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Seven stood close by to the oven as the little green numbers on its timer ticked closer and closer to zero. The kid was off in the living room playing. He had arranged all the couch cushions beside him to serve as the walls of a store front. He babbled to no one in particular and pretended to sell a plastic apple.
The kid was barely two now; he did in fact get this checked with a pediatrician. He now knew his kid’s exact age. Apparently he was barely a week old when he was left on his doorstep. Despite the bills screaming, he continued to visit the pediatrician regularly. It’s what he was supposed to do. He missed six months of regular checkups, he had to make up for it now.
That first pediatrician visit he had also reminded Seven of one crucial thing he forgot: a name. Seven had neglected to give the kid a name. He only ever called him ‘kid’, or ‘the baby’, and sort of forgot that those were only placeholders. He somehow landed on Caleb. It felt right. Seven still continued to call him ‘kid’, though, out of habit. He was trying to break it. He had a deja-vu moment the other night of imagining someone asking the kid--er, Caleb, his name and him confidently answering, “kid!”. It freaked him out. He wasn’t actually sure if the kid knew his own name yet.
The timer beeped zero, and Seven turned off the oven. The frozen peas he microwaved had been sitting off to the side with a wet paper towel covering them. Once Seven pulled a tray of chicken nuggets out of the oven, they joined the fray.
“Caleb!” Seven called. He waited a few seconds, then swore internally. “Kid!”
There came the shuffling of tiny feet. Yeah, he didn’t know his own name. He was gonna have to fix that at some point. Seven lifted the little guy onto a chair prepared with a plastic booster seat and put the slightly-soggy paper plate piled with nuggets and peas in front of him. It was a ritual he had grown very accustomed to.
But the monotony was starting to make him lose it.
It’d been two years since he became a father; though it was only eighteen months in the government’s eyes after Seven was informed he had to file adoption papers to be recognized as the legal guardian. There were a lot of legal logistics Seven never realized he had to go through until finally touching base with a pediatrician.
Through those two years, a lot had happened. Noli finally got sick of him, and he got sick of Noli, so the inseparable pair had ended up going their separate ways. The guy really thought that this, being a father, was just some weird phase Seven was going through that he’d get over. The longer it went on, the less patience he had. And Seven certainly had some choice words for Noli after he abandoned him at a party, and had been the one to sweet talk him into leaving a six-month old home alone in the first place.
And it was once Noli had fully cut him off that Seven realized he was truly and utterly alone. Aside from a small helpless creature that fully depended on him for survival, Seven had no real friends to speak of. And over the course of several months of sleepless nights, diapers, and tantrums, a deep depression had slunk up on him.
Was postpartum depression common in adoptive fathers?
Seven found himself standing in the kitchen, as he so often did these days. The oven timer, not in active use, merely read the time back to him: 6:39 p.m. He didn’t know what to make for dinner.
Last night was hot dogs and corn. The night before that was frozen mac n’ cheese. Was a two night interval long enough to recycle a meal? Seven stood in front of his fridge and freezer, continuing to open and close the two while hoping surely the next browse will come up fruitful. His own stomach growled. He usually ate what the kid ate, but the idea of eating chicken nuggets, fish sticks, or french fries again made him gag.
“...Is this what parents are supposed to do?” He asked out loud to no one. The kid was in the living room, transfixed by whatever was on television; he could barely comprehend most things Seven said anyways. “Every night I have to come up with a new meal. And it can’t be the same thing as last night, or the kid won’t touch it. And it can’t be something he doesn’t like. But sometimes he changes up what he doesn’t like. Apparently he hates peas now, even though he was fine with them last week.”
Seven sort of just stood there, until he leaned back against the fridge and let himself slide down to sit on the dirty floor. “Is… This what the rest of my life is going to be? Figuring out what to do for dinner? …Forever?”
He pulled out his phone and sighed in defeat.
“I think it’s gonna be a pizza night.”