Ugly Love: A Novel

Six years earlier

“What if he turns out to be gay?” Rachel asks me. “Would that bother you?”

She’s holding Clayton, and we’re both sitting on the hospital bed. I’m on the foot of the bed facing her, watching her stare at him.

She keeps asking me random questions. Playing devil’s advocate again.

She says we need to work these things out now so we don’t run into any parenting issues in the future.

“It would only bother me if he felt like he couldn’t talk to us about it. I want him to know he can talk to us about anything.”

Rachel smiles at Clayton, but I know her smile is for me.

Because she loved my answer.

“What if he doesn’t believe in God?” she asks.

“He can believe whatever he wants. I just want his beliefs—or lack thereof—to make him happy.”

She smiles again.

“What if he commits an awful, heinous, heartless crime and gets sent to prison for life?”

“I would question where I went wrong as a father,” I tell her.

She looks up at me. “Well, based on this interrogation, I’m convinced he’ll never commit a crime, because you’re already the best dad I’ve ever known.”

Now she’s making me smile.

We both look at the door when it opens and a nurse walks in. She flashes a regretful smile. “It’s time,” she says.

Rachel groans, but I have no idea what the nurse is referring to. Rachel sees the confusion on my face.

“His circumcision.”

My stomach clenches. I know we discussed this during the pregnancy, but I’m suddenly having second thoughts, knowing what he’s about to go through.

“It’s not so bad,” the nurse says. “We numb him first.”

She walks over to Rachel and begins to lift him from Rachel’s arms, but I lean forward.

“Wait,” I tell her. “Let me hold him first.”

The nurse backs up a step, and Rachel hands Clayton to me. I pull him in front of me and look down on him.

“I’m so sorry, Clayton. I know it’ll hurt, and I know it’s emasculating, but—”

“He’s a day old,” Rachel interjects with a laugh. “There’s hardly anything that can emasculate him yet.”

I tell her to hush. I tell her I’m having a father-son moment, and she needs to pretend she’s not here.

“Don’t worry, your mom left the room,” I say to Clayton, giving Rachel a wink. “I was saying, I know it’s emasculating, but you’ll thank me later for it. Especially when you’re older and you get involved with girls. Hopefully not until after you’re eighteen, but it’ll more than likely be around the age of sixteen. It was for me, anyway.”

Rachel leans forward and holds her arms out for him. “That’s enough bonding,” she says, laughing. “I think we need to review the boundaries of father-son conversation while he’s being emasculated.”

I give him a quick kiss on his forehead and hand him back to Rachel. She does the same and passes him on to the nurse.

We both watch as the nurse leaves the room with him.

I look back at Rachel and crawl toward her until I’m lying next to her on the bed.

“We have the place to ourselves,” I whisper. “Let’s make out.”

She grimaces. “I don’t feel sexy right now,” she says. “My stomach is flabby, and my boobs are engorged, and I need a shower so bad, but it hurts too much to try to take one right now.”

I look down at her chest and pull at the collar on her hospital gown. I peer down her shirt and grin. “How long do they stay like this?”

She laughs and pushes my hand away.

“Well, how does your mouth feel?” I ask her.

She looks at me like she doesn’t understand my question, so I elaborate.

“I’m just wondering if your mouth hurts like the rest of you hurts, because if it doesn’t, I want to kiss you.”

She grins. “My mouth feels great.”

I rise up on my elbow so she doesn’t have to roll toward me. I look down on her, and seeing her beneath me feels different now.

It feels real.

Until yesterday, it really did feel like we had been playing house. Of course, our love is real, and our relationship is real, but until I witnessed her give life to my son yesterday, everything I felt before that moment was like child’s play compared to what I feel for her now.

“I love you, Rachel. More than I loved you yesterday.”

Her eyes are looking up at me like she knows exactly what I’m talking about. “If you love me more today than you loved me yesterday, then I can’t wait for tomorrow,” she says.

My lips fall to hers, and I kiss her. Not because I should but because I need to.

•••

I’m standing outside Rachel’s hospital room. She and Clayton are both in the room, napping.

The nurse said he hardly even cried. I’m sure she tells all the parents that, but I believe her anyway.

I take out my phone to text Ian.

Me: He got snipped a few hours ago. Took it like a champ.

Ian: Ouch. I’m coming to meet him tonight. I’ll be there after seven.

Me: See you then.

My father is walking toward me with two coffees in his hands, so I slide my phone into my back pocket.

He hands me one of the coffees.

“He looks like you,” he says.

He’s trying to accept it.

“Well, I look just like you,” I say. “Cheers to strong genes.”

I hold my coffee up, and my dad bumps his against it, smiling.

He’s trying.

He leans against the wall for support and looks down at his coffee. He wants to say something, but it’s hard for him.

“What is it?” I ask, giving him the opening he needs. He lifts his eyes from their focus on the coffee, and he meets my gaze.

“I’m proud of you,” he says with sincerity.

It’s a simple statement.

Four words.

Four of the most impactful words I’ve ever heard.

“Of course, it’s not what I wanted for you. No one wants to see his son become a dad at the age of eighteen, but . . . I’m proud of you. For how you’ve handled it. For how you’ve treated Rachel.” He smiles. “You made the best of a difficult situation, and that’s honestly more than most adults would do.”

I smile. I tell him thank you.

I think the conversation is over, but it’s not.

“Miles,” he says, wanting to add more. “About Lisa . . . and your mom?”

I hold my hand up to stop him. I don’t want to have this conversation today. I don’t want this day to become his defense for what he did to my mother.

“It’s fine, Dad. We’ll discuss it another time.”

He tells me no. He says he needs to discuss it with me now.

He tells me it’s important.

I want to tell him it’s not important.

I want to tell him Clayton is important.

I want to focus on Clayton and Rachel and forget all about the fact that my father is human and makes awful choices like the rest of us.

But I don’t say any of that.

I listen.

Because he’s my father.