15. Cam
fifteen
Cam
C alling Maisy at bedtime is easily the highlight of my day. I had no idea that I could feel so much for someone—anyone—let alone a tiny toddler.
A tiny toddler I’ve only just met, but launched herself straight into the very core of me.
Leaving her in London is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. In less than a week, the idea of my daughter has become something very real and tangible. No longer abstract but a small human who loves wildly and unconditionally, and who accepted me into her world with no hesitation, no fanfare, no questions—just pure, three-year-old innocence. In just a few days, she went from a concept to someone very real, someone who plucked my heart from my chest and embodied it fully.
Saying goodbye—at Amie’s house, because the airport would’ve been too much—broke her heart and mine, and even Amie was teary-eyed as I stepped into the cab to leave. I miss them both with a ferocity I never anticipated.
Not a day has gone by since that night in Singapore when I haven’t thought about the beautiful brunette who turned my world upside down. I haven’t looked twice at another woman since, and honestly, I haven’t wanted to. She ruined me for anyone else that night. Spending five days with her in London, learning how smart she is, how thoughtful and loving, seeing what an incredible mother she is to our daughter… it made me want her in my life as more than just a co-parent. I want her in my life as Amie— mother, daughter, friend. Mine . She’s everything I ever could’ve imagined loving.
But I can’t.
Last night, when she asked me what my biggest fear was, I said needles without thinking. I’ve always had a phobia—the hyperventilating, sweaty palms, clammy skin, on the verge of throwing up-kind of phobia. It has the medics laughing every time I show up for my medical and they have to take blood, because they can’t believe that a grown man—tall, broad, perfectly capable of understanding that a small, medical needle won’t hurt me—could be so deathly afraid of a tiny, sharp scrap of metal.
Except, when Amie told me her biggest fear was losing Maisy, my blood ran cold and turned to slush in my veins. My mouth dried out, my stomach fell like a brick all the way down to my ass, and I couldn’t breathe with the thought of losing that tiny little whirlwind. I didn’t even want to leave her behind in London. I don’t know how to make everything work if I leave the US—but I think I owe it to her, and to myself, to look into it.
I’ve known Maisy all of eight days now, and suddenly she’s my greatest love and deepest fear, my whole heart outside my body. She’s all of me, all of Amie, all at once.
And I’ll be damned if I let her go even one more minute of her life without knowing she’s loved by her mom and her dad.