6. Fern
6
Fern
“ S he can’t handle this!” Ethan’s voice was getting louder, but there was no anger in his tone or in his expression. His eyes were full of fear. “She thinks that she can, but she has no idea! I try to suggest that she doesn’t have to, and that makes me the bad guy?”
Fern closed the bedroom door, leaving Theo to sleep beneath the soothing hush of a white noise machine.
“She has no idea what it takes to be a parent, how hard it is to take care of a baby. She refused to even sleep under the same roof as Theo when he was a newborn, and now she wants to do this alone ?”
“She’s not alone,” Fern said softly. She sat down on the couch and patted the next cushion over, motioning for him to join her, but he just kept pacing the living room.
“I should leave Teddy with her for a week,” he muttered, his eyes on the floor as he paced. He pulled at his auburn hair like he might pull it out by the roots.
“Ethan.” She raised her voice enough to get his attention. He stopped pacing and looked over at her with a start. “Take a breath.”
Reluctantly, he dragged in a long breath of air. Then another. After a moment, he came to sit down next to her.
“I hate this,” he groaned, resting his head in his hands. “There’s nothing worse than watching your kid make a huge mistake and being powerless to stop it.”
“ Is it a mistake?” she asked.
He gave her a bewildered, accusatory look. “She’s seventeen.”
“Okay. So was my mom when she got pregnant with me.” Her voice softened as she added, “So was Laurel.”
Ethan looked away, and she wondered how much of his panic stemmed from there.
“Was Juniper a mistake?” she asked softly.
“Objectively? Yes.” He sucked in a ragged breath and slumped back against the couch cushions. “She’s also the best thing that ever happened to me. That’s like a trick question. There’s no right answer when it comes to kids. No matter how bad of a mistake it was, having a baby so young, you’re not allowed to say it. Juniper would never forgive me if she heard me say that. Maybe I’m a monster for even thinking it. But Laurel wasn’t ready for a baby. She wasn’t healthy enough. She managed for a while. Then she crashed and burned. And the worst thing is that Juniper suffered for it. That’s what’s impossible to explain. The mistake was bringing that perfect little girl into a household that traumatized her.”
“She turned out okay.”
“Yeah,” he scoffed. “A high school dropout and a teenage pregnancy. Every parent’s dream. She turned out great.”
“She did turn out great,” Fern said fiercely, and Ethan looked at her in surprise. “Stop judging yourself as a parent – and stop judging her – by one decision you don’t agree with. Juniper is bright and kind. She’s running her own business and holding down multiple part-time jobs besides. She’s a good person. Yes, she’s young. Yes, she’s still figuring things out. But she needs your support, not your condemnation.”
“I know.” Ethan put his head in his hands again. “You’re right. I just don’t know how. I don’t feel strong enough for this, Fern. I wanted so much more for her.”
“What about what she wants for herself?”
“I don’t even know what she wants. I’m a terrible father.”
Fern sighed and put a hand on his back. She reminded herself that this man was still grieving his wife of eighteen years, all while caring for an infant and trying his best to be there for his teenage daughter. When she met him, he was drowning. And now, just when he had started to feel like he was safely treading water, his daughter seemed to be headed down the same dark path that her mother had started down all those years ago.
“You’re not a terrible father,” she said after a while. “I see how you keep showing up for her. For both of them. You’re doing your best, and that’s what she’ll remember in the end.”
“She hates me,” he said, furtively wiping his eyes.
“She doesn’t.”
“She said that she did.”
“When?”
“When I said that she… didn’t have to keep it.”
Fern sighed. “Juniper doesn’t hate you. She was just feeling hurt. And protective. She probably loves that baby already.”
“It’s not a baby,” he scoffed. “It’s a bundle of cells.”
“Not anymore. Your grandbaby is berry-sized by now.”
“It’s not a baby,” he insisted. “It’s a fetus.”
Sudden tears burned her eyes. “I loved mine. Fiercely. From the very beginning. As much as I love Theo.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You…?”
She sat up and wiped her eyes. Her chest ached with grief. “My daughter would be five now. I lost her at twenty-two weeks.”
“Fern, I’m so sorry.”
She pressed on, needing to tell him. Needing to finish what he had started.
“My son would be about Theo’s age.” Her voice broke, and she swallowed before continuing. “He only made it to eighteen weeks, but I loved him. I loved both of them from the start.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She nodded and took a breath, pressing her hands to her eyes to prevent more tears from falling. Ethan moved closer and put his arms around her. They sat like that for a long time without speaking, calming each other just with their presence.
“Do you think she would still hate me if I suggested an open adoption?” he said after a while.
“I think that you need to show up for her without trying to control her.”
“Ouch.”
“Anyway, would you really want someone else raising your grandbaby?”
“Honestly?” He sat back, considering. “Yeah. I think that would be for the best.”
“You might feel differently once you meet that baby.”
“What am I supposed to do, raise two babies? I’m too old for that.”
Ferned snorted with laughter. “You’re really not.”
“I am. Too young to be a granddad, too old to be raising a baby, but here I am. Theo will have a nephew who’s basically the same age as him.”
She smiled. “It will be nice for them to grow up together, don’t you think?”
“It’s weird.”
“To them it won’t be.”
“If they grew up as brothers,” he started, and then shook his head. “It’s not like Jun would give us her baby. She’s too stubborn.”
Fern’s heart jolted at the ‘us’ but he seemed hardly to have noticed.
“I don’t think I could handle it anyway,” he murmured, like he was talking to himself. “I really don’t.”
“It’s not all or nothing. You can be there for Juniper without raising the baby yourself. She’s the one who needs your support.”
“A grandson the same age as my son.” He sighed, dropping his head back against the couch to stare up at the ceiling. “That feels so trashy.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” she asked in a tone of mild reproach. “What other people will think?”
“Honestly?” He sat up straight and looked at her. “Yeah. I’m really not looking forward to telling my parents. They just about disowned me when Laurel got pregnant, and they were not happy about Juniper switching over to independent study just when she was in the final stretch of her high school years. To them, it was the same as dropping out. And now this.”
“They came around eventually, didn’t they? With Juniper?”
He sighed and nodded. “They adored her.”
“They’ll love this baby too.”
“They’re so far away. And now… how can I ever move back if Juniper’s raising a baby here?”
“Slow down. You don’t know where she’ll be in a few years. Honestly, you don’t even know if this pregnancy will stick. She’s not even showing yet.”
“That’s true,” he said, looking thoughtful.
“What matters is whether or not you’re supportive of her right now, whether you make her stress worse or help to ease it.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I botched this whole thing, didn’t I?”
“The day’s not over yet.”
“You think I should go back?”
“What do you think?”
“I should go back. In a little while.” He leaned back and sighed, then looked at her with a lopsided smile. “You don’t mind dating a grandpa?”
“Why would I?” she asked with a grin.
He shrugged. “It’s just… weird.”
“I’m older than you are,” she reminded him.
His eyes widened. “Are you really?”
“I turn forty this year.”
Humor glinted in his eyes as he asked, “What makes you think that I’m younger than that? I’m about to be a grandfather, after all.”
“You gave me a copy of your ID along with your rental agreement.”
He wrinkled his nose in a good-humored way. “Oh yeah.”
“You’re thirty-eight, right?”
“Just about thirty-nine, but yeah.”
“I’ve got a full year on you, grasshopper.”
He smiled at her, but it was a melancholy sort of smile. “Sometimes I forget how little we know each other. It feels like I’ve known you forever, but obviously there’s a lot more to learn.”
“That’s part of the fun,” she said, taking his hand.
He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
“You make a mean lasagna,” she quipped.
“There is that,” he said with mock seriousness. Then he sighed. “Will you stay with Theo? I need to try and make things right with Jun.”
“I’ve got him.”
He stood, pressing a kiss to her head as he rose from the couch. “Curry for dinner? I haven’t forgotten.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just focus on Jun.”
“A man’s gotta eat,” he said. “And I need to show you that I’m not just a one-hit wonder in the kitchen.”
Fern smiled. “If you insist.”
“Whether or not she accepts my apology, I don’t imagine Jun wants me hanging around for long. And the curry’s a quick meal. I can still make it when I get back.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you,” he said solemnly.
“For what?”
“For taking care of Theo. For talking some sense into me. For… everything.”
“You’re welcome,” she said simply.
“I really don’t deserve you,” he sighed. “But I promise to keep trying.”