Chapter Text
Being a first-time dad is hard, especially when you're doing it alone. Ethan's read his fair share of parenting books and passive aggressive blog posts, talked to plenty of doctors, watched plenty of tutorials. He likes to think he's amassed a pretty good amount of knowledge. He knows the terminology, knows the milestones. He's got a rough outline of fatherhood in his head that he consults if he starts to worry too much.
But nothing can really, fully prepare him for when Rosemary arrives.
It's a whole other world to be looking into her eyes, holding her against him as she reaches up to touch his face. He puts his hand ever so lightly on her chest, and it’s all he can do to keep from crying when he feels the soft drumming of her heartbeat. She's so different from all the articles and the videos and the diagrams, so much more; she's his baby. His Rose.
His Rose who is very opinionated, he comes to find. She can tell when there's a single degree of variance in temperature with her formula, and apparently knows the difference between brands, too. She's got standards, he supposes. He can't blame her, even if it does make his bank account hurt a little more when he realizes she won't stand for the generic kind.
No sooner does she make the switch to soft foods than she becomes a fruit and vegetable aficionado. Peas are always sent flying across the room, and Ethan can't even be mad when he has to clean them up because, honestly, he feels the same way about them. But peaches, now they're the star of the show; he's lost track of how many emergency trips to the store they've done to restock. The cashiers probably see him more than their own families at this point, but hey, at least they get to see the world's cutest baby at the same time—that is, if they can overlook the world's tiredest father holding her car seat.
She's also very particular when it comes to her toys, her blankets, her pacifier, and just about any other thing that gets introduced to her. Don't even get him started on sleeping habits—if you can even call sleeping a “habit” of hers; she's something of a night owl. That makes two of them.
It's all expected, of course, but that doesn't mean it's any less difficult. All the books in the world couldn't have prepared him for just how exhausted he gets, or how many questions he can't seem to find the answers to. He loves learning new things, loves learning who Rose is, what she likes, what she doesn't, but a little reassurance that he's doing this right would be nice, too.
So during he and Rose’s next late night fruit excursion, when he comes across an ad for a class offering to teach the essentials of parenting—and set him up with some people who are in the same boat—he wastes no time in signing the two of them up for the next session.
“Maybe we'll make some friends,” he offers as he places her seat back into the car, but looking down he sees she's fast asleep. He chuckles. “Glad to see we're both equally excited about this.”
***
The day of the class comes around much quicker than Ethan had hoped. He’d barely had enough time to prepare himself for the situation, all the people, the noise, the teacher who can probably just tell he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s still trying to talk himself into it as he walks into the building. Rose occupies herself with the collar of his shirt, gnawing on it from where she’s secured against his chest, and he thinks maybe it’s not that stressful if even she isn’t bothered.
The majority of the class are couples, but there’s a few single people who smile at him when he enters the room, and it puts him a little more at ease. That is, until he notices that almost everyone else is either holding their kids or have them sitting in their laps, and oh god, what if the way he’s carrying her isn’t good? What if it’s frowned upon by everybody else and now he looks like a bad father? His hands begin to shake as he scans the room for an open seat, and notices that the only one happens to be next to a rather rough (and kind of angry) looking man with… no child?
Weird, he thinks to himself as he takes a seat, but maybe this is the best outcome; maybe someone without a kid won’t care as much about his lack of experience. The man turns to look at him, sharp eyes peering over the rims of his circular sunglasses, and Ethan smiles politely.
“Hi,” he says, reaching his hand out for the other man to shake. “I’m Ethan.”
He doesn’t get much of a response. Angry Guy just gives him a once over with a look Ethan can’t quite place; it doesn’t seem that aggressive, at least not explicitly, but it’s certainly not the bubbly personality Ethan was hoping to encounter—is he seriously being sized up at a parenting class?
After a moment, though, he does reciprocate the handshake, so Ethan figures he must not have taken him for a threat. Shocker.
His hands are rough, like he works with them a lot, and he’s pretty strong. Ethan pegs him as one of those guys that probably crushes your hand to assert dominance or something, but thankfully he does him the favor of leaving all his bones intact.
“Karl,” he says plainly. He glances down to Rose and smiles, to which she coos, reaching out for him. He looks to Ethan for permission before putting his hand out for her to grab—or for her to mess with his bracelet, which she seems more interested in—and Ethan’s never seen her take to someone so quickly. Usually she shies away from strangers, even some of her doctors, but for some reason she makes an exception for Karl.
Maybe he was too quick to judge him.
“So, uh, do you have any kids?” Ethan asks, hoping the question doesn’t seem rude.
“I have a son,” Karl says. “He doesn’t do well with crowds, so my sister’s watching him right now.”
Ethan nods in understanding, and part of him feels a little hopeful when Karl doesn’t mention a partner; maybe they’re in similar situations, being single fathers and all. It could give him someone to relate to.
Maybe that’s selfish. He’ll dwell on it later.
The woman in charge of the class takes her place at the front of the room, smiling warmly at the attendees, and Ethan watches as Karl fishes a notebook out of one of the many large pockets on his jacket. The thing looks like it’s been through hell; the cover’s barely hanging on, there’s sheets of paper and sticky notes hanging haphazardly out of the sides, and it’s covered with splatters of… some kind of dark liquid. Motor oil, maybe?
The smell hits him just seconds later.
It’s motor oil.
He scoots away.
“Hello, everyone! Welcome to Parenting 101,” the woman begins, and he hears Karl scribbling something down next to him. “I’m Dr. Summers, but you can call me Mia.”
She grabs a small remote from her cardigan pocket and presses a button, and a few seconds later the most intricate PowerPoint title slide Ethan’s ever seen is being projected onto the wall.
“Today we’ll be going over the basics: communicating with your baby, learning what their body language means, and some simple words in sign language that could benefit you to teach them.”
The scribbling sounds from Karl’s seat have only picked up, and it’s starting to make Ethan wonder if he should be following suit. He does still have that notepad from the grocery store…
“Hey, could I maybe get a pen from you?” he whispers a second later, and Karl’s hand disappears into his pocket for a long moment, before coming back out with a surprisingly fancy one. It’s made of wood, some deep reddish type, and has a gold tip and trim. He almost feels guilty taking it, but Karl’s back to writing before he can refuse.
***
He’s glad he took the pen after all, because there’s no way he would’ve been able to remember so much information on his own. Stuffing his several sheets of hastily written how-tos into his pocket, he catches a glimpse of Karl disappearing into the crowd that’s formed around the door. There’s no way he’s going to let him leave without returning the pen, so he tosses some hasty goodbyes to Dr. Summers and the other parents as he heads outside.
He spots Karl a few yards away flipping through his notes, and sighs in relief that he was able to catch him in time.
“Hey, you forgot this!” he calls as he closes the distance. Karl looks up, and Ethan holds the pen out to him with a smile.
“Keep it. Consider it a gift,” he says, and Ethan laughs.
“You kidding me? This thing’s probably expensive, here.”
“If you insist.”
He takes the pen back, but grabs Ethan’s hand before he pulls away and proceeds to start writing on it. Ethan furrows his brow, moving his head to try to read around his hand.
When he lets go, he sees that he wrote his number—or at least, he assumes it’s his number. He guesses it’d be kind of weird if it were someone else’s.
“You seem like you could use a friend,” Karl says, and Ethan can’t tell if he should take offense to that or not. “Call me sometime. If you feel like it.”
“Should I give you my number? So you know it’s me.”
“Sure.”
Karl extends his hand, and Ethan takes the pen back to jot his own number down on the back of it.
“There. Now we both look weird with a bunch of numbers written on us,” he says triumphantly, handing the pen back to him, and the other man flashes a crooked, toothy smile.
“Nice meeting you, Ethan.”
“You too, Karl.”
Rose says her own goodbye with a half-laugh-half-yell, and Karl bows politely to her before they go their separate ways.
***
When they get home that evening, Ethan can’t help but reread the number on his hand a few times. It makes him smile.
He didn’t have the highest of hopes for that class—sure, he knew it wouldn’t be too bad, but his anxiety was really doing a number on his self-confidence—but everything went so… nicely. Everyone was so friendly, and he ended up learning a lot of information—much more than he started out with. It made him feel a little more prepared, a little more capable of being the father Rose deserves.
And he even gained a friend from it, which seems much harder to do as an adult than it did when he was younger, so he’ll be marking this one on his calendar.
Grabbing a plate and small jar off the counter, he brings their dinner to the kitchen table.
“For your main course,” he begins dramatically. Rose seems much more interested in eating when he makes a spectacle of it. “We have some delicious chicken and rice. Pureed for the lady.”
He sets Rose’s food down on the tray of her high chair as she expresses her interest with an eloquent stream of gibberish.
Taking a seat next to her, he pulls his phone out and makes a new contact under Karl’s name.
Maybe he’ll have to take him up on that call.