee daycare, though I think he’s being a proper snob about it.”
“When isn’t dad a snob?” I ask as Chloe starts blowing bubbles off the top of the bath water, making herself laugh hysterically. “He told me to use the daycare, you know.”
“You know him. He doesn’t quite know what to say when it comes to Chloe.”
“No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know much of anything about how to interact with his kids, let alone his grandchild.” I sigh and lean back in my chair. The weight of the world seems to fall on me. The daycare at work is good, and my parents are in my shit, complicating things again. I guess I’m the one who had the kid. And the shitty grades in college. And the naked arrest. I bite my lip.
“Fair enough, poppet. You may be getting some calls from applicants for the job so just make sure to answer your phone. And hire someone quickly. Your father says things are about to get even busier at the office now that you have this government contract.”
I roll my eyes. “Is there anything dad doesn’t tell you? That was supposed to be entirely confidential.”
