“We can see it another time. I wasn’t aware you’d had a bad day. You can tell me all about it at dinner.”
Emerie looked to me, conflicted. I made the choice easier for her. Who was I to interrupt the happy couple?
“You two have a good night then.”
I might have been full of myself. After all, I’d been told on more than one occasion lately that my ego was pretty big, but I could have sworn Emerie’s little friend’s change of plans had something to do with me.
Drew, New Year’s Eve, Five years ago
“Happy anniversary.”
Alexa sat on the couch flipping through a People magazine. I bent to kiss her cheek, then leaned down farther to touch my lips to my almost-two-year-old son’s forehead where he slept with his head on her lap. He was drooling. A big pool of spit puddled on my wife’s thigh.
I pointed to it and joked, “A few years ago, making you wet on New Year’s Eve meant something very different.”
She sighed. “I wish we could go out. This is the first New Year’s I’ve been home since I was a kid.”
New Year’s Eve was a huge holiday to my wife. She looked forward to it like a kid waiting for Santa. And yesterday, someone had told Alexa there was no Santa. We’d planned on going out tonight—a party in downtown Atlanta thrown by a friend of hers I didn’t really care for—but the sitter canceled on us. Alexa was devastated. I was secretly glad. Today was the first day off I’d had in a month, and staying home and watching movies—maybe ringing in the new year inside of my wife—was as much excitement as I was in the mood for.
But Alexa had been sulking for twenty-four hours. She was still having a hard time adjusting to the new lifestyle motherhood had brought. It was understandable. After all, she was only twenty-two, and all of her friends were partying like carefree twenty-two-year-olds.
I had hoped she’d make some new friends at the Mommy and Me class she joined last month—perhaps friends who were married, had a child, and didn’t think drinking responsibly meant not spilling your shot of Goldschläger.
“Why don’t you go out? I’ll stay home with Beck tonight.”
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
Not exactly how I thought we’d spend our anniversary, but Alexa needed it.
“Sure. I’m wiped out. Me and my little buddy will hang. We don’t get to spend enough time alone anyway.”
Alexa gently lifted Beck’s head from her lap, rested it on a throw pillow, and sprung up to give me a big hug.
“I can’t wait to wear the dress I bought. Lauren and Allison are going to be so jealous I can afford to shop at Neiman Marcus now.”
I forced a smile. “I can’t wait to help you out of it when you get home.”
We’d dropped Alexa off at her friend Lauren’s last night, and I offered to pick her up, but she insisted she’d take a cab home so I didn’t have to wake the baby. Turned out, that wasn’t a problem. The baby was wide awake—considering it was eight o’clock in the morning, and my wife still hadn’t come home.
Beck sat in his high chair, sucking on Cheerios, and made a loud quacking noise
to get my attention while I was pouring my second cup of coffee. Filling my cheeks with air, I forced it out and quacked back at him as I sat. He looked momentarily startled at the sound, and for a second, I thought he was going to cry. But then he let out a loud giggle, which made me laugh right back.
“You like that, buddy, huh?” I leaned closer to him and filled my cheeks again. “Quack. Quack.”
My son studied my face as if I were an alien, then broke out in a giggle fit. After the third or fourth time, he caught on, and I watched as he tried to make the same sound. His little cheeks would fill, but only a rush of air with some spit would come out of his mouth. No quack. It didn’t discourage him.
After every one of his attempts, I’d make the sound, and he’d watch intently and try again. At one point, it was his turn, and I thought it might finally be his shining moment. He sucked in a big mouthful of air and then…held his breath. His chubby cheeks started to turn red, and his face was so intent. That’s my boy. If at first you don’t succeed, work harder. I had a proud dad moment there. My boy was going to be a hard worker.
He did the red-face-holding-his-breath thing a few times and then started giggling again. It was my turn. So I leaned in close to quack, and when I sucked in the air, I realized during that last round he hadn’t been working on his quack. He was shitting in his diaper.
We both laughed for ten minutes as I changed him. Although I think he was laughing at me and not with me.
Shortly after, the little shit machine conked out. I stared at him in wonderment for a while. This wasn’t exactly how I’d seen my life as I looked forward three years ago, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. My son was everything to me.
By the time ten o’clock rolled around, being annoyed because Alexa hadn’t come home yet started to morph into worry. What if something had happened to her? I swiped my phone from the kitchen counter and checked my texts. Still nothing. So I dialed her phone. It went right to voicemail.
The living room window in our third-floor condo faced Broad Street, a quiet, tree-lined block on the outskirts of Atlanta. Most of the world had been out partying last night, so the street was particularly quiet this morning. Which was why I couldn’t miss the bright yellow, souped-up Dodge Charger with the number nine painted on the side coming around the corner. Even though the windows were closed, I could hear the roar of no muffler and the screech as the driver took the turn too fast.