You've never been the sort of man who makes plans.
Sure, you had a plan to get into college, then to med school, but when it came to your personal life, you weren't the type to make plans. You figured that your life would work itself out, whether or not you had a plan for it. And for the most part, you were right.
You didn't plan on coming to Seattle, didn't plan on staying, and you certainly didn't plan on Addison hightailing it to California. You also didn't plan on Callie, who made the days after Addison left bearable, and you certainly didn't plan on being a father.
And now that Callie has told you she thinks she's pregnant, you wished you were the kind of man who makes plans, because if there ever was a time for them it's now.
You sit and pace outside the bathroom of your hotel room, waiting for your fate to be decided. When she emerges, you know before she says anything that the test is positive because you can see it in her face, in her eyes. And when she tells you that she wants to keep it, all you can do is nod and tell her you'll be there because you've been caught off-guard and at the moment, you can't think of anything besides the fact that you're going to be a father.
This, you think to yourself, is going to require plans.
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You ask Callie to marry you on a rainy Wednesday night while you're sitting on Yang's couch eating Chinese food. You had planned to ask her, but not with a mouth full of pork fried rice while watching some stupid reality show. You'd imagined something a little more romantic, but when she mentions how scared she is you just kind of blurt it out. She chokes on her General Tso's chicken and drops her chopsticks, looking at you like you've grown a second head, but then realizes that you're serious and just stares at you for a moment before asking why.
You feel weird telling her that you do love her, and you know she won't believe you anyway, so you tell her that you want to make sure this child has a home and loving parents and a life as close to normal as you can get. She seems to take that in stride and sits back, pondering, biting her lip. You know that this is a decision that she will not take lightly given her past, and to reassure her you take her hand and tell her that you won't be like George, you'll be faithful and a good dad and the best husband you can if she'll let you be. And after a moment she smiles at you, her eyes filled with hope and tears, and says that yes, she'll marry you.
You sit together on the couch, hands entwined, saying nothing because there is nothing left to say. She is your friend, the person who knows you the best, and you know that doing this with you is a complete leap of faith on her part. You don't deserve this kind of trust from her, but she's giving it to you and you wonder how a man who makes no plans has somehow ended up with the kind of life you never dreamed possible.
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The wedding band feels odd on your finger, mostly because you never thought you'd be wearing one. But here you are, shiny gold band on the ring finger of your left hand, and what you had once believed would feel like a lead weight is now a fitting symbol of your maturity. You keep admiring it because it feels good to wear it, a sign to the world that you belong to someone, and you're glad that someone to whom you belong is Callie, because honestly at this point you couldn't ever see yourself with someone else.
Derek is the first one to notice it, his sharp eyes catching the glint of the elevator light off of your ring, and his stunned expression is not unlike the one Callie wore two weeks earlier when you asked her to marry you. When he asks about it, you shrug noncommittally and say that you're a lucky son of a bitch who finally decided to grow up. He is about to ask who when you tell him it's Callie, and he laughs and claps you on the back and said he wondered how long it would take for you to realize how good she was for you.
Others, however, are not so congratulatory. There are plenty of whispered conversations that stop when you approach, until finally Bailey has to make an announcement to the residents and interns that yes, you did get married and yes, you did marry Dr. Torres and no, they may not ask you about it because there is work to do. When everyone has dispersed and it's just you and Bailey, she congratulates you in a way that is vaguely threatening, and you reassure her that this is for real and that you're in it with Callie for the long haul.
That evening is the first time you tell Callie you love her, and her smile is so bright it blinds you. You've never felt like this before, not even for Addison, because she makes you want to be a better man and with Addison, all you wanted to be was better than Derek. But Callie makes you want to be the best man in the world, a man who is worthy of a woman as strong and funny and kind as she is, and you know that you'll never truly be worthy of her, but you can come damn close.
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Pregnancy is not kind to Callie emotionally, but physically it has been generous in spades. Her body is changing to accommodate your child in her womb, and where she once was just curvy she is now lush, her skin luminous. You never figured you would find pregnancy attractive, but something about Callie's new voluptuousness speaks to the most primal of your urges and you find yourself in a constant state of semi-arousal when she's around.
That's not really a problem, however, as the pregnancy hormones have sent her libido into overdrive. Callie has become a sex machine, pulling you into on-call rooms for quickies sometimes as many as four times a day. You know that you'd better take it while you can get it, because in a few months not only will there be no sex, there will also be no sleep. So every time she pages you to an on-call room or wakes you in the middle of the night, you smile because this is the easy part; the hard part is yet to come.
You're lying in bed the first time Callie feels the baby move, and her eyes widen in wonder as she grabs your hand and places it on her belly. When you feel the tiny kick against the palm of your hand, you grin like an idiot because suddenly this is real, it's happening and it's happening to you. When you lean over and talk to Callie's belly, the baby kicks harder and you can't help but feel proud because the kid knows your voice and responds. It's one little miracle in a series of miracles that have brought you to where you are now, each one bringing you more joy than you ever thought you would know.
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Your daughter is beautiful, and you fall in love the moment you lay eyes on her. The emotion that fills your heart is unlike any other you've ever felt; this, you think to yourself, this is what love feels like, and when the nurse hands her to you, swaddled in a blanket with a pink hat on her head, you can't help but get teary because this is love, pure and unadulterated. You know you will never love another person like you love your daughter.
When Callie is released from the hospital and you are finally allowed to take your girls home, you send Callie to rest while you watch the baby. You marvel at her tiny fingernails, her tiny lips, the dark patch of thick hair on her head. Everything about her leaves you in awe, including her first diaper change at home when she pees all over you. You keep waiting for it to wear off, but it never does, as everything about your daughter amazes you, from her lack of eyebrows to her tiny, dimpled hands.
The Saturday afternoons of sex and cooking and lounging around are over; these days, Saturday afternoons are spent sitting in a recliner, teaching your daughter the finer points of golf and telling her that she has the potential to be the female Tiger Woods. You spend a lot of time reading Pat the Bunny and Goodnight Moon and Hop on Pop and watching Baby Einstein videos. Dinners are hurried and done in shifts, and sex is the last thing on your mind when you fall into bed at night, exhausted.
You don't miss your old life, going to Joe's with Derek and being able to pick up and go somewhere on a moment's notice. You had thought that you would miss it, that it would make you resent Callie and your daughter, but you find that you are happier spending evenings at home, with the first family you have ever been able to call your own.
Little Caroline is a joy to behold, and as you watch her go from tiny, helpless baby to fearless toddler, you feel a sense of pride because she is yours. You helped to create her, half of her genes are yours, and despite the fact that you had no role models for parenting she is a wonderful girl and you are a good father to her. Callie reminds you of this every evening before you go to sleep, as she curls around your body and whispers in your ear that you are a good dad and she is a lucky woman, but you know that you are the lucky one because you have found happiness in a family that was thrown together by fate but kept together by love.
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Your tiny toddler blossoms into a little girl, and you can't help but feel sad when she starts her formal education. As she rushes out the door every morning to catch the bus in her blue plaid jumper and saddle shoes, you watch her board the bus and feel gloomy because although you are glad she is so independent and eager to learn, you wish that she'd be less excited about leaving you.
You don't miss the diapers and midnight feedings, but your baby is growing up and you can't help but feel a sense of loss. You know that one day you will leave her at college, at her first apartment, at the altar with a man who will make her his wife, and you ache inside, knowing that she is yours only briefly. When you tell this to Callie, her eyes tear up and you lie together on your bed, neither one of you speaking but saying volumes.
Later that night, a storm rolls in, and when you hear tiny footsteps in the hallway you scoot over in the bed to make room for Caroline, who crawls in between you and Callie and snuggles down beneath the comforter. She is asleep in minutes and you stare at her and her mother, their dark hair a mass of curls on the pillows, and the love you feel overwhelms you.
You know that the day is coming when she will no longer want to watch Sesame Street with your or need a bedtime story, or want you to tuck her in at night. It makes you feel old, it makes you feel your mortality a little bit more keenly and you wish that you could stop time so that she would always be your little girl, tucked in beside you during a thunderstorm.
It's been a long, strange trip that's brought you here, but as you settle in beside your girls, your arm wrapped around the both of them, you know that you wouldn't change one single step of that journey if it meant you didn't have them, because they are everything to you. It is these two women that have given you your membership card to the human race.
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The morning of your birthday, your daughter wakes you up by jumping on the bed, screeching in that way that only a five year old girl can. You tackle her and tickle her mercilessly, until you realize that her shirt is proclaiming her to be a big sister. She has no idea what her shirt says, just that Mommy told her to put it on and get you up, and when you stumble into the kitchen, she grins at you and you know that you've just been given the best birthday gift imaginable.
Caroline goes off to school and you take your wife back to bed, where you spend all morning doing what got you here in the first place. By the time Caroline gets home from school, you are both tired and sore but happy to spend an afternoon with your daughter. She runs around the park with her friends from the neighborhood, whooping and hollering and creating noise the way kindergarteners do, never seeming to expend any energy. After dinner and her bath, she asks you where the baby inside Mommy came from as you slip her Dora nightgown over her head.
You're a doctor, you know how it works, but explaining it to a five year old is trickier than you imagined. So you just tell her that babies are made when a sperm fertilizes an egg, skipping over the whole sex issue because you don't even want to think about talking to your daughter about sex-not now, or ever for that matter because as far as you are concerned, she's never going to have it. She listens intently and when you're done she nods and says she'll just ask Mommy tomorrow.
You tell Callie about your conversation, and she laughs until she cries. You fail to see the humor in it, all the while looking up convent schools to send her to so that sex will never, ever be an issue. Callie just laughs and reassures you that she will handle that aspect of Caroline's education, aside from the 'just say no' being drummed into her head by the local parochial school. That makes you even more nervous-all of the Catholic schoolgirls you knew had been sexually adventurous, wild and brazen, and your daughter will not become one of those girls. That sends Callie into another fit of uncontrollable laughter, and when you tell her to shut up she kisses you and tells you she finds your over-protectiveness of your daughter a turn on, before reaching for your belt buckle and dragging you to bed. As she pulls your jeans down you're glad you're not a guy who makes plans, because you never could have planned for your life to turn out so perfectly.