*What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the world and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. I'll give you the moon.*
I have a daughter. His words are ringing in my ears. I have a daughter. There was no need for him to ask me to wait say anything because I'm too stunned to say more than a word or two. "You…wha…have a…huh?"
He smiles at me sadly, his thumbs running over the backs of my hands gently. "I know. It doesn't make a lot of sense. But I have an eight-month-old daughter."
My mouth drops open. A baby? He has a baby? "What?"
"I have a little girl and—"HeHeHHH
"But you're not married," I interrupt, and even though I'm looking right at him, I don't see him at all.
"No," he confirms.
"But you're in a relationship."
"No."
"Then…how…I mean, you must have some sort of relationship with…" I can't say it. I can't say "the mother of your child." It's weird. It's too weird for me to handle right now. He has a daughter?
"No, I don't," he answers matter-of-factly.
I pull my hands from his and cover my face, my mind swirling as it tries to keep up. He's not married, and he's not in a relationship, and he has no relationship with…whomever…then did…?
"Oh, my God," I gasp, looking up at him. "Did she die? The mother, I mean? Did something happen to her?"
"No, she's alive."
My shoulders sag and I lean back against the chair, confused. "Chandler, you're going to have to spell things out for me, because I have no idea what's going on."
"I know," he answers, his eyes still sad. "And like I said, please just hear me out before you…well, before. The story doesn't make a lot of sense, even to me at times, but, ahh…I guess about a year and a half ago, I started dating this woman, Corinne. It was very casual, very early stages; neither of us would have said we were in a relationship, at least not a serious one. Anyway, about three months in—we were still pretty casual, I might add. We didn't spend every night together, we didn't see each other every day—she came to me and told me she was two months pregnant." My mouth drops open in shock and he nods in agreement. "I know. We always used condoms, but…things happen. But that's why we haven't slept together yet, and what I felt for her isn't even a fraction of what I feel for you. I know that sounds horrible, but it's true.
"So, anyway, I was stunned. I never expected that. I mean, who does? She was pretty freaked out, too, but we talked about it for a long, long time. We talked about our relationship and where we saw it going. Incidentally, neither of us saw a real future in us, and we were both okay with that part. We both agreed, though, that we wanted the baby, so we'd try to work it out like that—with joint custody or something. Neither of us thought it was wise to try to maintain a mediocre relationship for the sake of a child because that always seems to end badly for everyone involved. We thought if we could stay friends, though, that would make everyone's life easier. I don't know—maybe I was that naïve. I think I truly believed it might actually work.
"So, we carried on. We gave a relationship another chance, just in case actually expecting a child changed things, but it didn't. After that, we worked on logistics—even though we weren't going to be together, we initially thought that living together might be for the best anyway. It was all very surreal, you know? I'd never thought much about having kids, and I honestly never considered having one with her, but all of a sudden…there it was, and we needed to figure it all out. We went to the all of the appointments and stuff, did all the things we were supposed to do." He pauses, looking at me with concern. "You still with me?"
I shrug and nod weakly. "Yeah," I answer quietly, processing.
"You need some water or something?"
I let out a tiny laugh at that. "Shouldn't I be the one offering?"
The corner of his mouth quirks up, but he stands anyway. "No, seriously, though." Without waiting for an answer, he goes over to the fridge and grabs out a couple of bottles of water. He gives me another sad look as he comes back to the coffee table, so I grab his hand as he passes the bottle to me.
"I'm just a little…" I try to explain, but words escape me.
Nonetheless, he looks relieved at the contact, his fingers wrapping around mine as he sits once more. "Well, hold on, because the ride gets bumpier.
"So, we get into the fourth month, and I admit that I was starting to get excited. I'd been reading all the books, so I knew we'd get to feel it move soon, and we'd probably get to know the gender, too. We'd gotten past the first trimester, so we were just toying around with telling our friends and families, you know? I knew it'd be hard to explain it to people, but the ones who really cared about me would back me up. Plus, as unconventional as my parents are, I knew having a grandchild would thrill them. But, ah…" He pauses and looks away, clearing his throat, and I lean toward him, wrapping both hands around his and give it a squeeze.
"What? What happened?"
"Monica, she…she went nuts. I hate to be the guy who describes his ex as crazy, but she really went crazy. To this day, I have no explanation for her behavior. We were actually coming up on the fifth month and getting ready for the ultrasound, and she told me that…" He pauses again, tears very visible in his eyes this time. "She told me that I didn't need to go to that appointment because she was going with the people who were adopting the baby."
For what feels like the millionth time tonight, my jaw drops open in shock. "What?!"
He nods his head slowly. "I know."
"No, no, no wait," I interrupt, leaning forward. I feel like I have to be misunderstanding something. "She put your baby up for adoption? Without telling you?"
"Somehow, yes."
"How is that even possible?"
He heaves out a big sigh and moves back to the couch, settling in against the cushions. I follow a moment later, turning so that I can see him. I reach out and put a hand on his leg, needing to maintain contact with him, trying to reassure him that I'm listening. "I had a hard time getting information out of her at first. All she'd tell me is that she'd changed her mind, that she wasn't ready to be a mother, and that she'd found people who wanted the baby. I kept telling her that I wanted the baby, but she wouldn't listen to me. And the thing is, she went on with her life as if nothing was out of the ordinary. She was still at my apartment most of the time because she'd been in the process of moving in, but she behaved as if we'd both decided that giving it up for adoption was the best thing for all of us and that it was a conclusion we'd reached together.
"Monica…I never expected to want a baby so badly. I mean it when I say that I'd never given kids much thought, but knowing that she was about to just give mine away nearly crushed my soul. It wasn't as if she decided to have an abortion, which still would have broken my heart at that point, but I certainly couldn't have told her not to. But it turns out that, for as psycho as she was, she didn't really think it all through because I called our doctor to confirm our appointment, and I found out the new time. She'd never taken me off as a contact, so they didn't know that she probably didn't want me to have that information. Anyway, I tried to move quickly after that. I called my mom, who has a lawyer on retainer and agreed to help me. I got an injunction so that she couldn't just give up my child, and made it very clear that I had never agreed to give up the baby."
"Oh, my God," I whisper, shifting a little closer. "Chandler…"
"Anyway, I met her at the appointment, and confused the hell out of the poor people who thought they were adopting a baby. I still feel bad for them, too. It's certainly not their fault. Corinne told them that I was dead and that keeping the baby was too much for her. They weren't expecting me to show up. It took a few months of going back and forth to get things straightened out, too, honestly. Not with the adoptive parents because, unfortunately for them, they didn't have much of a leg to stand on. There wasn't even any medical compensation Corinne had to repay; they hadn't gotten to that point yet. I mean, they fought me on it a little bit, and I don't know that I blame them—it turns out that Corinne had been in contact and talks with them since not long after she told me about the baby—but because one of the baby's parents refused to give up his child, there wasn't much they could do.
"Then it became a battle to actually get custody of my daughter. Corinne wouldn't stop fighting me on it, and not because she suddenly decided that she wanted to be a mother. She just thought the baby would be better off in a two-parent home. At least that's the story she stuck with. Maybe that's true. Maybe my daughter would be better off if she had two parents, but for now she only has me, so I do the best I can. But it still took forever to get Corinne to agree to sign away her rights to me. I guess she got tired of fighting, or she ran out of money for her lawyer, I don't know. But when she was eight months along, I finally got all the paperwork signed so that as soon as the baby was born, she was mine. I even had the lawyer put in a clause that, if Corinne changed her mind before the birth or shortly thereafter and wanted to be a part of her life, she could, but…nope. As far as the birth certificate goes, my daughter has no mother. It's just me. Other than just after giving birth, Corinne has never seen the baby. I haven't heard from her since."
"That just…" I pause and grab my water, taking a few sips before I can continue. "That just doesn't seem real."
"I know," he answers, smiling mirthlessly. "It sounds like a movie-of-the-week, doesn't it? I really don't know what changed in her mind, unless she always sort of felt that way. I still have a hard time trying to understand how she could simultaneously be planning a life, in a sense, for us and our child and also be searching for people to adopt the baby. I don't know her reasoning, and even if I did, I don't know that I'd care. She was so cavalier about it, as if we'd always wanted to give it up, and maybe she honestly thought I'd be happy with it, too. I don't know. I do know that I love my daughter more than anything, and as hard as it is, I wouldn't change a single moment of it."
He looks deflated and spent, as if he's been bottling all of that in for a long time and doesn't know what to do with himself. I hand him my bottle of water, which he chugs gratefully.
"What's her name?" I finally ask.
"Corinne?" he asks, confused, and I can't help the genuine smile that tugs at my lips.
"No, dummy, your daughter's."
"Oh, her." An ear-to-ear grin lights up his face, a smile I haven't seen on him up until now. "Katie."
"Katie," I say slowly. "And she's eight months old?"
"Eight months of trouble," he answers, looking every inch a proud father. "And completely beautiful."
"I bet," I answer. I want to see a picture, but that would probably be pushing it.
"Anyway, so the rest of the story. In the middle of all that, I found a new apartment for me and my friend Joey, who was kind of down on his luck at the time. The last thing I wanted was to have an address that she knows, you know? I mean, if things had turned out differently, I would have given her the address, but I didn't want more trouble from Corinne, and I knew I'd need a bigger place anyway. It has two main bedrooms and one tiny room that I use as her nursery. It wasn't easy to find even that, and she'll outgrow it before I know it. Hell, she's spent a good chunk of her life in the cradle in my room. But Joey's been a huge help—he's a mostly out-of-work actor, so I pay the rent and he provides childcare during the day."
"Wow. That's pretty incredible."
"It is. It helps that he has something like seven sisters, so he has a ton of nieces and nephews. He's good with kids, and he can't beat the price. We have daycare at work, but there's a waiting list, and they don't take kids under a year old, so it works for now. But…you can imagine how successful I've been at dating since Katie was born. Even having innocent conversations with women before she was born was weird. Inevitably, I wanted to talk about my soon-to-be baby, and it seems that a lot of women are really freaked out by the whole sole-caregiver thing. Ironic, because men are supposed to be understanding if the roles are reversed, you know? Since she was born, it's been even harder. I've gone on a couple of dates, and I've tried not jump right into talking about nothing but my daughter, but I haven't really been successful. Then I met you."
"What about me?" I ask, and he covers my hand, squeezing my fingers gently.
"I don't know what it is about you. I've never felt a connection like this before in my life. It's been hell not telling you about Katie, but I just wanted to see if we had a chance, you know? Before I scared you off."
I can't help but blush a little; knowing that he, too, feels the connection is thrilling. "So that's why…"
"Yeah. That's why you haven't seen my place—I can't exactly hide all of her stuff or kick her out for a few hours, and aside from my fairly obvious trepidation of winding up in the same situation with Corinne—as much as I love my daughter, I don't want to have another kid under those circumstances—I haven't spent the night away from her yet. I don't know if I'd be able to handle it."
"Awww," I say, immediately biting my lip. I feel goofy gushing over this, but finding out that Chandler has a daughter almost makes sense. He seems complete now, as if this is what I needed to know about him to make him feel…right. "I'm sorry. That's just really sweet."
"I get that a lot," he answers, without a bit of cockiness. I can imagine that a guy who loves his kid that much would be a huge aphrodisiac to women, at least in theory. "God, it's such a relief to finally tell you all of this. I've wanted to tell you about her for weeks, I just didn't know how. I mean, how do you tell someone after you've been dating her for two months that you have a baby?"
I shrug helplessly, at a loss. I honestly don't know, either, other than the way he just told me. "I guess that's why you have zero public information on your Facebook account, huh?" I ask, pieces of the puzzle finally clicking into place. "It must be packed full of pictures of her."
He chuckles a little. "Yeah. I'm definitely that guy." He looks up at me hesitantly, holding his phone out a little. "Do you want to see her?"
"I'd love to," I answer immediately, scooting closer to get a better look.
He types in a pass code and opens up the gallery. He swipes a few times until his grin somehow gets even wider. "Here she is."
He angles the phone toward me and I gasp. "Oh, Chandler, she's beautiful." She really is—she has a head full of light brown hair, eyes the same blue as her father's, and a big, silly grin. He swipes through the pictures slowly, and I see Katie in various states, usually grinning, sometimes with Chandler, more often on her own. "Oh, wow." I look up and smile, and the look in his eyes is hopeful. "She's lovely."
"She has her moments," he agrees bashfully. "And she has other moments where she's the most horrifying creature on the planet but…it doesn't matter because she's my kid and she's basically perfect."
Without thinking, I take the phone from him and sit back, moving through the pictures. He must have hundreds of them because I feel like I'm not even making a dent and all the ones I've looked at are dated within the last month.
"This changes everything, doesn't it?" he blurts out suddenly, and I look up, startled.
"What?"
"Me having a baby. This changes things, doesn't it." He doesn't even ask; it comes out as a statement, and a defeated one at that.
"Well, yeah." His face drops, and my heart breaks for him. "I'm sorry, but it does. I just want to be honest with you. Does it change our dynamic? Absolutely. Does it change the way I feel about you? Okay, well, a little, but not in a bad way."
"Really?"
I lean up and press a kiss to his cheek, resting my forehead against his temple. "Really. This is a lot to process—I mean, a lot. I doubt that it's all anywhere near sinking in right now, so at some point, I may need to step back and think about this. And by 'step back,' I mean just a few days or whatever to try to understand what all of this means."
"That's fair," he answers, and plucks the phone from my grasp. He takes a few more moments before giving it back. "Here—they start when she was born."
I see the first picture and unsuccessfully stifle a laugh. He's holding his newborn daughter, who must be all of five minutes old. She's red-faced, probably screaming, and he looks petrified. "Sorry," I tell him. "You just look so…"
"Oh, I know," he answers. "I still feel that way every time I hold her, but I think I do a better job of covering it up."
I scroll through a few more before I remember that he must have had some other reason for telling me all of this. "So, how does this tie into what had you so upset earlier?"
His face falls a little even as he watches me scroll through the pictures. "She's been sick this week. Nothing huge; just a low-grade fever and an earache, but it's the first time it's ever really happened and it's sent me into a complete panic. I know I'm just being a paranoid, overprotective father, but I can't help it. She's much better now, fortunately, but I've been on edge the whole time—terrified, imagining the worst. She hasn't been sleeping well and she's been really cranky, and I texted Joey to see how she was doing. She's still feeling okay—obviously, I wouldn't have left her if I didn't think she was nearly a hundred percent—but she's fussy. He said she won't really stop crying and whining. I guess—"
"She just needs her daddy."
"Yeah," he answers simply. "She needs her daddy."
"Wow," I whisper. "You're a daddy."
He smiles at me, though he still looks sad. "It's just hard being away from her right now, but I missed you so much and I just wanted to see you—"
"You should go," I tell him, handing the phone back.
He looks absolutely crushed. "What?"
"Your daughter needs you right now. You should go to her. I'll still be here when she's better."
He takes my face in his hands suddenly and kisses me—deeply, thoroughly, around his grin. "You're amazing," he breathes.
I shake my head, resting my forehead against his. "Not really. But I think you need her right now just as much as she needs you."
"You might be right," he answers, his thumbs gently stroking my cheeks. "Hey. Do you want to come with me?"
I pull back, shocked. "You want me to meet your daughter?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I think she'd love you. She may not be very personable today, but she'll make it up to you later. I still really want to spend some time with you tonight, but I'll probably be distracted all evening if I don't go and at least check on her." His eyes light up and he takes my hands, giving me a couple of playful tugs. "C'mon. We can order in, hang out and watch movies. Make out a little if she settles down. You can meet my roommate and the world's cutest baby all in one fell swoop…"
The idea is wildly appealing—now that I know that Chandler has a child, I really do want a chance to meet her and see him as a father—but I don't want him to feel like he has to spend time with me while he takes care of his sick baby. "I don't know."
"Please? She's going to meet you at some point, and you might as well see her when she's all grumpy. If you can deal with her like that and still want to spend time with us, I'll know we have to keep you around for a while." He leans forward and kisses me softly. "Please?" He kisses me again, his lips lingering on mine, and I know I'm done. Just the thought that there might be a chance that we'll get to do more of this later on is too good to pass up.
"Okay," I whisper against his lips. "I'll go with you."
