The Good Father

ELLA WAS CLIMBING into bed the next night—Sunday, one day after Brett had met her outside work—when her phone rang.

Recognizing his number, she slid her legs under the covers and sat back against her headboard while she answered.

Best not to deal with Brett lying down.

“Is this too late?”

“No.”

“I’m in a little town in Kansas, getting ready to attend the meeting of a potential new client in the morning, a nonprofit delegation of farmers, and my concentration is not what I need it to be. I want to help you. And it occurs to me that I don’t know how. I know that I can’t give you what you need most, but surely there are ways I can help.”

Oh, God. Her emotions were too vulnerable right now...she couldn’t let herself get soft. But soft was exactly how Brett’s words made her feel.

“I don’t have the answer to that

, Brett,” she said, giving him complete sincerity when what would have been better for both of them was more of her stiff upper lip. “You are who you are. It’s not fair to you that you try to be anyone else. None of this is fair.”

“So...I was thinking...I would like updates on the baby. I want to know everything. Every step of the way. I just don’t want to make things more difficult for you.”

He sounded so stilted. So unnatural. Because he was trying to be something he was not?

Was trying too hard?

Biting off the words this is difficult for me, she said instead, “How about if I text or call when I have something to report?” she asked, picturing a relationship similar to the one he shared with his mother.

“That would be good.”

“Good...so...good...”

“I’d like to start now,” he said before she could get the “‘night” part of her salutation out of her mouth.

“You’re two months along. Based on what my memory’s telling me, you’ll soon be hearing the heartbeat and having an ultrasound. At some point, you’ll be able to choose whether or not you want to know the sex. And you need to be thinking about birthing classes...”

Whoa. He’d remembered all that? She started to smile. And then sobered. What was she getting herself into here?

He was the baby’s father. What choice did she have?

“I have my first appointment tomorrow. And when the time comes, I’m thinking of opting not to know the sex...” At least not until she was further along and had more assurance that she was actually going to carry the baby to term. “And I’m thinking about having the baby here, in the apartment, in my garden tub.”

“At home? Is that safe?” She wanted to be able to ignore his concern, not to be warmed by it, but failed. Miserably.

And spent the next ten minutes discussing details of the birthing process as she’d heard it described by the mother of one of her patients a few months before—an option many women were choosing these days.

“Can I be there?”

Heart pounding, she took a deep breath. “If you want to be.” This was his child. He had rights, though not the right to be present at the actual birth if she didn’t want him there.

“I think I do.”

He felt that way now. But she knew him. If he started to get too uptight, he’d change his mind. When Brett’s emotions started to get out of control, Brett got going.

Just as Jeff was learning ways to be accountable to and responsible for his negative emotions, Brett had been learning to avoid his since he was a little boy.

She’d finally started really listening to him.

He couldn’t help how he felt or what he needed. Not any more than she could help loving him. She got that now, too.

And wished him good-night.