#dads!au

‘Older’

Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one.

The foolish days of youth were melting past Lefou faster than he expected them to ever. But these were the days to stumble through life, unsure, and to take a few missteps because, for the most part, you’d catch yourself and carry-on.

He wasn’t exactly irresponsible. He wasn’t exactly responsible, either.

With the crowd he hung around, the loud-mouth, rowdy group of theater majors married with the reckless antics of Gaston, he wasn’t quite on the straight and narrow.

His grades were decent enough. He went home to see his family every other weekend.

But he drank.

And partied.

And fell into strange beds.

But he used protection. Always used protection.

Except he didn't. Not when it mattered.

Twenty-two.

And so on the night when he’s supposed to be commemorating his youth, celebrating another hedonistic and carefree year, he is sitting across from the girl he fooled around with on her extra-long twin bed, a white stick between them.

Her face that night had been so lovely.

(He had been so drunk.)

She laughed at everything he said.

(Everyone was always raving about how good it was.)

She invited her back to the girls' floor.

(He gave it a shot.)

But tonight, on his twenty-second birthday, she’s not laughing at what he’s said at all. Her face is red and blotchy and not glowing like everyone said it would. She was freaking out on the phone when she called him about this.

Twenty-two years old and in the little pink plus sign, his life as he knew it is gone.

And something new is starting.

One.

***

‘Reaching’

It was alien like, this little box for babies. Cold, hard plastic surrounded her, tubes and wires connected to oxygen tanks and heart monitors escaped through the little holes. These holes, two on each side, were a child’s only window to the outside, human world. These holes were only large enough for a hand to go inside and touch the baby inside.

Not hold. Not kiss. Touch. Gently.

Lefou’s baby, the unexpected visitor they were, was supposed to be held and kissed. They were unexpected, unplanned for, but by God were they going to be surrounded by a tiny village who loved them more than anything.

They weren’t supposed to be here. In a glass box. With an enormous scar down their tiny front.

Lefou and Madeline had a meeting with the pediatrician outside the NICU to talk about what was the best option for their baby’s life, which only hours before had hung in the balance as surgeons cut through new skin and tried to fix an already broken organ. But she was here. (For now.) And while her Maman and Papa were out, Uncle Gaston was going to keep watch.

“Hey there, buddy,” Gaston said softly. Lefou’s baby was a little girl - surprising at least Lefou who had convinced himself that he’d be having a son - and therefore, wasn’t exactly Gaston’s little buddy. The boy they had dreamed up, the one who would watch sports, the one he’d teach how to wrestle, the one he’d convince Lefou and Madeline to get a big dog for, wasn’t here. But a sick little girl who needed his love was.

And at that moment, little Charlotte balled her tiny hand into a fist, flailing it outside her little portal, offering it to him.

Gaston smiled.

She wanted a fist bump.

His little buddy after all.

***

‘Bright Blue’

“Charlotte! Charlotte Mae, look at Papa!”

His daughter - no more than two - was clearly showing off the dramatic flair she had inherited. She was leaning up against the wooden frame of the beach house, posing in her new blue, off the shoulder, striped romper like she was twenty-two. And Lefou, of course, was taking photographs with the aid of his lovely assistant, Jacqueline.

(Jacqueline had made the romper, too. She had a talent in sewing, but having a model with such miniature proportions definitely increased the volume of clothing she produced. And Lefou could tell that she took great effort to make something sweet

Still, she had her critics. “In my day, toddlers didn’t go around looking like they just stepped out of Vogue,” Madeline’s mother hummed when she saw her granddaughter make her grand entrance in her new ensemble. “They wore overalls and dresses with bunnies on them.”

Although, of course, Charlotte had her own fair share of corduroys and bunny dresses.)

Charlotte didn’t look. Instead, she tossed her thick, dark, curly hair - her hair that had been the reason behind Madeline’s mad case of heartburn when she was pregnant - to the side. Like she knew what she was doing.

Lefou’s genetics hard at work.

He laughed to himself and instead snapped one of her looking off into the distance.

These are the photos that, in twenty years, she’d actually be proud to show off.

***

‘Reflection’

A small town meant a larger number of people who heard the latest news - be it legitimate fact or whispered gossip. But Stanley Bernard becoming a single father at twenty-five was entirely true. And sure enough, when he ventured outside to the town’s early-summer festival with a baby wrap slung around himself and a wide-eyed infant peering at all the hustle and bustle, everyone began to talk even more.

That just how small towns were.

So young.

Couldn’t he have waited?

A baby needs two parents.

The funny thing about fatherhood was how much like his mother he had become. With her four kids, Fleur was always like a mama bird, keeping a close eye on them and shielding them with her wings. Stanley’s own wings were still fresh and downy - barely out of his adolescent phase himself - but they were there to wrap around Emilien.

They were a team, the two of them. Though the nights were sleepless and the days were long, there was no better joy than those moments he catches on film of Emilien laughing, smiling that toothless smile as he takes a picture of them together, his son on his shoulders, sporting a grin that’s not quite so toothless.

Never happier.

***

‘Companion’

It had been six years since Lefou had a baby at his hip. He had never anticipated another one. It was unlikely he’d ever fall into a situation that would grant him another child very soon, but it was clear that the ways of the universe were mysterious to him.

And of course, he never planned on a baby that was so different from his first. Charlotte Mae was just as wild and spontaneous as her dark curls but Bartholomew Elijah was calm, always pink-cheeked and staring around at the world with bleary blue eyes.

He hardly cried. He just let things happen. As long as he was close to his Papa, he could do anything.

And that was why, when he was introduced to Madeline’s dog, a Saint-Bernard that had a much different approach to the world, he didn’t freak out at this enormous creature dead-set on sniffing him. He just let her be. And with his peaceful nature, the new dog seemed to calm down as well.

Lefou smiled as he adjusted his grip on his son.

It was nice, after this disruption of his life, to know that this little boy could ground him even more.

***

‘Morning Light’

Once the boys had transitioned from waking up at the crack of dawn, eagerly awaiting what brand new things Saturday morning would bring, to finally realizing there was nothing glamorous or thrilling about six am, Lefou and Stanley thought they’d get back to normal human sleeping patterns. Then, of course, came along two little girls who were the unconventional last two pieces they needed in their family jigsaw puzzle.

Michelle, their sweet little surprise, couldn’t go through life without a companion. Barney and Emilien - though not siblings from birth - had become brothers in the three years time since their lives became one. Therefore, when the stork came knocking at their front door with Camille in tow,  (and for a couple who could not conceive on their own, that damn bird presented with them with so many offers away) they couldn’t turn her away.

And sure. It was hard sleeping in a room with two cribs, two babies, two constant alarms that could never synchronize their feedings and changing. But as Lefou lays in bed with a Camille swaddled up beside him, dozing off after a long night with an upset tummy, and Michelle, somehow alert after struggling to sleep through the crying, sitting and watching her sister in fascination. She had no ill will that this baby kept her up. She was just happy to see her.

Enough to - bless her heart - lean down and kiss the baby’s forehead when Stanley, from the other side of this Lefou/Camille/Michelle/Stanley sandwich - coaxed her.

Yep. This was worth it.

We had a short but ultimately unconstructive discussion about lying; that it’s all very well when I do it, but she really ought to try not to. But the knot of dread which accompanied any thought of Steffi taking on physical challenge was loosening, perhaps even unwinding. And with it we unwound. She started talking in a way I’d never known her to talk before; having recently been privy to her thought processes largely through her Lazytown stories. She started, for want of a better term, to prattle. Her voice filled my ears, filled any room we shared with stories about dance training, how when she’d started she could barely bend her knees, and how her arms were weak and inflexible. Each story was accompanied by wild gesticulation and many examples of the moves described while I collected breakable objects in my arms and ducked flying crutches. And when she wasn’t talking about dancing she was talking about you.

You had arrived after summer last year, to replace a retiring P.E. teacher. When Principal Meanswell introduced you to the school, you did a backflip right then and there in the school hall, followed by some one-handed press-ups. Steffi was among those who struggled to pronounce your name; when I asked her to she turned pink and stared at the floor, finally muttering a word that sounded like ‘Ibuprofen’ and refusing to try it again. So Sportacus you became, and it had stuck to you like glue ever since. You were from Iceland. Your favourite food was apples. Your favourite colour was blue.

“Enough, Steffi. I need to concentrate.”

She was stood in the door of my study, leaning against the doorframe. She’d been telling me for perhaps the fifth time how you’d seen her watching your dance aerobics class in the gym on her late days and invited her to join in. How when she told you she wanted to be a dancer, you’d smiled so wide she thought you looked like the Cheshire Cat.

But now she’d fallen silent. That old silence.

“Why don’t you go and draw something?” I tried to modify. She nodded, closed the door and scuttled off. I went back to my laptop. A stern e-mail about my research grant had scared me back to the book I started 6 years ago and for the last week I’d been ploughing through years of neglected research notes, trying to make sense of the working processes of a man I barely recognised. My brain - much like the rest of me - had become a soft, under-exercised ball of pastry.

And of course, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. This is what I mean. Why am I like this? In some ways it takes a great deal of effort to really double down on those nasty intrusive thoughts, and as flabby and useless as my torpor had left my academic mind, my brain’s centre for manufacturing problems probably had muscles bigger than yours. Because in the six days since we’d met, I’d managed to convince myself that you were an arrogant, swaggering, blowhard jock who I didn’t like at all.

It didn’t happen immediately. I listened hungrily at first to the details about you that Steffi had memorised. I would listen to her talk, and flex my fingers as a phantom crackle of electricity buzzed through them at the memory of your handshake. I sat up in my chair at night, unable to sleep and I thought about you. I ran through and through our short conversation, bringing to mind your voice, your inflection, your blue eyes. I dissected the lifting feeling in my chest until my body felt like an abstract entity of aches and rushes. I thought about your hands, and your lips and the shape of your shoulders until quite suddenly a shame descended over me so profound that I thought I was going to vomit. I paced around the ground floor at night. Who did you think you were? Steffi was enamoured of you, but I wasn’t a little girl, I could see through your charm. Just another musclebound meathead who think he knows what’s best for everyone. Who thinks he knows what’s best for my family. Giving dancing lessons in secret. Not even a phonecall to the parent. Such presumption. Such arrogance.

It was a couple of hours later, when my eyes were crossing from trying to concentrate on this incomprehensible draft and I decided to give this up for now and go and make dinner, that I found Steffi had left me a gift. It was lying outside my study; the newest issue of ‘Adventures in Lazytown’. The first issue I had received since finding out that Sportacus was not entirely a figment of my daughter’s imagination. Suddenly the whole thing felt a little less wholesome. Why had she begun writing about him? Why did she specifically think that I needed to read about him? I brought the pages inside and started reading. Her drawing was getting so good. The simple earnest sweetness of Lazytown filled me as before and my suspicion melted. These were just stories, no matter what they were inspired by, this Sportacus might as well have been a figment of Steffi’s imagination for all he could possible have in common with the man I met six days ago. People like Sportacus don’t exist, and that jumping Icelander was no elf, he had a real name (albeit one no human tongue could pronounce) and a house and probably a wife. He was no more a genuine part of our lives than any other cartoon character Steffi watched on a Saturday morning. I had just about rationalised the whole thing away when I turned the last page.

My whole face suddenly superheated. A full-page illustration accompanied the conclusion of the story. Sportacus grinning a broad grin while I (well, not me, my avatar I suppose) was cradled in his arms in an unmistakable bridal lift. The kids from the story were all around, laughing and smiling and waving their arms, and Steffi’s alter-ego, standing unsupported, looked nothing short of delighted.

I put the pages down, my heart beating double time. Was this… her plan? No. it was an insane idea. Depressive people often get the idea that there’s a conspiracy going on around them, I just hadn’t been getting out enough lately. My insomnia and fixation had been allowing spiders and dustballs to creep back into my brain…

… But there it was! In full colour; blue and purple. Was Steffi window-shopping for a new parent? Had she been presenting these stories to me as a sort of advertisement for her preferred brand of stepfather, like children leaving magazine cuttings around of toys they want for Christmas? Was this why she was always talking to me about you? Telling me what you liked and disliked. It wasn’t so crazy. While I’d not had a relationship since her mother, I had allowed myself to be talked into being set up a couple of times, usually by my feckless brother with one of his skeezy friends. All male. We’d never discussed this sort of thing but she was a smart kid. Maybe I should have; they say you’ve got to be honest with children, present the world to them as it is and allow them to make up their own minds about it. To be honest, conversations about Papa’s jumbled up excuse for a sexuality didn’t figure high in my priorities. It was partly procrastination and partly a worry that she wouldn’t understand. I mean, I didn’t really understand, so asking her to would be unreasonable. And I didn’t want her to feel like my relationship with her mother had been anything less than the profound, perfect thing that it was. I was going to love and miss Ella for the rest of my life. I was probably never going to love another woman.

What’s that line from that play about the English teacher? “I’m a one-woman man and I’ve had mine, thank god.”

I felt suddenly sorry for her. If this was what she was pinning her hopes on, she was certain to be disappointed. Obviously as a child she couldn’t be expected to understand how these things worked. That handsome, young P.E. teachers generally have their own lives. That even if they didn’t, it was highly unlikely that reclusive, doughy academics would be their type. That even if they were, he certainly wasn’t my type. What would we talk about? Football? Protein powder? Poor kid, I thought, looking back at the drawing. The three of us were in the centre of the page, looking like a happy family. Poor kid.

I felt a pressure on my back, a jolt in my stomach and for a moment I could visualise it perfectly. Your arms firm beneath me, your body warm against mine, your face inches away, my hand on the nape of your neck. I stuffed the picture in a drawer. This was madness. I was in such a state of guilty nervous tension for the rest of the evening that I burned the chicken nuggets. Steffi turned her nose up at them and helped herself to carrots from the fridge. There you were again. Breaking into my house. Into my life. Tomorrow I would have to talk to you when I picked Steffi up from dance practice. Maybe then I could lay out some ground rules. Put you in your place, and show Steffi that whatever ideas she had about her teacher and me, they couldn’t be further from the mark.

Steffi was 8, and after a very difficult adjustment period and some extended sick leave, I was now on medication.

“But what about MY analysis, isn’t that important, too?” He demanded. He was the only student I knew who came to classes exclusively in a suit. A sort of light-tan ensemble that, if paired with a bushy moustache and Pith hat wouldn’t have looked out of place in Colonial India.

“Yes, your analysis is the basis of the dissertation, but you need to reference your sources, otherwise it’ll be considered plagiarism.”

“But it’s MY dissertation. I don’t see why other people should get the credit for it.” This discussion was going nowhere, and I needed to pick Steffi up from the Nurse’s office. In recent months I’d relieved Bessie of her obligation to take Steffi to school four days a week. It hadn’t been easy to rend this task from her grip, and emerging from my funk of self-obsession as I had been lately, for the first time I noticed that she might be lonely. I’d always seen this blue-rinsed, five foot nothing matronly figure as rather comic, but looking at her with fresh eyes; her full face of make-up at 8am, her exquisitely tidy house and long list of telephone acquaintances, I felt I may have misjudged her. God knows I still didn’t really want to have to talk to her, but I endeavored to be friendly when our paths crossed, and she really did make excellent cakes.

I suppose I was able to notice the signs of loneliness in her, because for the first time in a long time, I’d also begun to notice them in myself. It wasn’t just the care of Steffi that was somewhat arduous on a single parent; cooking, caring for and cajoling a child is one thing without crutches, insurance and physiotherapy to be thinking about, but we managed. It was that for the first time since Steffi was 2, I had felt the absence of a person in a way that wasn’t grieving, but hoping. The idea of getting involved with someone else, that had once made me almost physically sick, now breezed through and through me with a slight thrill. Not that I’d taken any steps. Where does one even begin? My circumstances weren’t exactly conventional to start with.

I never thought I’d fall in love with a woman; when Steffi’s Mama and I got married it was to the shock and awe of a great many of our friends and acquaintances. And why not? What interest could this gorgeous, intense, acerbic ballerina have in some skinny boy in purple eyeshadow? And all the things that had obsessed me up to that point about myself; my sexuality, my flamboyance, the way I was perceived vs the way I wanted to be perceived, all melted away with her. I was simply going to be her husband until I died, and I’d never have to think about any of those things ever again.

When Steffi drew me as “Robbie Rotten” is was like looking back in time. He didn’t slob around all day. Even his dressing gown was fancy. It occurred to me as Steffi’s drawing skill improved and her pictures became more detailed, that I recognised the purple waistcoat that she had dressed my alter-ego in. It was from an old photo of me at University, the height of my overdressing phase. A beautiful two-tone 70s purple striped three-piece found in a vintage store, that I’d altered myself to fit my lanky body. The legs had been slightly too short, ditto the waistcoat, but I loved it. It’s strange proportions suited very well the way I thought about myself. The idea of having that sort of confidence nowadays felt like insanity, but still, I ventured up into the loft and there it was, the old relic, lying among a pile of clothes I hadn’t worn for years.

It didn’t fit. Of course it didn’t fit. I wasn’t fat, but a certain amount of weight gain had come with the medication. I was looking healthier for it, but I wasn’t going to be fitting into anything i’d worn at 20. There were other garments, though. Nice garments. I used to be quite the thrift shopper, and there were things here that still had pins stuck in them from planned alteration work. I couldn’t believe I’d never made anything for Steffi. When I found out I was going to be father to a little girl, it was all I could think about. Perfect little dresses, bows, ruffles. The time had just slipped away and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bothered to pick up a needle.

I was wearing one of my old/new outfits on that day. I’d been wary about dressing up to work, my fears based around the simple adolescent principle that maybe the kids would laugh at me, but spurred on by Steffi’s adoration of my sartorial renaissance I’d dared a waistcoat today. She’d wanted to paint my nails but I drew the line. She could do it at the weekend, but it was still a little too much for a man who until recently sometimes wore his slippers to work. In reality, the only real difference my return to flashy dressing made was that it became more difficult for me to claim that students hadn’t seen me plough through three slices of cake at the Humanities cafeteria when my purple velvet jacket made me a rather unmistakable presence.

“- And MY view is that money is money and the distinction between old and new makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

“What?” I asked, breaking back into this punishing tutorial. Sterling made a noise of frustration, somewhere between a gasp and a growl. I stifled a laugh. He got to his feet.

“I pay for my education here, and if you’re not going to take it seriously, I will talk to my father about it.” Oh, so he was one of those students.

“Well, if that’s how you feel Ste- Mr. Sterling, then I’ll gladly talk to him over the phone and explain that in 7000 words of your dissertation on expressions of wealth in the early 20th century novel, you don’t cite a single source. Not even the texts you’re supposed to be studying.”

He huffed. A picture-perfect huff, his lip curling up as he folded his arms like a petulant little boy. I thought ‘I know you, Sterling. I know your bland, entitled view that whatever you can take should be yours. I know your puny self-awareness, and fear that you’ll never have enough, never be enough to make people really like you. And that means I know how to call your bluff.’

“Resubmit your draft to me with adequate references, and we can talk about your feelings on new money next week. I think this tutorial is over.”

As he left he muttered something more about his father, but his heart wasn’t in it. Before I rushed out the door I very quickly pulled up his student record in case I was to receive an angry call from a parent. I found that Sterling was indeed a surname, and the reason he went exclusively by it was because the poor soul had been christened ‘Stingy’. Stingy. Was that short for something? If my father had called me Stingy, I daresay I’d milk him for all he was worth until the day he died, too.

I drove fast to Steffi’s school, convinced I was late but ended up being five minutes earlier than normal. Being early is something of a novel concept to me. I was looking forward to not receiving my customary eyeroll from the school nurse as I approached her office. But something was wrong; the office was locked. This had never happened before and I immediately visualised the worst. She’d been rushed to hospital and nobody had called me. Why wouldn’t they call me? Easy Robbie, because they don’t trust you to look after your own daughter, they’re going to call a ‘safeguarding’ this time and you’ll never see her again. I swallowed and started through the corridors.

“Steffi?” I called my voice coming out quavery, addressing the empty halls. I stopped. This was ludicrous, I’d simply go to the reception desk and ask. Maybe the Nurse’s office had flooded. I went back the way I came, heading towards the school’s main reception. I passed the gym. I had to double back in order to really believe what it was I could see through the window in the door.

It was the elf.

Steffi’s elf. Sportacus. He was leading a small class of children in some sort of aerobic dance. It’s hard to say how I knew these two entities were the same, when one is a dot-eyed drawing in a blue hat and the other a short but muscular PE teacher. It was something about the smile. About the air of calm, kind authority that hovered around him, and the spell he had these children under. The spell he had me under. For all that I had resented Sportacus for usurping my place as Steffi’s role model, I had never doubted that he was the role model she deserved. To learn that he was not something her imagination had conjured to cover up the failings of an inadequate father, but rather a real person who had come into her life, was overwhelming. He was beautiful. And I realised he was looking right at me.

I jolted away from the window. Stupid man. Gazing through windows at children; that’s a good way to get yourself arrested. And Steffi was still missing. And now you’ve just reacted like a startled cat you seem even more suspicious, he’s probably calling the police right no-

“Hello!”

He was standing in the hallway, holding a hand out towards me.

“You’re Steffi’s Papa, yes?”

He had an accent. I hadn’t expected him to have an accent, but his plain, loud way of speaking was familiar to me. Less familiar were his ice-chip blue eyes and wavy blond hair, his gleaming white teeth and the lean, shapely muscles of his arms. I took his hand like a person anticipating touching an electric fence, and his firm grip thrilled through me at 10,000 volts.

“Yes. Rob.”

“Rob?”

“Yes.”

“Not Robbie?”

I felt myself flush. So I wasn’t the only person who Steffi was sharing her stories with.

“Ahah… Well I… And you’re… well, you must be. I’m afraid I don’t know what your name is other than-”

“Sportacus!” I laughed and nodded. He shrugged. God, his shoulders. “It’s a nickname. Something the kids call me. Most of them can’t pronounce my name.”

“I see. Is… You don’t happen to know where Steffi is, do you?” I asked, downplaying the fact that I’d lost track of my offspring. He responded immediately, beaming.

“Of course, she’s just inside!” He put a hand on my back and steered me towards the door of the gym where he pointed her out. “She’s practising her routine.”

Steffi’s face was a mask of concentration, her arm made elegant, swan-like arcs as her crutch dangled from her elbow. Then, placing both crutches on the ground she swung herself round, one knee siding to the ground, her other leg stretched behind her. He arms twisted above her head before she folded her entire body forward. Using her arms she flipped herself over into a sitting position, and rolled over her side, engaging the crutches with the floor to push herself to her feet in one smooth, graceful movement.

I was crying.

The elf man saw I was crying, patted me on the back and called out to Steffi. When she saw me, she didn’t know what to think. She slunk over, eyes apprehensive, believing that this was the moment of reckoning for her months of disobedience. I couldn’t bear to draw out her uncertainty. I ran to her and scooped her up in a way I hadn’t done for many years, holding her tight against me. Crying hotly into her tiny shoulder.

“Papa…” She said, clearly startled.

“I’m so proud of you.” I whispered “I love you so much.” She sunk into me then and nuzzled into my shoulder. My perfect, tough, tenacious little daughter. How could a man like me deserve to live his life alongside such a beautiful soul?