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It’s overwhelming.
In theory, the idea of being a father seems simple, even though everyone knows it’s not so simple – you have a kid, take them places, help with homework, teach them right from wrong, foster their interests, feed them, keep them alive. Maybe have some fun along the way.
But now it’s Lucy’s first week back at work after maternity leave and it’s Tim’s first day off alone with their daughter. He doesn’t think they’ll leave the house – they haven’t done much of that, actually, since they became parents and whenever he’s done it, it’s always a big ordeal that involves both of them tag teaming to make it run smoothly – and because they’ve always been good at tag teaming, it works. From their days in the shop chasing down suspects with a tap to the shoulder or a silent signal, now they exchange the baby and pass the diaper bag with similar ease.
But somehow in their chaotic haze of life with an infant (even several months in), they hadn’t remembered to pick up a new batch of food for Kojo, and he’s staring at Tim pitifully when his bowl is empty. He knows he’ll survive until Lucy comes home, that she could stop for food on the way.
Unless, of course, she gets pulled into something and comes home past Kojo’s dinner time, or after the pet store closes.
He could always whip him up some scrambled eggs, he supposes. But then he notices… they’re out of eggs, too.
They’ve been pretty good about keeping their daughter alive and well. Groceries and laundry and other tasks… not so much.
Tim decides he can do this. He can pack the diaper bag, load the car seat and drive the four blocks to the store that sells the only food that Kojo likes. He’s especially picky as he goes through this transition, still anxious about the crying baby in the house, and he only seems to want his favorite comfort food that’s only available online, or at the pet store.
(He thinks they really should set up an autoship. He’s been thinking that for weeks now, and yet…)
It’s literally less than ten minutes to the store.
Simple, right?
He imagines the tasks he and Lucy would share if she were here and they were getting ready to go out, and he’ll just do both parts. She would probably pack the diaper bag while he gets the baby ready. So, first he packs the diaper bag, then he changes the baby and dresses her for the outing.
Both jobs done. Check.
One of them would lock up the house, while the other settles the baby in the car. So, he sets her into her car seat carrier, then checks the windows and doors, makes sure there’s nothing for Kojo to get into, and sets the alarm as he heads to the garage with the car seat carrier in his hand.
This isn’t so bad.
As Tim hooks the car seat into the base, he checks the straps once, twice, three times. He even checks that the base is still secured correctly, even though they haven’t undone it, ever. He closes the door and heads to the driver’s side, then goes back to check the straps again and make sure they’re at chest level.
It’s fine, everything is fine. Check.
He resists the nagging urge to snap a photo of her in her car seat and text it to Lucy, asking if it looks good. He shakes his head. He knows he’s done it right. He’s done it plenty of times by now. He remembers the two of them obsessively pouring over car seat safety videos before she was born, and the first few times they went out.
But… just in case? He’s never buckled her in without Lucy there as a second set of eyes, ones that would correct any unintentional errors.
Or he could ask Angela?
Then he realizes he’s being ridiculous and both Lucy and Angela are at work doing far more important things in this city than double checking his car seat safety knowledge and it’s okay because he really is certain he’s done it right.
He gets in the car, turns it on and that’s when he realizes he forgot his phone in the house.
He can’t go without his phone, because what if there’s an emergency? It’s one thing, before, when it was just him. What if there’s an emergency with the baby? What if Lucy tries to reach them and worries?
It’s not like before, he can’t just run inside and grab it. You cannot leave a baby in a car unattended, even for less than a minute. Not even in your own garage in the cool winter weather. Even if it would take him thirty seconds, tops. No, he’s a cop, he knows the horrors that can go wrong. He preaches these safety habits to others. So he undoes his work, unsnaps the entire carrier and takes her inside with him, grabs his phone from the kitchen island while Kojo looks at him curiously, and repeats the process of setting the alarm, all without setting the carrier down. Then he returns to the car, snapping in the car seat and checking and double checking the buckles and the straps, even though he hasn’t even undone those.
Just in case, he reasons. Better safe than sorry, right?
Now ten minutes have passed since he even first walked out of the house. He could have been at the store by now. At the register, probably.
Drivers seem to be maniacal whenever his kid is in the car. Not that they’re doing anything different than usual. It’s just that suddenly they all seem to be speeding, weaving in and out of lanes, cutting everyone off, stopping abruptly. Every car is a threat. He noticed it on the drive home from the hospital but now – something is even more intimidating about it just being him in charge of their daughter’s well-being.
He resists the urge to honk at the guy who cuts them off, because he doesn’t dare incite an incident of road rage with an innocent child in the backseat. He can hear Lucy’s voice in his head. Just ignore him.
He glances back to see the baby’s reflection in the mirror facing her car seat. She’s wide awake, gurgling to herself, as if she has no idea her father’s every nerve is a light with anxiety.
In that quick glance, he can see Lucy in her. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly, what feature or mannerism, but he sees it. He sees it all the time. Lucy says he’s crazy, but knows he’s not. It’s clear their daughter takes after him, too – she has his eyes, no doubt. But it both mystifies and amazes him when he looks at this tiny little human that he can see Lucy so distinctly.
It kind of blows his mind that Lucy has this incalculable trust in him. She trusts him to take this child that she grew inside of her for nine months, felt aches and pains over, spent mornings – days – sick for, and endured a fifteen-hour labor and delivery with out into the world. Now she just hands her over and trusts him to take this kid – this tiny, small, helpless baby - into the world on his own.
He feels more vulnerable whenever he’s out with her, like someone could run by at any second and swipe her out of his arms, knock him out and take the carrier and run. He feels exposed walking around with the carrier, his hands busy and unable to defend either of them should anything happen.
He shakes his head as he makes a left turn and sees the store approach in his line of vision. People go out with their infants all the time, and they’re not cops. Everything is fine.
Once he arrives at the store, he mulls over parking spaces – which one is closest to the store, which one is the safest to get the baby in and out, which one is the safest to walk back to. How is he going to carry the bag of dog food and the baby, he suddenly wonders? He needs the chest carrier. He has never gotten her in it without Lucy’s assistance and though he’s got a pretty good handle on how it’s done with how many times he’s helped her get it on. But suddenly he doubts himself. What if he does it wrong, what if she falls, what if she isn’t secure?
Another ten minutes pass as he gets himself comfortable with this situation, hyperaware that he’s in a parking lot with a baby and he’s well aware of the statistics about the amount lot of crimes occur in such a location.
Finally, he gets inside the pet store.
He feels like everyone is staring at him, but he’s probably just being self-conscious because he’s worried that he’s got the carrier strapped on wrong or she’s missing a sock or he’s got spit up on his shirt.
Turns out, he’s not wrong.
They are staring at him.
Three separate women stop him while he’s in the store.
“Oh, she’s so sweet!” the first woman says, her are eyes what Lucy calls “heart eyes,” and suddenly he understands exactly what she’s trying to describe with that phrase. He takes the compliment and thanks her. “It’s so nice to see dads taking their kids out,” the woman adds with a hum as he heads off to the dog food aisle.
That’s where he runs into another woman, pondering the kibble choices. She’s so into her thoughts she seems surprised to see she’s not alone on the aisle anymore. She looks up and then does a double take when she notices he’s got a baby and chuckles to him. “Wow, look at that, a dad actually doing it on his own?” she teases with a nod of approval. “Call up my husband, please.”
Tim gives the appropriate polite laugh, then ventures to another aisle to wait out the woman because he’s not sure how to lift the food with the baby strapped to his chest and he’d prefer not to have an audience, especially one who seems to have commentary share. So instead they stand at the end of the aisle, looking at the lizards in their tanks. He thinks about a time when she’ll be old enough to actually appreciate looking at the animals in the pet store, but right now she’s just busy staring at his chest.
When they finally get to the register (after he had to still figure out how to bend down and lift the bag of food that had to be on the damn bottom shelf because, well, that’s nearly impossible with the baby strapped to his chest and Kojo is definitely not getting the value pack today) the cashier smiles at him. “Aww, what a cutie! The world could use more dads like you.”
He’s curious, now. “You don’t see a lot of dads bringing their kids into the store?”
Surely, his dad never did something like this. But times have changed, haven’t they?
The cashier laughs. “Honestly, not that often. I see dads with older kids. Usually it’s the moms with babies. But, I also see moms with babies and three or four other kids running amuck around her while their dad browses in the aquarium section and watches the fish.”
Tim just raises his eyebrows at this, the woman behind them in line laughs and mumbles tell me about it as he inserts his debit card into the slot. The baby whines, so he sways gently, because at least she hasn’t started crying yet and they’re almost free, they’ve almost made it.
He glances at his watch, realizes she’s probably hungry already because this outing has taken far longer than he’d ever imagined. It’s unfortunate newborns don’t come with instructions.
They get to the car, but now he’s unsure how to unload the food from the cart (that the cashier happily helped him load the bag of kibble into) and put the baby in the car – if he puts the baby in first, how can he return the cart? No, he has to put the food in first, return the cart, then put her into her car seat. Which means he has to figure out how to bend over lift the food with her on his chest, because he has to bend over to pull it from the cart and…
He could put her into the car seat, load the kibble, then take the car seat with him to the cart return. Yes, that makes sense.
Finally, he loads her in but in a moment of haste just abandons the cart in the vacant parking space next to him knowing he’s being inconsiderate but, well – he’s in survival mode right now.
This is absolutely nuts.
It has to get easier.
Right?
It will. It will get easier. One day she’ll be able to walk.
He suddenly has visions of trying to keep track of a tiny toddler on her own two feet wanting to touch everything in the store, ready to eat dog treats and play with cat toys.
Well, one day she’ll be a reasonable age to understand to stay close and to listen to directions, he reasons.
But what if they have more kids by then? All this, again, with a mobile child at his side to keep track of, too?
The older one can help, he thinks. Maybe? They should put a good few years between her and her first sibling.
It might never get easier.
He thinks about his mom, his dad. How he sees it differently now. How his mom must have felt when his dad treated her children the way he did. To have her husband destroy her trust to care for their children with love and respect. He wonders how in the world his father could have ever hit him, without any remorse. How he could have done that to his flesh and blood, his children that he’s supposed to love like this. How he could have done that to his wife, the person who was supposed to be able to trust him whole heartedly.
It’s intense, how it feels to be responsible for someone else. Every choice he makes, he’s responsible for his daughter’s safety. Every choice he makes has to be one he can live with. He has to make a choice that won’t let him look back one day and say If only I had… or I knew I shouldn’t have…
But not only that, he’s responsible for making sure Lucy’s child comes home to her, too. It’s one thing to be responsible for your child, living with every choice you make, but at the same time it’s also someone else’s child you’re entrusted with. You have to make the choice they can live with, too.
They finally arrive home, Tim sighing in relief as the garage door closes behind them, and Kojo is miffed that they left and refuses the food, anyway.
Figures.
When Lucy gets home that evening – after the store would have closed, he notes, so he feels vindicated even though Kojo has been sleeping for hours and hasn’t stirred to touch his food – he tells her the story as he pours them each a glass of wine, the glass they have to time just right before she’s going to need to feed the baby again.
“So much for a quiet day in,” Lucy jokes as he tells her about their adventure. “Is that wine for me, or for you?” she teases.
Tim mumbles something. “It’s terrifying. And you were just at work, not a care in the world about what I was doing with our child. How can you not sit there all day not wondering what the hell I’m doing?”
Lucy chuckles softly. “Well, she’s your kid, too.”
“I know but-” he doesn’t know how to explain it, this avalanche of thoughts he’s had all day. “She’s always ours but she was always with you, before she was born, these past few months. Now you just feel comfortable enough to… hand her off to me.”
Lucy laughs. “Tim, you are her father.”
“It took us ten minutes to get from the house, out of the garage, into the street!”
“And yet, you both lived to tell the tale.”
“Barely.”
Lucy smiles at him fondly. “You’re a good dad. You have it just as together as I do. And that’s not me saying I have it together. I’m saying we’re both learning and I’m just as lost sometimes as you felt today. Sometimes I feel the same way, you know? That you just… trust me to know what I’m doing. I bet you didn’t sit at work wondering if I was doing everything right when I was on maternity leave?” she points out and he shrugs.
“No, but…”
“You’re not some random stranger I found on the street,” she jokes, but her voice is laced with sincerity. “You’re the person I chose to spend my life with because I trust you and have confidence in you.”
Tim hums his understanding. “Do you know how many comments people made about how great it is a dad is taking his kid to the store?”
“Mmm,” she hums her understanding. “The patriarchy for you.”
“It’s insulting, actually. Has anyone ever told you you’re a good mom for taking your kid to the store with you? Has a random guy come up to you in the store and said you should talk to his wife about taking the baby out on her own?”
“No,” Lucy snorts. “But I’m not surprised. It’s just expected that moms do that. Dads do the same thing and suddenly they’re showered with praise. It’s how the world works.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“The stories I hear,” Lucy says. “So many women don’t trust the dads to do anything. They have to call and check in on them, leave explicit directions, remind them about everything. And I just think, every time, thank God I don’t have that. Y’know, not everyone can have a Tim Bradford to raise children with – which, sorry not sorry because I don’t regret that I took him for myself.”
He blushes a little at the compliment. “It’s just… when I’m with her it’s like there’s always a little piece of you with me that I’m responsible for, too.”
“Believe me, I get it,” Lucy agrees. “For nine months I felt that in every move I made.”
“Is it ever going to get easier?” he ponders, knowing the answer.
“I don’t think so, no,” Lucy says with a laugh. “Now we worry because she’s so tiny. Then we worry about what she does at school all day, when she’s got issues with other kids or a teacher she doesn’t like or if she’s having trouble in class. Then we’ll worry when she’s old enough to start making her own choices in where she goes and who she hangs out with. Eventually she’ll grow up and have her own life that we’ll have no control over.” Tim sighs. “And add one or two more kids into the mix, we’ll have endless things to worry about.”
“About that,” he says. “I was thinking we need at least a four-year age gap.”
“Okay, babe,” she says with a laugh.
“You’re patronizing me.”
“I’m just saying, I’m not getting younger by the day over here.”
“Neither am I,” he retorts, and he starts doing math in his head, calculating his own age in the future. “Shoot, maybe you’re right.”
Lucy gives him a little smirk. “We fight off serial killers, we take down drug dealers… we can raise a few kids.”
“I’m starting to think the criminals are easier.”
She laughs. “It’ll get easier. We’re just out of our element right now until we get the experience and build the muscle memory. Everything’s hard when you start. Actually, it’s like being a rookie all over again. Boot.”
He rolls his eyes and throws the dishtowel at her. “You’re so…”
“I’m so what?” she teases, eyes sparkling.
“Wonderful and the mother of my child and I love you.”
“Mmhmm, that’s what I thought,” she teases as she throws the towel back at him with a laugh.
(And a few months later when he he’s able to load the baby into the car with ease, run into the grocery store, balancing a baby and the groceries like an art, he realizes it does get easier. Just like anything, you learn. It becomes second nature.
Until the day there’s two of them.
And then the day there’s three.)