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Saylor sat next to me at the table, drawing while I drank my morning coffee and watched Holden mess around under the sink. He came up for air and looked over at the paper my daughter was sketching on.
“Did she just draw what I think she did?” he asked.
I looked over to find my three-year-old had doodled something that looked suspiciously like a penis with eyes…and tentacles.
“What is that, Saylor?” I asked.
“That’s you, Daddy,” she proclaimed.
“Sounds about right.” Holden laughed.
Saylor loved to draw, loved art in general. Even at the young age of three, it was evident. Her appreciation of art was one of the reasons I’d wanted to surprise her with a tattoo in her honor. That plan had certainly gone to hell. Which reminds me…
I turned to Holden. “Hey, what do you know about the girl who rents the tattoo shop space downstairs? Billie?”
“You haven’t met her?”
I shook my head. “Oh, I met her alright.”
“What happened?”
I gave Holden the CliffsNotes version of what I’d witnessed at the shop last night—or at least what I’d been able to decipher from the circus happening around me before I left.
“Shit. I can’t blame her for going apeshit on the guy. Pretty brilliant set-up.”
I chuckled. “I have to admit, it was—even if I got caught in the crossfire.”
“But I’m telling you…” He pointed a wrench toward me. “She’s cool as shit. You most definitely caught her at a bad time.”
“Yeah, well, she should’ve treated a customer with respect, even if she was having a bad day.”
“What was her reaction after you told her you owned the building?”
“She looked shocked, but not enough to apologize. Anyway, I bolted out of there before she had the chance to say much else.”
“I wanna go to Mommy class!” Saylor interrupted.
“Mommy class” was a Mommy and Me class I took her to once a week. I was the only adult male participant, but thankfully they welcomed us with open arms, despite the fact that there was no Mommy in the picture. Saylor was old enough to know it was odd she didn’t have a mother around, but not quite old enough to have any hang-ups about it. I knew it was only a matter of time, but for now, I was enough. “Daddy is my mommy,” she would say. I dreaded the day she started grilling me for answers about why her mother didn’t want to be a part of her life. Until then, I was thankful she never asked to know more. She accepted my generic explanations like, “Your mother is not able to be with us. She has some things she has to work on in life that we’re not meant to understand right now.”
I looked down at my phone. “We still have some time before class. We gotta get you cleaned up first. You have donut frosting all over your face. No wonder you love Uncle Holden. He’s always bringing you sugary crap.”
He shrugged. “I know she loves donuts. I can’t resist.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to bring them every time you come. I’m trying to teach her healthy habits.”
“Oh, healthy like we were?” He scoffed. “Do you not remember all those damn trips to the corner store for candy? We’re lucky we still have teeth.”
Saylor flashed a big smile, displaying her little teeth. I was already bracing for the day they started falling out. I knew I wasn’t gonna handle her growing up very well.
Holden patted my daughter’s head. “If Uncle Holden ever gets his big break, I’m gonna buy a whole donut shop and name it after you.”
I stood and carried my coffee cup to the sink. “We’ve got to start getting ready. You sticking around while we’re out?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna take me a while to fix this.”
“Alright, don’t kill yourself. It’s not a big deal if you have to come back tomorrow. It’s just a leaky faucet.”
“It’s gonna drive me nuts if I can’t figure this shit out. You know that.”
“Well, better you than me.” I laughed.
***
We were fifteen minutes late to the “Manhattan Moms of Girls” weekly meetup. Half of the heads in the room turned our direction when we walked in, but their faces were friendly. Everyone treated me like one of the girls here. Except for the fact that occasionally, the women would flirt with me. Even the married ones.
“Hey, Colby,” one of them shouted from across the room.
I smiled over at Lara Nicholson, a single mother in the bunch. She was separated from her husband, and they shared custody of their daughter, Maddie. Lara had often suggested we get our daughters together for a playdate. I got the impression it was really me she wanted to play with, given how persistent she was. I wasn’t feeling it, though. I hadn’t really been feeling much of anything lately. I went on the occasional date, but I was way more selective now that I was a father. I sure as hell didn’t want to bring a woman around my daughter unless that person turned out to be exceptional. And given that Saylor had come into this world through an accidental pregnancy, I was now paranoid of history repeating itself.
