“Hey, Dad!” The word “Dad” was dripping with as much
venom and sarcasm as a 13-year-old boy could muster. It wasn’t lost on Dad.
“Is
something wrong, Josh?”
“Uh,
well, if you consider that I just found out you’re not really my dad something
wrong, then, yeah, I suppose so.”
“What
exactly did you find out?” Dad trying
hard not to be baited into a fight.
“What
I found out, exactly, was that you had a vasectomy a good five years before I
was born. Three years before Jeremy was
born. So I guess he’s not yours either,
huh. So you can stop pretending to be
our dad.”
“I’ve
never pretended to be your dad. I have been your dad, just not
biologically. Look, why don’t we sit
down and talk. If Jeremy’s not busy, we
can all talk. Mom, too.”
“I
don’t know what for. It’s not gonna
change the facts.”
“Well,
you might be interested in finding out what the facts are, how you guys came to
be our sons.”
“Whatever,”
was the muted rebellious reply.
When
the four of them were seated around the kitchen table – where most of their
serious talks took place, Dad began.
“You’re right, Josh, I had a vasectomy before you guys were born, before
we ever even got married. Though I’m not
really sure how you found that out, but I guess it doesn’t matter. When the doctor told Mom that getting
pregnant could kill her, I decided to get a vasectomy before we got married,
or, um, did anything.”
“Have
sex, you mean,” Josh’s statement, not a question.
“Yeah,
have sex. I decided that since the
doctor had also said that any kind of internal surgery was potentially deadly,
I would be the one to make sure Mom never got pregnant. I wasn’t going to trust her life – our life –
to some device.”
“A
rubber, you mean,” Jeremy clarified, adding to Dad’s discomfort.
“A
condom, yes, or the pill, or a diaphragm, or anything else. Anyway, when we’d been married around three
years, we were looking into the possibility of adopting. But one evening when we were out driving, we
were behind a car that was slowing down a lot; I was about to go around it when
we saw the passenger throw something out of the car. We thought it might have been a cat or a
puppy, and Mom screamed and told me to stop so we could rescue the animal. She was always picking up strays – cats and
dogs – and bringing them home. She had
to stop that after you guys came along.”
“’Cause
we’re allergic!” Josh suddenly sounding
more like an excited little boy than a sullen teenager.
“Right. You guys are allergic. Now, where was I?”
“You
stopped the car so Mom could pick up the animal.”
“Oh,
yeah,” Dad said grinning, “I stopped the car and Mom jumped out. And there, in the tall grass by the side of
the road, she picked up… a tiny little baby boy! A newborn, just a couple days old.”
“I
couldn’t believe it," said Mom, picking up the story, "a sweet little baby boy, not a
scratch on him! The tall grass broke his
fall. I told Dad to catch that car. I was so mad!
I couldn’t believe someone would throw out a baby, like some piece of
trash! I wanted to catch those people
and yell at them.”
“So
I took off after them, and caught up to them before long. Their car was pretty junky – wouldn’t go over
40, if that. I followed them to a trashy
little motel that rented rooms by the week.
I told Mom to stay in the car with the baby, but she said ‘No way!’ So I told her to stay behind me. I didn’t know what these people would be like
or what they might do.
“The
door to their room was wide open and we could see the young teenage girl
sitting on the bed crying. The boy, not
much older if at all, was rocking a toddler who was crying like crazy.
“Your
mom handed the baby to me, which felt pretty scary, then she went over and sat
by the girl and put her arm around her.”
“What? You mean she didn’t yell at them?”
“I
couldn’t yell,” Mom said softly, “I just felt so bad for the little girl. She was heartbroken.”
Dad
went on. “We found out they were 16
years old. They’d been trying to make it
with the toddler they’d had when they were about your age, Josh. But these two kids – whose parents had thrown
them out when the girl had gotten pregnant – couldn’t get enough money for the
two of them, let alone a baby. And then
when the second baby came, the girl said her milk didn’t come, so she knew she
couldn’t feed it.
“Anyway,
we made a deal with them to take the babies – you guys – and we’d help them get
on their feet. They had mixed feelings
about it – they hated giving you up, but they were glad for the chance at a new
start and knowing that their baby boys would be well taken care of.”
“And
not starving to death by the side of the road,” Josh said somberly.
“Yeah,
Josh, they were really glad of that.”
“So,
where are they? Can we meet them?” Jeremy asked.
“Oh,
guys, it’s so sad. Before we even had
the legal papers written up, we heard their car had stalled on the railroad
tracks, and they got run over by a train.
I’m so sorry.”
“So,
then, you just kept us? Are we even
legally yours?”
“Nobody’s
gonna take you guys away from us, if that’s what you mean, Jeremy. We took care of everything and got you guys
legally adopted. But I want you to know
is that I’m your dad and Mom’s your mom.
Everything we have is yours, except our DNA. And we’ll never let you go.”
“So,
when you’ve always said you picked me up alongside the road, you weren’t
kidding. It was the truth.”
“We’ve
never lied to you, and we never will.
But sometimes you might have a hard time knowing if we’re kidding or
not. But know this, boys: we love you no
matter what, and we always will.”
by Eric Miller Thanks, Dad!
