“First, today is Friday. So, it’s the weekend,” she starts counting her reasons with her fingers. “The weekend means time to rest from a long week.”
“Okay, that’s one.” We still have to be up early tomorrow. I have to drop her off at Grandma’s again and go to school for practice.
“Two…” she starts, “I put away all of my toys and my room is clean.”
“Clean room, I like that. What’s the final reason?”
She gives me her winning smile. “Because you love me.” That one wouldn’t win her a real debate, but it works on me every time.
I laugh. “This is true, but that’s not a real reason to watch a movie.”
“Yes, it is!”
“I’ll let you get away with it this time,” I tell her, knowing very well I’ll let her get away with that one always.
She kisses me on the cheek. “Thanks, Daddy. I’ll be down soon.”
“What do you want for dinner?”
“Can I have mac and cheese?” I knew she was going to say that. I was so sure of it that the mac and cheese is already in the oven.
“Of course you can, Ari.”
“You’re the best dad in the whole wide world,” she tells me. I doubt that, but I’m definitely trying to be the best father I can be to her. I’ll do anything for this girl. She’s my world.
She starts walking away but, before she disappears from my sight, I ask her one more question. “What movie do you want to watch?” I throw a prayer that the answer isn’t what I think it will be.
“Moana please,” she says, exactly what I feared she would.
“Are you sure?” I ask her, but what I want to say is, do you really want to watch this movie for the tenth straight weekend in a row?
She nods excitedly. “I love Moana.”
“Okay, Moana it is,” I give in. When it comes to Ari, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make her happy. Nothing I wouldn’t do to see the smile on her face that makes all my mistakes okay.
“I’ll be back soon!” she says, disappearing down the hall. While I wait, I start setting up the kitchen table.
Ten minutes later, my phone rings. I fish it out of my back pocket and my mood instantly sours when I look at the caller ID. Katie’s calling.
Katie is Ari’s mom, or at least the woman who gave birth to her. We were never really together. We had one messy night after I’d gotten drunk out of my mind and saw her at a party. She walked up to me, brushed her hands by mine, and led me to an empty room. I gave in. She was a pretty girl and I was going through a rough time.
It was one night of sex that changed my life.
I’d like to think it changed it for the better, I mean, I have Ari, but it also caused some chaos in the process.
I think about not picking up the call but knowing that won’t do anything to keep her away, I answer it instead, hoping the sooner I talk to her the faster I can hang up.
“Hi, are you there?” she says the moment I put the phone to my ear.
“What do you want?” I ask instantly, not hiding my lack of desire to speak with her. Whenever she calls it’s never to see how Ari is doing. It’s always about something else. Something to do with her.
“So, I’m having a bit of a tough time,” she starts and I can instantly tell where this is going.
“What do you need?” I ask anyway.
“My parents cut me off…” she starts and I roll my eyes. It’s always the same story with her.
A dry chuckle escapes me. “And?” I’ve never liked Katie’s parents. They never liked me either. When Katie realized she was pregnant with my child, her parents gave her an ultimatum. She could either get rid of ‘it’ or lose her millions of dollars in inheritance.
She chose to have Ari and I’m so glad she did because this little girl is my everything. I owe Katie for making that choice and only that. Because when Katie realized that her parents were serious about taking away her millions of dollars, memberships to country clubs, and all the luxuries she’d grown up with, she wished she had chosen differently.
I could see regret painted on her face.
At first, I felt bad for Katie and her family outing her. But then, one day I woke up to the doorbell. She stood on the other side of my door with tear stains in her eyes and my daughter in her arms.
That’s when she changed her choice.
She ‘got rid of the kid’ in the only way she could now.
“I can’t do this…” she said to me as she cried uncontrollably. I wondered what she was referring to. I scanned to make sure she was okay, that no one was following her. That she wasn’t hurt.
“Can’t do what?” I asked, taking Ari from her hands so that she didn’t get sick from being outside in the freezing cold.
“I don’t want to be poor. I don’t want this life. I didn’t ask for it.”
“Neither one of us asked for it.” But we were both reckless.
“But you… you didn’t lose anything, and I’m losing everything,” she replied. Katie didn’t know me at all. I guess she thought because my parents weren’t taking away the millions of dollars we never had, that our one night hadn’t affected my life too. She couldn’t be more wrong. I lost more than anything she could ever gain with money.
“I want my old life back,” Katie said as she began crying uncontrollably. I wanted to understand her. I wanted to feel bad for her, but with my daughter in my arms, I couldn’t. I couldn’t empathize with her not wanting our child because she wanted all the money instead. That she missed the money more than she loved our kid was something I couldn’t understand.
I didn’t blame her for thinking about her old life. I thought about mine too. I wanted the girl I had to let go because I didn’t want to ruin her. Didn’t want her to be disappointed in me. Or worse, to stay with me. I didn’t deserve her. I wanted a lot of things, but I had new priorities. I had a daughter now and I needed to be there for her more than anything. Katie refused to do that.
“We can’t just go back to where things were,” I told her, trying to make her see reason.
“You might not be able to, but I can.” Those were the words she said to me before she walked away from our lives.
She didn’t call for a year. A whole year we didn’t hear from her while she was off on her own. Katie didn’t bother to check up on her daughter. She missed out, by choice, on her daughter’s first steps, first words, first birthday.
I tried to call her. Tried to go to her parent’s house and make sure she was okay. Her parents gleefully showed me pictures of Katie on a boat with some friends in what they told me was Mexico. I walked away from that house that day and lost all respect for her. I focused all my attention on my daughter. I wasn’t going to abandon Ari like Katie had. I promised to be a mom and dad for her.
“Do you think you could send me some money?” Katie’s voice brings me back to the present.
I bite my tongue so I don’t say what I want to. “Why would I do that?” I say my words low enough for no one else to hear. Whatever money I do have, I need to use to secure my daughter’s future, not fund her absentee mother’s vacations.