Chapter 23 Darren
I wake up everyday and still can’t believe that this is all happening.
Hope is here in my house and I am about to have a baby.
It made me start thinking about my son, Bryant. I had been wanting to reach out and talk to him, but I wasn’t sure how it would go. I would be devastated if my son kept rejecting me.
But, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to call anyway.
My heart was pounding out of my chest while the phone rang and I waited for it to be picked up.
“Hello?” came the familiar soft voice on the other end of the phone.
“Hi, mom. It’s Darren. How’s everything?”
“Oh, Darren!” she sang out, brightly. “It feels like I haven’t talked to you in forever. How are you?”
“I’m fine, mom,” I said, chuckling. No matter what, my mother was always happy to hear from me. She got so excited, you would have thought that it was Christmas morning and she was getting a personal call from Santa himself.
“How is Bryant?” I asked, almost afraid of what the answer would be.
“Bryant is doing just fine! In fact, he’s been asking about you lately.”
“Oh? What’s going on?”
“I’m not too sure. But, he’s been asking about you almost every day, trying to find out if you called, if you were going to come by. I think he misses you.”
I hadn’t expected that. I didn’t even know how to respond.
“Here, he’s about to knock me over if I don’t let him speak to you…”
“Hello?” came a small voice on the phone.
“Hey there, buddy,” I said, as cheerfully as possible. “It’s your dad.”
“Hi, dad! I miss you!” he said. His childlike innocence warmed my heart. It felt good to hear that he had missed me.
“I miss you, too,” I admitted. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, everything is great, dad. Grandma got me this really cool new phone and it lets you video chat. Can I call you on it so that we can talk man-to-man?”
I had to stifle laughter at the thought of my little man calling himself a man.
“Of course, son,” I said. I gave him my phone number and told him that I would wait for him to call.
My heart started to beat fast again and I was starting to sweat. The last time that he’d seen me had not gone very well. In fact, in ended in him screaming and crying, begging to get away from him. I knew that he was young and I looked scary, but I had to admit that it also hurt me to my heart to know that my own son couldn’t stand the sight of me.
When the call came through to my phone and his picture popped up on the screen, I held the phone back a little so that he couldn’t see my whole face.
“There you are, dad,” he said, smiling brightly. “Dad? Where are you? I can barely see you.”
I slowly moved the phone so that my face came into view.
“There’s my dad,” he said proudly. I almost burst into tears seeing his happy, smiling face staring back at mine. “It’s good to see you, dad.”
We chatted for a while longer. He was so excited to show me all of his new toys and give me a tour of the house. He told me that he wished that I could come visit him and I didn’t really give him an answer.
His favorite TV show came on and he quickly handed the phone off to my mother and ran off after saying a quick goodbye.
“He’s so happy to talk to you, Darren. This is wonderful.”
“It really is,” I agreed.
“It seems like you’re in a better place. You seem happier, more relaxed. Anything you want to share with me?”
My mother always had excellent intuition, especially when it came to me. I wanted to tell her what was going on, but decided that that was a conversation that should be had at another time.
“No, I just have a new outlook on things and am just going with the flow of life,” I told her. It was partially true. I just left out the part about Hope and the new baby being the cause of his new lease on life.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. And it’s really good to hear from you. I think that you being so upbeat is the reason why Bryant isn’t afraid to talk to you. You seem like a…normal person. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, son, but you know what I mean. Say, I would love it if we could come up and see you sometime. Do you think that we could?”
“I don’t see why not,” I mused. It actually might be a great way for me to tell my mother what was going on and give her a chance to meet Hope. I know that she would be happy to find out that I’m having another grandchild for her. Plus, I think that she will really like Hope.
We said our goodbyes and hung up.
Everything was finally falling into place just the way that I had always hoped that it would.