Chapter 1: Dell
I love women.
The luscious sensation of holding them in my arms.
The downy softness of their skin.
The smell of baby poo —
Wait.
I shake myself awake.
I’ve fallen asleep in the rocking chair again, baby Grace on my chest.
And I feel —
Uggh. Sticky.
I shift positions and Grace’s head pops up. She gives me a huge baby girl grin.
Yeah, I bet you feel great.
I try to stand up from the rocking chair, but I sense something oozing down my bare chest. Yeah, it’s sliding.
Shoot. If I move, I’m going to get baby sludge all over the rocking chair cushions, the rug, everywhere.
Why the hell did I get a penthouse this big? Where is my butler?
Not that he’d help.
He has a no-baby clause in his contract.
I glance at the clock. It’s 2 a.m. Arianna’s undoubtedly sound asleep in the master bedroom way down the hall. It’s her work day tomorrow, so I had the night duty.
I’m on my own.
The room is dim, lit only by a night-light. I need something that is easy to throw in the wash to catch this disaster that has blown out the baby’s diaper and leaked through her sleeper.
I spot a burp cloth tossed over the edge of the crib. Perfect. If I lean far enough, I can probably reach it.
I hold Grace in place. Her head has thunked back down on my chest, but she’s wiggly. Not sleeping. I don’t want her to get too riled up. If she starts kicking and fussing, the shit will literally fly.
My right arm reaches, extending across the space between the rocking chair and the crib. I lean, keeping Grace firmly in place on my chest.
I almost graze it. The cotton brushes my fingers.
Just a little farther. I’ve almost got it.
I feel the rocker start to tilt. Then the unsettling sensation of an unexpected shift in weight as the glider mechanism slides forward.
“Whoa!” I cry, pulling my arm back and trying to right the chair.
But we’ve gone too far, and I curl my arms around Grace as it crashes over.
I roll out of it, my body around the baby. She laughs like we’re on an amusement park ride.
The chair makes a terrible racket, the arm hitting the hardwood floor just past the rug and the back tangling into the slats of the crib.
I take the brunt of the fall with my elbow and recover rather gracefully, I must say, getting right back to my feet after completing a full roll.
Grace giggles, her little legs kicking with excitement.
But I can feel it. Goop. Everywhere.
And footsteps down the hall, hurried.
Great.
Arianna arrives, flipping on the light. “Is everything all right?”
The baby monitor in our bedroom amplifies noise in the nursery. It probably sounded like the building was collapsing.
“Just knocked the rocking chair over,” I say, blinking in the brightness. Her honeyed curls are mashed on one side, a robe thrown over a tank top and sleep shorts.
“Are you okay?” Her eyes frantically search me, then Grace, one hand shielding her eyes so she can see in the light. Then she waves her hand in front of her nose.
“Oh, God, Dell! What in the world?”
In the brightness of the overhead, the destruction is impressive. The chair, leaning into the crib. Cushions on the floor. And the smears. Yellow-green poop. On the arm of the rocker. On the floor where we landed, a spray from the impact of the fall.
And all down my body, my belly, my shorts.
“Too many peas, maybe?” I say.
“Too much something.”
Adding solids to Grace’s diet has been an experience.
Bernard arrives, as put together as he can be for the hour in hastily donned black pants and a button-up shirt. “Is everything all right, sir?”
Then he sees the room, the floor, and me. “I’ll call the housekeeper,” he says, backing from the room.
“No, no,” Arianna says. “It’s the middle of the night. We’ll handle it.”
“I’ll fetch a bucket, then,” he says, his lips pressed together.
“Poor Bernard,” she says and turns back to me. “I’d take the baby, but um, no.”
The next visitor is Maximillion, my greyhound. He hurtles into the room like he’s going to save the day, all muscle and lean legs.
Then he halts.
His nose sniffs the air, uncertain, interested.
Then he looks at me as if to say, “Hell, no.”
And bounds back down the hall.
I glance over at Arianna. “Even the dog deserted us.”
She laughs. “I don’t blame him.”
I hold Grace up in the air. She giggles, her legs working. She’s wet and gooey from the waist down, the pink sleeper soaked to orange.
“I can’t believe she isn’t fussing in that mess,” Arianna says.
“Can you turn on the shower?” I ask her. “I think I’ll just take us both in.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” she says. “I’ll take care of this out here.”
“I can get it. It’s my mess,” I say.
“No,” she says. “It’s our mess. Our perfect, precious mess.” She surveys the room. “Did you jump up or squeeze her when she blew out the diaper?”
“Something like that,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Let me get the water on.”
I follow her, holding Grace out and away from my body.
Grace loves flying, and her arms and legs wiggle like crazy, her face lit up with happiness. Despite the hour, the poop explosion, and the disgust of my butler, I count this one as a good memory.
“All ready,” Arianna says, stepping back from the shower. Her nose wrinkles as she looks at us. “I’d offer to pull your shorts down, but I’m not sure I want to touch them.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever failed a proposition in quite this way,” I say with a chuckle. “We’re going in fully dressed to get the worst off.”
“Okay,” she says. “You can hand me the clothes.”
I pull Grace close and step into the spray.
Grace squints her eyes, arms waving, not sure what to think of the water. I lift her up, letting the flow rinse the worst of the mess from her sleeper. Then I move her out of the way so it can hit me as well.
“Is she okay in there?” Arianna asks.
“She seems to be perplexed by the whole experience,” I say.
“She’s not crying.”
“She seems more curious than anything.”
And she is. Grace looks down on me and the water, fascinated.
I turn my back to the spray. “All right, little one, let’s get you stripped down.”
The snaps are tricky with the wet fabric sticking to her. I cradle her in one arm and work them with the free hand. Finally I’m able to peel it away.
“First one,” I say, passing it outside the curtain.
Arianna takes it from me.
The diaper is huge and puffy. I pull it off, rolling it up the best I can before holding it out. “Big bomb incoming,” I say.
“Yuck,” she says. “Just drop it.”
I peek around the curtain. Arianna holds a plastic bag out, ready to catch it.
That taken care of, I turn Grace back into the water, careful to keep her face from getting pummeled too hard by the spray. She loves it, reaching out to catch the streams, feet kicking.
“You ready for a clean baby?” I call out.
“Just a sec,” Arianna says.
We play in the spray a little longer. My boxers are sticking to me, and I long to get them off and be done with this.
The curtain slides a few inches. “Okay, I’ll take her now.”
I pass Grace to Arianna and peel out of the shorts. Arianna pauses to watch a moment, making my cock stir despite our predicament.
She holds out her hand.
“You wanting some of this?” I ask her with a laugh.
“Just the wet shorts, mister,” she says. “The rest can wait.”
“Is that a promise?” I hold on to the boxers.
Now she cracks a smile. “Of course it is.”
I hand her the sodden fabric. “Be out in a second.”
What a night. I quickly soap down, sighing to be free of the mess. Fatherhood. I certainly hadn’t seen this day coming. But in the months since we got Grace, I’ve learned that everything I thought to be true about how I wanted to live my life was wrong.
Arianna is a treasure. Grace is a joy. I’m working part-time and it’s been just fine. We’ve found our own way to be a family. Even in the bizarre moments like this, we are content.
There’s just one problem left to handle. When I think about it, my hand tightens on the washcloth, wringing it out.
Arianna and I are engaged, and she wants to meet my parents.
But I haven’t told them about her. Or Grace.
They don’t know I’ve changed my name.
They know nothing about me.
And eventually I will have to face it all.