Single Dad

Door. Door. Daddy. Door

/ Daddy

Dear Luciana,

People think I’ve got this.

I shower. I shave. The emails I send at work still make sense if I write them before 10 a.m. Two years in and the single dad thing is supposedly grand.

It isn’t.

I’m skipping the grief part. Sick of talking about it.

I was backing out of the garage. You kept saying it from your car seat. “Door. Door. Daddy. Door.”

I was spacing out. The way I always do now. Your words washed over me like background music.

You were right. You’re almost three and you’re more put together than your father.

I backed out. Heard the crunch. The garage door caught the side of the car and bent the window frame.

What an unbelievably annoying thing.

This is what happens when you’re tired all the time.

So now I have to get the car fixed.

I tried normal places because I wanted to pay out of pocket. One guy said he’d have to replace the whole door. Another said he can’t do electric cars. The third said he didn’t do windows. He was afraid of breaking them.

I took it to the dealership willing to pay five billion dollars just to get a straight answer.

The dealership said they couldn’t fix it.

And it’s fine. The bent window frame isn’t dangerous to drive.

Unless it rains. Then it leaks all over you.

You would probably think that’s hilarious. Until Daddy needs to give you a bath.

This is a HUGE pain in the ass.

I have to take off work to drive to each place. I can’t do it after work because I’m watching you. I need help getting the car to each shop and dropping it off. That means dragging you along after daycare. Sitting in a car in traffic. Probably sitting in your own pee because I can’t change your diaper fast enough.

Also, the garage door battery died at the exact same time.

Beep. Every ten minutes. For over a day. Beep at 2 a.m. Beep at 2:10. Beep at 2:20.

It took me more than a day to figure out the beep was coming from the garage door. That’s how tired I am. An alarm went off in my own house and I couldn’t find it.

Apparently changing the battery takes five minutes. After an hour I’d touched two live wires and accomplished nothing. I paid someone to do it. It turned out all I had to do was open the compartment on the other side.

Today I went to the fifth body shop.

The guy bent the window back into shape in ten minutes. Did it for free.

I was so happy I gave him a hundred dollars in cash.

I can’t wear a sign that says I’M TIRED ALL THE TIME.

People think I’m fine. They only see the mask I wear in public.

Besitos,

Daddy

Catnip for 6 Year Olds

/ Daddy

Dear Vanessa,

This is proof that Luciana got your genes. She is such an extrovert. We were at the indoor playground and she becomes friends with literally everyone. I swear she is catnip for 6 year olds.

She had been playing with this one kid for over an hour when they wanted to go play in the big part of the playground. The 6 year old asked me if she could take her on her own.

Immediately my insides started to retract into a tiny ball of anxiety.

Luciana is about to turn three. I had all the exit doors blocked. What’s the worst that can happen? She goes play by herself with a random friend. For the first time ever.

Don’t tell me the answer.

They were gone for maybe 10 minutes. It felt like 10 years.

She came back. No bruises. Still happy. Pretty sure she hadn’t licked the floor or anything like that. Yay?

Boooooooooo!

Where is the stop clock? When you died she could only crawl backwards. Now she has made more friends in one day than I have in the past decade.

You’d be proud.

Besitos,

Michael

One Ear at a Time

/ Daddy

Dear Vanessa,

I’m always going to remember when Luciana got her ears pierced for a very unusual reason. Her right ear was pierced before you died, and the left ear was pierced afterward.

We went at 9 months because if we waited any longer the doctor said you should wait until 4 years or they will pull at the earring. Nobody in my family got their ears pierced that young, but I knew everyone in your family did. So even if I felt weird about it I wasn’t going to say anything.

After the first time it was done I almost fainted. We all said it looked perfect. But I noticed the left ear was a centimeter off.

The doctor was confident that if we take the earring out and wait 3 weeks the ear will heal. The ear did heal. I did not.

Going back there with one earring and no mommy was so surreal. I can’t even imagine what the doctor was thinking. Part of the reason the earring was off the first time was because I didn’t hold her down hard enough and she was very squirmy.

I bear hugged her this time. The snap of the earring machine went. Luciana cried for maybe 10 seconds. Your mother and I cried for the whole car ride home.

You were so meticulous cleaning her ear. There was no way she was going to get an infection. It was one of the first realizations that I no longer have you to help me with these types of things. It was all on me.

And it’s still all on me.

Besitos,

Michael

The Angriest I’ve Been Since Mommy Died

/ Daddy

Dear Luciana,

We were at the indoor playground. You were playing with another kid, maybe five years old. I wanted you to have space to play without me hovering. Five minutes in, the kid hit you across the face. On purpose.

The kid said it was an accident. It wasn’t. I was watching. She lied. I got gaslit by a five year old.

You screamed. Not the whiny cry. The real one. I looked for the parents. Nobody. The place was packed and I couldn’t find them. I wanted to yell at that kid. I wanted to find her parents and tell them what I thought of them. I’ve never been that angry. Even in those first weeks after Mommy died when everything was rage and nothing and rage again.

I picked you up. You were still crying. Her parents never showed up. What am I supposed to do in that situation? Yell at some kid that should know better? I made her apologize. Mommy would have gone ballistic until she found the parents. Mommy probably wouldn’t have let you play that far away in the first place. I still haven’t figured out the balance between giving you independence and making sure you don’t get beat up by a bigger kid.

Besitos,

Daddy