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“Hey Sam, we need to talk.” Jimmy took Sam’s hands and pulled him to the kitchen table. “I got a text from Ame.”
Amelia was at work, and she rarely texted during her workday. Even if she was on a break, she preferred to focus on relaxing unless something important came up. If this were about Claire, Jimmy would have led with that, not with Amelia. It had taken time to overcome the scary introduction, but Castiel’s brief possession of Claire had helped rather than hurt, and now Claire treated Sam like a bonus dad. Dean was, in her words, the coolest uncle imaginable. This had to be something important that was about herself, if Amelia was texting and Claire wasn’t the first thing out of Jimmy’s mouth.
Jimmy held his phone out. “Amelia was asked to go to lunch by Matt Spencer.”
“Who?” The name didn’t sound familiar to Sam, and although he took the phone from Jimmy, he didn’t look at it.
“Claire’s biological father.” Jimmy nodded at the phone. “You can read her own words explaining it if you want. He’s been out of rehab and fully clean for two years, has had the same job for nearly as long working on a farm, and the farmer is willing to provide a character reference that whatever was wrong with him thirteen years ago, today he is a good man.” He paused. “One who deserves to see his daughter.”
Sam looked down at the phone, reading through Amelia’s texts. It was what Jimmy had said – Matt had cleaned up his life and was ready to take on the responsibility of having a child. “He does know it’s not going to be easy, right? That Claire’s already got two dads and having a third may not be something she’s interested in?”
“I hope so, but he may have the rose-tinted glasses on.” Jimmy looked down at the table, smiling as he saw the placemat Claire had colored and Amelia had laminated.
The phone dinged, and Sam checked it. “Amelia says that Matt wants to meet the two of us. Not Claire yet, not until you and I are convinced that it will be a good thing for her.”
Dean immediately agreed to babysit Claire the next evening – “We can watch Thursday night football together and I can continue indoctrinating her into Cowboys fandom!” It was perfect, as Claire loved spending time with Dean so much that he usually ended up taking her once a week or so anyway. With that taken care of, meeting up with Matt became something Sam was looking forward to.
Matt was a fairly decent-looking guy, a bit shorter than Jimmy. “It’s nice to meet you both. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for Claire. One of the things that kept me trapped in the spiral was the guilt that I had a kid and couldn’t do anything for her like I should be. A major part of why I’m clean now is that I decided that I was only making the guilt and shame worse by not making it possible to do something for her now.”
“And if we say no to you seeing her?” Sam asked. “Will you fall back into your old ways?”
Matt cleared his throat. “Look. I’m an addict. I will be battling this all my life. If you say no to me being there now, I can still hold out hope that when Claire’s eighteen, I can introduce myself and ask her directly for a chance, so I still have reason to keep fighting the good fight. In the meantime, for the past two years, I’ve been setting aside part of my paycheck as child support. If you need that money, it’s yours – I owe years of back child support anyway – but my plan is to give it to her when she graduates to use for college or trade school getting herself set up in a job. Between now and then, unless you want to go to court and get an amount put in writing, I will send the monthly money to Amelia.”
“Keep putting it in the account,” Amelia suggested. “Between the three of us, we’re plenty able to give Claire everything she needs and enough of what she wants to keep her happy, so any extra money we got would just go to the college fund we have for her anyway.”
“What, exactly, are your expectations for being allowed to see her?” Jimmy asked. “Because if you’re expecting to be taken in as her father right away, I can guarantee you, that’s not how it works.”
“I know. I’m planning to introduce myself as her biological father – Amelia told me that Claire knows you’re not her biological father, so I wouldn’t be causing problems there – and that I haven’t been able to be in her life until now. It’s up to her to decide how much she wants to consider me a dad now, but that I’d like to be in her life and do things with her. Help build the relationship.”
Amelia reached over and took Jimmy’s hand, giving it a squeeze, and looked at Sam. “My thinking is that unless Claire decides she wants him to be a dad, he should be aiming for a relationship like what Claire and Dean have. He’s an adult she can trust and spend time with but who doesn’t get to make the big decisions.”
“Which seems fair to me,” Matt added. “I promise, I’m not trying to interfere in your parenting at all, I just want a chance to get to know my bio-daughter. I reached out to Amelia first because she’s who I had contact information for, and I won’t deny I was disappointed to find out she was married – although certainly not surprised.”
Sam and Jimmy gave each other a long look, carrying out a conversation. Sam nodded, so Jimmy did the same with Amelia. She reddened, but there was a small smile. “Amelia and I are not in a traditional marriage. I’m gay. Sam is my partner, which is why he’s become a father to Claire. If it’s something you would be willing to consider, and of course I would expect you to treat Amelia well including respecting it if she isn’t interested, if you choose to pursue a relationship it will not be disrespectful to me or a violation of our marriage.”
“If things work out, the only reason Jimmy and I haven’t divorced is so that we don’t have to get courts involved in custody arrangements,” Amelia said. “I married Jimmy because we’ve been friends since second grade, and I knew he was gay and struggling with that and he knew I wasn’t looking for someone to be more than a father to Claire and roommate. Because I was hoping this would happen, that you’d get your life straightened out and come back.”
Matt blinked a few times, and Sam pretended not to see the unshed tears in his eyes. “That’s… more than I ever dared to hope for as anything beyond a wild dream to help keep me going through the hard nights in rehab. So now, the other question about whether me connecting with Claire is in her best interests: how do we explain my long absence? Dumping ‘I’m a drug addict who couldn’t keep a job and lived on the streets just looking for my next hit’ on her seems a bit much for a thirteen-year-old, at least right off the bat. But I don’t want to lie, either.”
“My brother’s been getting help for alcohol problems,” Sam volunteered. “She knows that people sometimes use substances that can help in the short term but make an even worse mess in the long term. I don’t know what your story is, how you got into drugs in the first place, but at least it’s somewhere to start.”
“So how about the rest of dinner, you tell us some of that story?” Jimmy suggested. “And, of course, we’ll tell you some of our stories, and whatever you want to know about Claire. Then Amelia, this weekend, talk to Claire and tell her that her biological father has reached out and would like to meet her and get to know her? And if Claire agrees, we can set something up for next weekend.”