A Lifetime of Dad Jokes

I held Amanda. She wept into her knees for a long time before finally burying her face into my chest and crying. It felt like her tears were torn from her soul. As my shirt grew damp from their moisture, my own soul felt ripped. Sure, I was still angry with her. How could I not be? She’d denied me eighteen months of my son’s life. But I knew her. I knew she wasn’t a bitch. Keeping her pregnancy from me? Keeping the existence of our child from me? I believed her when she’d said it was because she didn’t want to ruin my life, my future.

But holy fuck, what had it done to her life? How had it changed her dreams? She wasn’t a teacher now, with a classroom full of kids to guide and nurture. She was a mother, with just one child. Our child. She’d done that on her own. Alone. She’d been raising our child alone.

How amazing was that? No matter how she’d torn me apart at the confession, how much strength must that have taken? To do that on her own?

And now, on discovering I was a father, there wasn’t a part of me that wished it wasn’t the case. Not a part of me that thought, nope, I don’t want this. I don’t want to be a father. Not even the part that had planned a string of personal training centers all over Australia.

We’d work through this together. Together. She didn’t have to do this alone. She didn’t.

I held her, stroked her hair and told her over and over we were going to make it work. Promised her it was going to be amazing.

The logistics of our new life together, the three of us, didn’t present itself to me as we sat on the floor. That didn’t worry me. We’d figure it out.

Maybe marriage? Setting up a home in Sydney? I could still run my PT business – just the one to start with, given the situation – and my mum and dad could help Amanda with Tanner. Hell, Mum was a nurse at the Sydney Children’s Hospital. When it came to kids, she knew more than anyone else I could name. And she’d been complaining about the fact she was getting old with not a grandchild in sight. The pressure would be off my big brother now to get his act together. He and his fiancée could continue their backpacking adventures around the world without the guilt Mum laid on them – playfully, and with love – about her pressing need to be a grandma (I’d make sure he knew he’d owe me, of course. What kind of little brother would I be if I didn’t?). As for Dad … Dad rolled with whatever life threw his way. Hey, I had to get the personality trait from somewhere, right?

I didn’t stress about what my family would think. There was no need. But I couldn’t begin to assume what Amanda’s family thought of the situation. Both her parents were high achievers. Her mother was a high school principal with three published books on education. Her father was a professor of English Lit specializing in Shakespeare at San Diego State University who had, according to Amanda, a major chip on his shoulder about jocks. They hadn’t approved of her extended travel in Australia, given it was eating into her studies. They hadn’t suffocated her with ridiculous pressure and expectations, but they’d been very vocal about her academic performance.

As I mentioned before, when I’d met them for the first time, her father had done his best to scare me off, even belittle me in front of her. Again, not because he was a jerk, but because he wanted what was best for his daughter, and in Charles Sinclair’s mind the best for Amanda was graduating with her teacher’s degree (with Honors, of course) and getting a job at a prestigious private school. Not being “distracted” by a guy who seemed more interested in exercising his biceps than his brains. It hadn’t helped, I guess, that I’d been wearing a T-shirt that said Education is Important. Big Biceps are More Importanter.

Amanda’s mother was a different matter. Jacqueline Winslow-Sinclair took to me like a duck to water, told me I was the best thing to ever happen to Amanda. “She laughs more with you,” she’d commented one time during a particularly long Skype chat between us when Amanda was still in Australia with me. “You bring out the adventurer in her. The sense of fun. I haven’t seen that since she was a little girl.”

Chase had spent every Skype session coming up with different names for me. Those fun sessions had made me like her family a lot. Of course, at that time, I’d only had limited interaction with Charles. I’d thought he was too busy to get involved. But now …

How had they reacted when Amanda told them she was pregnant? Had they supported her? Had they been there for her? Chase was around. That was something. But what about Charles and Jacqueline? Had they helped her during the pregnancy? The birth?

An image filled my head – Amanda in pain, straining, crying, her face red, her eyes closed, her hair damp with sweat. I’d never witnessed a birth before, but Hollywood had shown me what giving birth to a baby was like, and it wasn’t fun.

Hot anger rushed at me again, unexpected and jarring. The birth of my son and I hadn’t been there. I was a father and I still had to rely on movies and television to tell me what it was like. I know Amanda regretted that, but it didn’t take away what I felt now.

It wasn’t until soft fingers touched my jaw that I realized Amanda was no longer crying into my chest. Instead, she was looking at me, an unreadable expression in her eyes. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she said.

Letting out a slow breath, I relaxed my hand on her back – when had it become a fist? “I’m planning Tanner’s free weights sessions. Reckon I’ll get him started with some core work to get him on his feet fast.”

I grinned. My woeful attempt at humor, however, didn’t make Amanda laugh. She looked at me, her expression growing more closed off by the second. A frown knitted her eyebrows.

Okay, flippant wasn’t the way to go here.

“Hey,” I said, smoothing my palm over her back to draw her closer to my body. “It’s going to be okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. For you and our son.”

Our son. The words felt both surreal and wonderful on my tongue.

She closed her eyes and returned her face to my chest. There were no tears this time, just a stillness borne from the need for connection.

“Where is he?” I asked, looking around her home. A part of my brain wanted to snag on the fact there was no evidence of him here, but the rest of me wanted nothing more than to think about how incredible it was going to be to be a father. To be a family. “Is he with your mum and dad?”

“He …” She curled her fingers against my chest. “No, he’s not with Mom. I …”

Silence stretched between us.

“What did your mum and dad do?” I asked when I couldn’t handle it any longer. “Have they helped?”

“Very much so,” she answered without looking up. “And Chase has been incredible. I don’t know how I would have sur …” She faded off again.

“Tell me about him,” I said when she didn’t finish. “Does he have my stunning good looks?”

She laughed. The sound was a curious mix of joy, pride and something sad. “He does. And your strength. He damn near broke my ribs with all his kicking during the pregnancy.”

I chuckled. “That’s my boy. A footy player in the making.”

Amanda pulled away from me and grinned. “Did you just say that’s my boy?”

“I did. Watch out, I can feel a lifetime of dad jokes ready to spill forth as well.”

She laughed. And yet, even as her face transformed, I could see the emotion still didn’t quite reach her eyes. What else was going on in her head?

“Was it an easy pregnancy?” To be honest, I was floundering. What I wanted more than anything was to see Tanner. Hold him. But I also wanted Amanda to know I truly was here for her. That I was where she needed me to be: with her.

She shifted on the floor, repositioning herself so she was less fetal position, more companionable leaning. “Two words. Morning. Sickness.”

“That bad?”

“Hell, yeah. I threw up every morning. Every morning. I’d open my eyes, put my feet on the floor and before I could even register it was morning, I’d hurl. I lost twenty-two pounds before the end of the first trimester.”

“Whoa.”

Amanda laughed again, but this time her eyes reflected the sound. “Whoa is correct. I was at Mom and Dad’s during it all. Chase held my hair back so many times I think she was ready to shave it off. Thankfully, it went away like someone flicked a switch on the second day of my second trimester. After that it was smooth sailing.” She gave me a skewed grin. “Except for a weird craving for Vegemite – which was thoroughly gross – and all the kicking. I know you told me you were some kind of football freak and had the chance to go pro when you were a teenager, but I cursed you more than once during the last few months when it felt like Tanner was attempting to do a kick-off.”

I burst out laughing, tightening my arm around her as I did. “Okay, babe,” I said, “I know footy is a foreign language to you, Australian footy even more so, but do a kick-off?”

“Hey.” She pulled an indignant face and punched my bicep. And then winced and shook her hand.

I grinned, drawing her back closer to my chest. Now I’d got a serious taste of how incredible it was to hold her that way again, that close, I wanted her there as often as possible. A warm wave of anticipation and delight washed over me at the thought of sitting this way, not just with Amanda, but with Tanner. Of holding him in the crook of my arm, watching him sleep … or fart … or poop.

What? I’m a guy. Farts and poop hold significance to us. And when it’s a guy’s own flesh and blood doing the farting and the pooping …

Something told me I was going to be awesome at this whole dad thing. I mean, I was already grinning with pride at the thought of Tanner farting. What would I be like when I was actually there when he did one?

“What else?” I prompted, the thought making me grin some more. “Tell me more. When do I get to meet him? Is he standing yet? Saying any words?”

The questions tumbled out of me. I couldn’t stop them. I was on a post-I’ve just discovered I’m a father high. With every question I asked, I imagined that squishy little baby I’d pictured earlier gurgling and giggling away at me. Pictured him crawling toward me with focused determination. Saw him toddling toward me on chubby legs, wearing nothing but a nappy, or diaper as they call them over here, and a singlet that said Sun’s Out. Guns Out.

See what I mean? Post-I’ve just discovered I’m a father high, big time.

Euphoria and excitement joined my anticipation and delight. I didn’t try to repress them. I welcomed them. Life gives us what we can deal with. And I was dealing with this.

I know it probably made no sense, but I was genuinely happy.

“Does he know what I look like?” I went on, before Amanda had a chance to answer any of my previous questions. I felt like I was thrumming. I hadn’t been this pumped since walking out of the bank after my first preliminary meeting with the manager. “Has he seen a picture of me? What’s his favorite food? Does he have one? Where is he now?”

It was the last question that gave me pause. Just where was he now? She hadn’t answered me before. And why weren’t there any signs of him ever being here?

Straightening a little against the door, I looked around the room. There wasn’t a hint an eighteen-month-old lived here. Not a highchair, not a toy car … nothing.

True, I had no friends with young children or babies, but, as with the whole giving birth thing, Hollywood had taught me that when a baby enters, the house becomes a breeding ground for all manner of baby paraphernalia that finds its way into every nook and cranny, and onto every surface of the parents’ home.

So where were Tanner’s toys?

Where, in fact, was Tanner?

Perhaps Amanda sensed the sudden disquiet falling over me. She pulled away from me, her body becoming tense.

Keeping my arm around her back, forcing my fingers to stay loose against her shoulder blade, I turned my head to face her. “Where is he? It’s just dawned on me I can’t see any evidence he even exists.”

She looked at me, not moving. One of her hands still rested on my chest, near my heart. It curled now, the fingers scraping at my skin through my shirt, still damp from her earlier tears.

Something tight knotted in my gut. “Amanda?”

“I wanted to …” She stopped, pushing herself completely free of my arm, my body. She sat beside me, legs crossed, spine straight, as if about to meditate.

There was nothing composed or serene about her expression, however. Nothing peaceful. All the joy I’d seen peeking through her previous turmoil was no longer there. Instead I saw grief. Raw grief. And beneath that, a determination to control it. To deny it. The woman now sitting beside me was a study of wretched conflict. And I had no clue why.

“I wasn’t prepared for what happened to me when I saw you at the airport, Bren,” Amanda murmured, dropping her head to gaze at her crossed ankles.

I frowned at the words, and at the way she pinched at the tip of her thumbnail. It was a nervous habit.

“I’ve done this by myself for so long, and then you’re here, and it made me realize so much more all the mistakes I’ve made since pushing you away. I’ve been … I don’t know … selfish? From the moment I sent you that text … to the shower … and now, sitting here, letting you hold me, letting you talk about our son …” She looked up at me again. My heart quickened at the tears shining in her eyes. At that raw grief etching her beautiful, tired face. “I wasn’t prepared for the emotional upheaval I felt when you texted me back, let alone what I felt when I saw you. I should have known it was going to happen, but I wasn’t fucking prepared …”

I blinked. The Amanda I knew didn’t swear. I’d always been impressed with that. She’d said it was because her father told her at a young age a person’s intelligence could be measured by their vocabulary, and profanity was the product of a lazy mind. I was of the opinion it was because she didn’t need to swear, on any emotional, philosophical or societal level. The Amanda I’d known wasn’t above swearing, she just knew how to articulate her emotion without it.

But, as I was discovering with every second that passed since I stepped from the plane in LA, the Amanda I was currently looking at was not the Amanda I’d known. Perhaps she’d never been that Amanda. Perhaps that Amanda had been a product of my idolization.

Before I could respond to her unexpected declaration, she pushed herself to her feet and crossed into the kitchen. I watched her snag a tissue from a box on the counter. Watched her wipe her eyes with it.

Feeling like I’d been thrust back into a vacuum where everything pressed against me, I unfurled to my own feet. “Hey,” I said, walking toward her. “Whatever’s going on, we can work it out. You know that, right? Is it your dad? I can talk to him if it is. Make him see I’m not the dumb jock he thinks I am.” I reached for her hand, attempting to draw her to me.

She shook her head and pulled her fingers free of mine. The eternal optimist that I was couldn’t help but feel bruised.

“Amanda?” I said her name again. “Why are you selfish?”

She slumped against the counter, crossing her arms over her breasts to stare at the air behind my head. “Seeing you, kissing you … it sent me into a tailspin and I … I just wanted a little bit of normalcy for a moment, is all,” she answered. Her voice sounded like dry sandpaper. Its tortured tone sent another lick of unease through me. “It’s been … Ever since …”

She let out a slow breath and turned to look at me. I could see her arms tighten against her chest. “I saw you, Brendon, at the airport, and for a moment I forgot the reason you were here. For a moment, I wanted nothing more than to pretend we were just two young people reconnecting after a stupid breakup. Two people who would spend the day screwing like rabbits and laughing and enjoying being together. I’d planned to tell you why I asked you here at the airport. If nothing else, I want you to remember that. I’d planned to tell you then. Before we kissed, before we made out in the shower … before Chase came along and told you about Tanner … I’d planned to tell you before all of that.”

I swallowed. I don’t know why, but I was having difficulty drawing breath.

“Tell me what?” I frowned, staring at her. “Why am I here, Amanda? Why am I really here?”

“It’s time I take you to meet your son, Bren,” she said as an answer.

“No.” The word left me on a shout. I can’t remember the last time I’d shouted at someone in anger. Seriously shouted. I shouted at Amanda. One single word, but a shout all the same. I’d had enough. Enough of the confusion. Enough of the frustration.

Frustration. Shit, I didn’t do frustration. It ripped at me. Made me feel weak. Trapped.

Amanda hadn’t wanted to trap me eighteen months ago, but I was trapped now. Not by the existence of our son, but by Amanda herself. By her refusal to be straight with me. To keep whatever the fuck was going on from me.

Jesus.

Jesus, I was … I was …

Dragging a hand through my hair, I fisted it at the back of my head and glared at Amanda. “Tell me what’s going on. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m walking a fine line here. I flew halfway around the world without knowing why, because you asked. I’ve taken the news we have a son well. I’ve rolled with everything you’ve thrown at me so far, but now, I just want to know what you haven’t thrown at me. What you haven’t—”

“I lost him!” Chase charged into the room, color high. “But I found a … oh, he’s back.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. It dawned on me the piercing above her right eyebrow was a tiny little skull and cross-bones. God help the poor sod who one day decided Chase Sinclair was the woman for him. She was going to make his life a living hell. “You came back. So the cab I was following all the way to the airport wasn’t you?”

I shook my head, incapable of finding a word to say. I was close, very close, to losing it. I didn’t know whether to be grateful for Chase’s arrival, or resentful. Like frustration, however, resentment wasn’t something I allowed myself to experience.

Chase rolled her eyes and let out a breath. “Great. So a taxi driver out there now thinks he’s got a dragon nut stalking after him. Yay.”

I didn’t say anything. Neither did Amanda.

Chase slid her gaze from me to her sister. “Did I interrupt something?”

“I was …” Amanda muttered. “I was just about to tell Brendon where Tanner is. It’s time we went to see him, for Brendon to meet him.”

“What?” Chase turned her right ear towards Amanda, thrusting her head out in a melodramatic way. “I can’t hear you. I’m deaf, remember?”

“Chase,” Amanda snapped.

She held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Just trying to cut the tension here. You two need to start acting like grown-ups. There’s such a thing as words, you know. You should both use them. I hear they’re quite useful at times.”

“Chase.”

The hands went up again, this time with an exasperation I was feeling myself. “Oh for fuck’s sake, can we all just get in the car? I’ll drive. We’re going to get stuck in traffic if we don’t go soon, and you drive way too slow.”

I let out a tight breath.

“Before we do …” Amanda walked into the kitchen to a tall wooden cupboard, opened the door and withdrew something from it.

I could see what it was before she crossed to where I stood. My heart thumped faster. Harder. Tried to punch its way from my throat.

She stopped directly in front of me, gaze locked on my face. “This,” she extended her hand toward me, “is Tanner.”

I stared at the photo in her fingers.

“This is Tanner,” she repeated. I didn’t miss the emphasis on the word “this”. But I didn’t understand it either.

Pulse pounding in my ears faster than it should, I took the photo from her and studied it. A toddler grinned up at me, devilish mischief dancing in blue eyes so like my own I could never question his parentage. A tuft of thick blond hair – again, the same color as mine – sprouted from the top of his head, shaped into a short, spiky Mohawk. In his right hand was a bright yellow Transformer toy. In his left, an apple half munched on by baby teeth. He was wearing a bottle-green T-shirt with the words Try and Stop Me across the chest and a pair of shorts that showed off his chubby legs and knees. His feet were muddy. At those muddy feet a puppy sat – a black and white scruffy mutt with no discernible breed – just as muddy as he was.

I stared at the photo. At my son. Drank in the sight of him. The obvious joy he was feeling at the moment he’d been immortalized by the camera.

A tight band wrapped around my chest and squeezed. It stole my breath. My throat thickened. My head throbbed. My son. I was looking at my son.

It was like looking at a photo of myself when I was that age. And yet, I could see Amanda in Tanner as well. In the shape of his jaw. In his eyebrows. My eyebrows are arched and bushy. Tanner’s fair eyebrows mimicked Amanda’s – straight blond horizontal lines above his blue eyes.

Those eyes held mine to the photo. Kept me prisoner. I couldn’t look up from it, not even when I heard someone move to stand beside me.

“He’s a cheeky little imp,” Chase said, her shoulder brushing my arm as she looked at the photo. “I remember the day that was taken. He’d just finished hitting Robby over the head with Bumblebee and thought he was all sorts of clever and awesome.”

“Who’s Robby?” I murmured, incapable of lifting my attention from Tanner.

If Chase heard my distracted question, she didn’t answer. It’s possible she didn’t. She was standing on my right, and Chase’s hearing is at its worst on her left.

To be honest, I didn’t give a rat’s arse who Robby was. Not at that second. I was completely preoccupied with Tanner. A rush of sheer happiness crashed over me. I smiled at the photo, all too aware my eyes were prickling with wet heat. He was gorgeous.

I know gorgeous is not a word guys tend to use unless they’re describing a hot chick, but he was. Gorgeous and full of life and fun. I could see it. There, in that photo.

My son.

Silence stretched in the room. It took more effort to raise my focus from that photo than it did to bench-press 136 kilograms. Chase and Amanda were both watching me.

“What’s going on?” I asked. A tickle in my brain said I was missing something very important. Something … “Why isn’t there any sign of him here?” That tickle turned to a cold finger, pressing at my heart. The hair on my scalp crawled. “Doesn’t he live here? Where is he?”

Adopted. She adopted him out. Why else wouldn’t he be here? With his mother?

The thought slammed me hard. I frowned, staring at Amanda’s face.

“Where is he, Amanda? Why do we have to drive to see him? Who does he live with?” Another thought popped into my head, a brittle connection to a possibility I didn’t want to ponder. “Who’s Robby? What’s he to my son?”

“Brendon,” Chase began, her voice louder than it should have been in the small room. So it wasn’t just me stressed then? For some fucked-up reason that made me feel better. But not by much.

“No, Chase.” Amanda stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I got this. I should have got this months ago. Eighteen months ago. Then Bren wouldn’t be looking at us, at me, like I was … like … ah, fuck, Bren.”

She closed her eyes and stood motionless, save for her fingers pinching at her thumbnail again. She stood there, silent, before opening her eyes again and meeting my gaze with an unwavering, unreadable stare.

“Tanner has Philadelphia chromosome-positive leukemia, Brendon,” she said, her voice calm and yet at the same time hollow. Broken. “He was diagnosed last month. Unless he has a successful bone marrow transfer as soon as possible, the doctors have given him six months to live. Maybe less.” She stopped and drew a slow breath. “It’s rare for the parents to be a match, but sometimes they are, and the first ones tested are family and siblings. That’s why I contacted you,” she continued. “That’s why you’re here.”

I blinked, looking at her, trying to comprehend the words that had come out of her mouth. I must have misunderstood. I must have …

My brain caught up in the space of a heartbeat. Caught up and rebelled against what it had heard.

Leukemia.

Cancer.

I blinked again, staring at her. “Are you serious?” My voice was little more than a rough breath. It was the most ridiculous question I’ve ever asked in my life.

In my twenty-five years of living.

Living.

Six months to live …

A tear tracked a path down Amanda’s right cheek. She nodded, a strange hiccupping action of her head. Her eyes however, didn’t move from mine.

My knees crumpled beneath me. They’d been trying to desert me, abandon me, since I’d learned of Tanner’s existence and I’d denied them the victory. But now whatever determination and strength I’d had before was gone. Robbed of me by four words: Philadelphia chromosome-positive leukemia.

I fell onto my arse, hitting the floor with a thud. The room rushed at me, even as the air vanished. I gasped for breath, but none came. My chest turned to a vice; my gut a churning mess. I stared up at Amanda from the floor, my head roaring.

“No,” I said. “No. You can’t do this to me. You can’t call me to the other side of the world, tell me I have a son and then tell me he’s dying. You can’t do that.”

Amanda did that horrible, hiccupping head nod again. A part of me recognized how tormented, how haunted she looked. How drained and beaten. Another part of me saw her as something else: something cold and deceptive. Something I didn’t want to be around.

The rest of me … the rest of me …

I shook my head, teeth clenched, and tore my eyes from the woman in front of me, fixing them instead on the photo in my hand. Tanner grinned up at me, thrumming with life and energy and playful joy.

“Bren …” Amanda’s choked voice filled the silence. “I had no choice, don’t you see? I’m desperate. We’re desperate. It’s not just Tanner who needs you, it’s me as well. I need you.”

“You can’t do that,” I growled from the floor. My eyes felt full of burning sand. The image of Tanner blurred. “You can’t do that.”

“But she did, Brendon,” Chase said. “As fucked up as it is, she did. And now it’s time to step up and show us what you’re going to do about it.”