“She does look like you,” he said.
“She looks like Tria,” I corrected, then felt like an ass for being snippy. “At least, I think so.”
“I can see you both in there.”
I shrugged but looked closely at her face, trying to see how much her cheekbones looked like mine. Her chin was definitely Tria’s, as was her nose. I held her up a bit more as I leaned over to kiss the top of her head.
It was almost reflexive.
“They really do change everything,” Dad said. He settled down in the chair across from me and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “I mean, you know they are going to change your life, but it’s really so much more than that. Your perspective on things changes, too.”
“She’s everything,” I said simply. “She’s Tria, but she’s me, too. I can’t explain it.”
“You don’t have to,” Dad murmured. “I know exactly what you mean.”
A small smile crossed his face.
“You used to sleep on me like that, you know.”
“I did?”
“All the time. It was the only way you would go to sleep unless your mother was singing to you.”
I didn’t think of myself as much of a singer, but I wondered if Baby Katie would like to hear someone sing songs for her. Then I thought my voice might be bad enough that she’d end up in therapy for it later, and I started wondering about what other ways I might screw her up.
I swallowed past a lump in my throat and furrowed my brow as I looked at her.
“It’s a gamble,” Dad said softly. “Doing what you think is best but not knowing how it’s going to turn out in the future. You always want to do the right thing, but you’re human—you screw it up.”
I looked at him, and he looked back down to the floor.
“Sometimes you want what you think is best for them so badly, you don’t realize that what you are doing isn’t what they need,” he continued. “You want to do the right thing, but you don’t. Not because you don’t want to, but because you try too hard.”
Baby Katie’s lower lip started jumping around like she was nursing in her sleep. I wondered if there was anything I wouldn’t do for her and decided there was not.
“I didn’t trust you,” he said. “I didn’t trust you to know what you were saying or what you were doing. I could only think about how much harder it was going to be on you if you had to try to be a father when you weren’t even out of high school yet. I would have said or done anything just to protect you from that, but instead…instead I just fucked it all up.”
“Don’t swear in front of the baby,” I said quietly.
Douglass smiled.
“Sorry,” he said. “I had a really foul mouth before you were born. Julianne would scold me constantly when you were a baby. I told her you couldn’t understand what I was saying, but she was right—it took so long to get me out of the habit of swearing, you were practically talking then. I guess I’ll have to learn that lesson again.”
“You and me both,” I muttered.
“Maybe…” He hesitated and then took in a long breath before speaking again. “Maybe we can practice together?”
Tensing a little, I managed to hold Baby Katie tighter against my chest at the same time. There was definitely a part of me—a small, still angry, teenaged part of me—that wanted to tell him to fuck off. I wanted to tell him that there was no way in hell he got to share in this new life—not after what he had done.
But what if I make mistakes, too?
What if, in trying to do everything that was right for Baby Katie, I fucked up as well? What if I said something that made her mad, and she didn’t want to speak to me anymore, or if she ran to her room and locked the door? What if she refused to have anything to do with me?
Again, my grip tightened.
“Do you think we can, Liam?” Dad asked again. “Do you think we can do this—be a father and a grandfather for Baby Katie—do you think we can do that together?”
I glanced at my father again. Instead of the man who set tragic events in motion, I tried to see the man who made sure we always had dinner together as a family. I tried to see the man who helped me with my math homework, kite flying, and taught me how to kayak.