Standing outside the building, I have to give myself a moment before I head inside. I didn’t expect to be back here, but the front desk called this morning to tell me there was a box of my dad’s things I hadn’t picked up yet.
How fucking pathetic is it that I didn’t even know he had any personal items?
When I moved him from the first care center to this one, I didn’t help with transport. All I did was organize the change.
With a deep breath, I push inside and make my way to the front desk.
“Hey, Sulli,” one of the girls who’s usually at the desk when I visit says. “I assume you’re here for this?” She turns around to a small, waiting box. It’s barely large enough to fit a few books inside.
“I am, thanks.”
She holds the box out to me with a forlorn smile. She doesn’t say she’s sorry for my loss, and for that I’m grateful.
I turn on my heel, leaving behind the smell of disinfectant when I exit onto the street. As I stare down at the box, my curiosity is piqued. What was so valuable to him that he managed to keep it with him all these years?
I head toward my car a few blocks away, waiting until I’m inside and the AC is running before I riffle through the small number of contents. There’s a worn braided leather bracelet, a notebook, a jewelry box, and a photo.
My fingers go to the photo first. A zap runs up my arm, electrifying my entire body, when I look at it.
It’s my dad with his arm around a woman in a hospital bed. They’re young. Smiling. Clearly happy, but there’s fear in their eyes too. My eyes study her the longest, thick dark waves of hair that frame a pretty round face with brown eyes that can’t help but remind me of Lennon.
In her arms is a baby who can’t be anyone but me.
In my search for my birth parents, I never found any photos of us together, and when I reached out to other blood relatives . . . well, they didn’t want anything to do with me. At first, that stung, but now I don’t give a shit.
But this photo is a treasure I didn’t know I was searching for.
After putting it back in the box, I pick up the notebook next. Flipping through the pages, I find it filled with poems. Most of them love poems that he must have written for my mother. I read through a few of them, my chest getting tight with emotions I struggle to keep at bay. They were so in love, and their lives didn’t turn out the way they had planned. They deserved more.
That just leaves the bracelet and jewelry box. I slide the leather cord onto my wrist. It’s well worn, clearly loved. I wonder if he made it or if it was something my mom got for him. Regardless, it must have meant a lot to him for it to be in his things.
The last item I pick up is the box. Opening it, I find a small pear-shaped diamond engagement ring. I stare at it for a moment. Like the poems, it’s a reminder that my bio-parents were real people. Clearly, he was planning to propose to her, or maybe he already had, and when she passed in the accident, he somehow got her ring back.
It makes me think of Lennon. Our futures are always uncertain. Many things can happen to change the course we’re on or end it altogether.
I wonder what would’ve happened to them if there had never been an accident. Would they have had more kids? Is there an alternate future out there where I have biological siblings? Maybe they would’ve moved away from New York. I wonder if they would’ve reached out to me.
But all those thoughts are futile.
There is no changing the past, and speculating on it does me no good.
I snap the ring box closed, then put it back alongside the other few items.
When I walk in the door, Lennon is cooking dinner. Music plays on the speakers, and she sings along, putting on a performance for Bee. She’s so into it, singing into the wooden spoon and shaking her ass, that she hasn’t heard me come inside.
I set the box down on the side table, crossing my arms over my chest with a smirk, just watching her.
Even the cats are enraptured by the performance she’s putting on.
I clear my throat to make my presence known, but she goes on dancing, completely oblivious.
Finally, I move away from the doorway and grab her by the waist. She yelps, jumping in fright, but immediately settles when she realizes it’s me. Spinning her around, I’m not surprised to find the fire in her eyes. I’m sure she has a few choice words for me, but I silence them with a kiss, and then I dance with her.
It makes me think of the evening we cooked dinner together and danced just like this, Bee between us, still in her tummy. I already find myself missing her pregnant belly. I hope sometime soon, in the next three years or so at least, she’ll let me put another baby in her. I want all the babies with Lennon.
I think of the ring sitting in the box, and how one day I want to get down on one knee and propose to this woman. I’ll even stand in front of hundreds of people and give my vows, if that’s what she wants, even if I’d much prefer to run away and elope.
I want the little moments like this with her: dancing in the kitchen, watching movies together, or just sitting and watching Bee sleep.
She looks up at me with those big brown eyes, love unmistakable in their depths. She doesn’t have to say the words for me to know how she feels, even if it’s nice to hear her say them. “How did it go?”
“It was fine. There wasn’t much.”
“Anything important?”
I let her go and walk over to the box. “Not really. There was this, though.” I hold the photo out to her, and she takes it.
Her eyes widen, darting from the photo to me and back again. “Wow, you look so much like them. I guess I never stopped to think about what they looked like.” She traces her fingernail over the shape of my newborn body in my mom’s arms. “Do you care if I hang this up? I’d like to put it in the nursery.”
We have a similar photo of us with Bee, hanging on the wall above the bookcase that holds all the children’s books.
“I’d like that a lot.”
She smiles up at me. “Good.”
Bee starts to cry, reminding us of her presence, like we could ever actually forget. I let Lennon go, bending down to scoop up my squirming girl from the bassinet we keep in the living room.
“Hey, little one,” I croon, swaying her in my arms. “Don’t cry. Whatever it is, Daddy will make it better.” She starts to quiet, looking up at me with curious wonder. “That’s right. Daddy’s got you. I’ve always got you.” I kiss the top of her downy-soft head. Turning around, I find Lennon watching us with tears in her eyes. “Come here.”
I tug her into my side, and she places her hand on Bee’s chest. She’s wearing the bumblebee outfit I first picked out for her.
We’ve come far from the people we were all those months ago when she started at Real Point. Sometimes that guy feels like a stranger, like I was seeing in black and white all that time until Lennon walked back into my life. Now, all I can see is color. Lennon and Bee bring life to the world around me.
“What are you thinking about?” Lennon asks me.
I answer honestly. “How much I love you both.”
She smiles beautifully, her eyes crinkling at the corners with happiness. She squeezes her body in impossibly closer to mine.
I’m content to stay right here, in this moment with my girls, for as long as I can.
