Um. “Skipper, sweetie.”
She giggles and pokes Jack with her little index finger—one I’m confident is sticky and has syrup on it.
“Hey, sweetie,” I start again. “Remember how you always want to know what it was like when you were a baby and love hearing stories?”
She nods, chewing.
“I told you that story once about my college boyfriend. You know what a boyfriend is?” I explain it just so she has a tiny bit of an understanding. “Jack and I used to go on dates like to the movies and football games, and sometimes we would dance.”
“And kiss.” She says it nonchalantly without a care in the world.
“Yes, and kiss.” Am I blushing? Ugh. “Well.” I wipe my sweaty palms on the napkin I’ve placed on my lap, anxious.
“I was your mom’s boyfriend, and she was my best friend.” Jack chimes in.
Best friend. The words make my heart melt a little, and my lady parts tingle. I mean, I knew this, but nonetheless it feels good to hear the words spoken out loud.
They fill my love bucket, and it’s already almost spilling over the brim.
“So Jack was my boyfriend, and he was also one of my best friends and…well. As you know, seven years ago, I had a baby. You.”
Jack goes still even as Skipper eats between us, blissfully unaware. With bated breath, he waits to hear what I say next. Honestly, he could cut in at any time.
I feel like I’m dying here.
Why is this so hard? Skipper is seven!
“Is Jack your boyfriend now?” She lifts her gaze to look at the two of us, glancing back and forth, still eating.
“Yes.” He takes my hand across the table and gives it a squeeze of encouragement. “Your mom is my girlfriend.”
“I wish I had a boyfriend,” our daughter answers, surprising us both. “He could bring me flowers.”
I laugh. “Maybe when you’re older, you can have a boyfriend.”
“Much, much older. Like, thirty,” Jack intones with a fatherly tone.
“Anyway, sweetheart, as I was saying. Back when I was in college, Jack was my boyfriend at the time I got pregnant with you. And I got really scared.”
She squints as if she were doing a difficult math problem. Her wrinkly little nose is adorable just the same. I want to poke the tip of it with my finger and kiss it. Smush her, she’s so sweet.
“You got scared? Of what?”
“Well, I was young and didn’t know anything about babies. And Grandma was still here at the time, and she told me if I moved home, she would help me take care of you. So I left college and didn’t tell my boyfriend that I was having a baby.”
Skipper pauses, squinting again. “Jack was your boyfriend.”
“That’s my girl,” Jack proudly says, beaming. He knows she’s clicking in the puzzle pieces on her own, using the small clues we’re giving her because:
She’s too young to give the hard truth to—that I was foolish and scared and worried my boyfriend was going to do something stupid, like leave school, too.
I can’t just blurt it out. We have to ease into it so we don’t shock her or scare her. Let her get used to the idea as the small clues come.
“That’s right, Jack was my boyfriend. And I know you’re seven years old, and you’ve asked me a few times about your dad, but the truth is…” I swallow the lump in my throat. “The truth was that I didn’t know how to tell him we were having a baby because sometimes it’s scary being honest with people.”
She nods knowingly. “Like when I wrote on the couch with Sharpie marker and didn’t want to tell you because I was scared.”
“Wait. What? You wrote on the couch with Sharpie marker?”
“Penelope, focus.” Jack laughs so I stay on task.
“Right. Sorry—yes. That’s exactly it. Sometimes, it’s scary being honest because you don’t know what they are going to say or if they’re going to be mad or disappointed—but I was too young to know that, so I left school and came home.” I pause. “And I did not tell Jack that we were having a baby.”
I repeat the fact so it resonates with her, stating it again, waiting for the lines to fall into place.
“Sweetie, do you know what I’m trying to tell you?”
“I think so?” She nibbles on a piece of sausage, making the sounds people make when something tastes delicious. “This is so good.”
Jack laughs, ruffling her hair. “You’re adorable.”
She side-eyes him. “Are you my dad?”
“Yes, I’m your dad.”
She puts down her fork and wipes her hands, holding her hand up and wiggling her thumb. “I knew it. Because we have the same finger.”
Jack’s rumbling laugh is loud and full of humor, nervous but happy. “You are really something, kid, do you know that?”
She resumes eating, stabbing more eggs with her fork as if we haven’t just dropped a life-changing bomb in her lap. “Can I call you Dad instead of Jack?”