“You’re supposed to be on my side. You’re my mother.”
Barbara finally looked at him.
“Exactly.”
That answer seemed to leave him with nowhere to go.
Then he noticed Chloe sleeping nearby.
His expression changed.
He stood there looking at her.
For once, nobody helped him.
Nobody explained what to say.
Nobody softened the moment.
After a while, he asked quietly, “Can I hold her?”
I looked at him.
His confidence disappeared.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted.
“No,” I said. “You don’t.”
He looked down.
I let the silence remain between us.
Then I said, “But you can learn.”
His eyes lifted.
I picked Chloe up and placed her carefully in his arms.
Eric became completely rigid.
“Support her head.”
“I know.”
Barbara made a small snorting sound.
Eric looked at her.
Even I almost laughed.
For a moment, the tension broke.
That didn’t mean everything suddenly became perfect.
It didn’t.
Eric didn’t transform overnight into the father Chloe deserved.
Life rarely works that way.
He eventually moved into a smaller apartment rather than pay the higher rent on Barbara’s house.
Tessa left not long afterward.
For a while, Eric’s life became considerably less comfortable.
But I wasn’t interested in whether his life was comfortable anymore.
I watched what he did.
Support payments began arriving consistently.
He attended scheduled visits.
Sometimes he looked completely lost with Chloe.
Sometimes she cried almost as soon as he picked her up.
Sometimes she screamed until I had to take her back.
I never reassured him that fatherhood was supposed to be easy.
I never told him he was doing an amazing job simply for appearing.
But he kept coming back.
And little by little, he started learning.
Barbara changed too.
She still loved her son.
She still spoke to him.
She still worried about him.
But she stopped rescuing him.
If he forgot a payment, she didn’t cover it.
If he complained about money, she listened instead of reaching for her checkbook.
If he created a problem, she allowed him to solve it.
