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Warner fell over, suddenly losing his balance for no reason at all.
“Hey, I’ve got you, big guy,” Noah said, pulling his son upright again. “Just a wobble, right?” Warner offered Noah a gummy grin with two little front teeth showing, and Noah grinned, taking his phone out to take a photo.
“Daddy, look!” Ben said and went down the slide when I looked up, his hands in the air. “Did you see it? Did you see how fast I went?”
“Faster than the speed of light,” I said. “Can you do it again?”
“Yeah!” Ben ran to the ladder and climbed up again. He was getting so big.
“She’s not,” I answered Noah’s question. “At first, I was bitter as fuck about it. I mean, who the hell does that? Now that we’re almost a decade down the line, I no longer have such a problem with it. It’s better that way.”
“She could at least help,” Noah pointed out.
“Yeah, that would have been nice,” I said. “I just keep telling myself that if she didn’t want Ben, it’s better that she’s not around to remind him of that, you know?”
“What do you tell him when he asks about Sabrina? Does he?”
I nodded. “I thought about that long and hard when I enrolled him in a play group the first time. Kids talk, and they compare each other. These days, families come in all shapes and sizes––it’s not like it used to be back in the day when divorce was frowned upon, and couples were predictable. It’s still a thing when his friends have moms, and he doesn’t. I’ve always been honest with him, however. I told him it didn’t work out between me and her, and she decided to live the life she needed to live while I decided to live mine. Ours.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“I can’t lie to him,” I said with a shrug. “It’s not fair. Lying to kids is where things go wrong. Eventually, he would find out the truth, which would make me the bad guy in his eyes. I don’t want that.”
Noah nodded. Warner grabbed a toy and stuck it in his mouth, leaving long strings of slime all over it. Noah wiped up the drool with practiced ease. Seeing my friend turn from a playboy to a father was cool. He looked like he’d been made for this all along.
“You should find someone,” Noah said. “Not just a date, something serious.”
“Who would want something serious with me? I have a full life. I can’t create something from scratch.”
“Yeah, but you’ll be open about it and create something beautiful.”
Noah was right, of course. It just wasn’t that simple. I could date someone and get serious, sure. I was thirty-one, and I wanted to settle down more and more. Maybe even give Ben a sibling or two. The choices I made didn’t just affect me, though. They would affect Ben, too, and anyone I was with would put not only my heart at risk but Ben’s heart as well. What if things went wrong? The way we were, just the two of us, worked for me. It was safe, it was predictable, and even though I would have wished for my life to be different, I wasn’t going to take the leap into the unknown when it wasn’t necessary.
I’d learned a long time ago that routine and stability were important to a kid. I wanted Ben to grow up as balanced as possible. The only way to do that was to keep the variables in our lives to a minimum.
Bringing a woman into our lives now disrupts the flow of things, and that was just stupid when things were going as well as they were.
Small things were tough, of course, but we managed just fine on our own.
“I think, for now, I’m going to settle for getting a nanny. It’s already a big change, and we’re taking it one step at a time. I’m freeing some time up for myself and taking the pressure off so that when we spend time together, I can be fully present with Ben. Right now, when I’m working, I feel like I should be with him, and when I’m with him, I feel like I should be working.”
Noah nodded. “I think it’s a good call. One step at a time, like you said. After taking care of that part, you can focus on the next part. Just don’t rule out dating again, okay? I know Sabrina was a total bitch, and what she did, turned your whole life upside down, but that doesn’t mean all women are like that. After being with so many women I’d lost count, I found my happily ever after, and I’m convinced that others can, too.”
“A true believer, huh?” I laughed.
“Hey, if it can happen to me when I was practically a write-off, it can happen to anyone.”
I snorted. “You weren’t a write-off.”
“I was a mess. My life was a disaster.”
Maybe Noah was right. Maybe there was a happy ending for all of us. It just looked different for different people. I would figure out what mine was, eventually. I just had to stop comparing my life to everyone else’s. All it did was upset me, make me jealous, and make me feel like I’d missed out.
“Daddy, are you looking?” Ben asked.
“I’m watching,” I said.
Ben swung across the monkey bars, his lips pursed in concentration as he swung from one bar to the other. When he reached the other side, he looked at me with pride.
