Episode 4

Jake’s [POV]

No matter how hard I stared at numbers on my laptop screen, I couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of them. Instead, I reflected on how focusing on one thing for too long seemed to make it lose all meaning. My head was spinning, and my body was tired, but I knew I needed to crunch the numbers before my morning meeting.

I hated leaving certain things up to other people because something inevitably slipped through the cracks when I did. I preferred to be on top of things so that I knew exactly what was happening at all times. That had been the main reason I had risen so fast in the company. The board of directors had noticed my work ethic, and when a candidate needed to be put forward for the position of CEO, my name had come up. I reflected on the moment when they offered me the position. It had felt like validation somehow.

The steady drum of Noah’s toy blocks was also getting in my head. We were seated around the low coffee table in the living room. Noah’s side of the table was a mess of toys and blocks and crayons. He was trying to build something, but I wasn’t sure what. His face was twisted up in concentration with his tongue sticking out as he needed it to think.

I closed my laptop and sat back to watch my son. When I first arrived back in the States, my first and foremost priority had been finding a job to support Noah. I had been so consumed with being able to provide for him that I’d sacrificed the time spent with him. It was a sad choice to have to make, but it needed to be done. The important thing was that he was healthy and happy, and he was doing well in school.

I glanced up at the wall behind Noah. There was a framed picture of Daphne there, and right next to it was the framed flag I had received at her funeral. Still to this day, I could barely remember much about her funeral or the days that followed. What I did remember was the sound of Noah crying. It was constant and desperate, and there was nothing I could do to calm him down.

“Noah…buddy?” I said. “How has school been going?”

Noah didn’t look up from his blocks. “Good.”

“Yeah?” I said, knowing I had to draw his concentration away from his blocks. “How are your friends?”

“Good.”

“What’s your best friend's name again… Jordan?”

“Jaime,” Noah said, glancing at me.

“That’s right,” I nodded. “How is he?”

“Jaime’s a girl,” he said.

I smiled. “Ah, that’s right, sorry, buddy.”

“Jaime’s mommy makes the yummiest cookies,” Noah told me. “Chocolate chip and she puts extra chocolate chips in them.”

“Wow, sounds good.”

“I want a cookie now.”

“You’ve already had your treat for today,” I reminded him.

“How do you know?” he asked, looking up at me with his big blue eyes.

“Because Janet told me you did,” I said.

His face fell slightly, and his cheeks drooped. I was sorely tempted to break my own rule and give him something sweet to eat, but I suppressed the urge. That was another thing about being a single parent: you could never take a break from discipline. There was no way you could drop the ball because you didn’t have a partner to pick up the slack.

I wondered if I’d have been more of a pushover if it weren’t for my army background. I strongly suspected that I would have.

“Jaime’s mommy bought the cookies when she came to school to speak to us,” Noah said, breaking through my thoughts.

“Oh? What did she speak to you about?”

“Her job,” Noah replied. “She’s a…a…pet healer.”

“A veterinarian,” I smiled.

“Yeah that,” he nodded. “But I can’t say that word.”

“You didn’t tell me about career day.”

“Issokay,” he said, combining the two words. “I told them about you.”

“You did?”

“I told them my dad was a fighter,” he said. “And, now he sails ships.”

I smiled. “Ah…I was a soldier,” I corrected gently. “And now… Well, I don’t exactly sail ships.”

“You do,” Noah said confidently. “That’s why you’re always gone.”

I felt a little stab of sadness when he said that and more guilt reared its ugly head. “I’m not gone all that much, am I?” I asked, hoping for some vindication.

“I see Janet more than you,” Noah pointed out, turning his attention back to his blocks.

I tried to keep my expression calm and unaffected. “How do you like Janet?”Noah shrugged, and I could see from the pout on his lips that he didn’t want to answer my question. I set my laptop aside and moved a little closer to him.

“Is she nice to you?” I asked, passing him a red block.

He accepted it silently, and for a second I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. “She’s okay,” Noah said, at last.

“Just okay?” I pressed.

“She makes me food and gives me baths and lets me watch television whenever I want,” he said.

I frowned, not liking that last part. I had given Janet specific instructions before I hired her. Noah was allowed only one sweet treat every other day, and he was allowed half an hour of television on weekdays and one hour on weekends. His bedtime was eight on weekdays and an hour later on Saturdays and Sundays. Janet had chosen to disregard my instructions and do exactly as she pleased.

“She helps me with my homework, too,” Noah said. “Some days... But I want a real mommy.”

I stopped short. “What?”

“I want a real mommy,” he repeated. “Janet’s not a mommy.”

I paused. “Ah… Noah—”

“Everyone has mommies,” Noah continued. “Jaime and Jesse and Luke and Xander. I only have Janet, and she doesn’t count.”

“Buddy…you had a mommy,” I said gently. “Do you see that picture behind you? That’s your mommy.”

“But she’s not here,” Noah said, glancing behind him at Daphne’s picture.

“No, she’s not,” I said slowly.

“I don’t remember her.”

I sighed. “You were very young when…she left us,” I said, unsure how to say it.

“Why did she leave us?”

I gulped. This was the first time Noah had ever spoken about Daphne directly. This was the first time we were having a real conversation about her. Frankly, I had expected to have to deal with this when Noah was much older.

“She didn’t want to leave us, Noah,” I said. “She didn’t have a choice.”

“A choice?” he repeated like he didn’t understand.

“That’s when you have to do something, whether you like it or not.”

“Like Ted?”

“Ted?” I asked, trying to figure out who that was.

“Ted lived in class with us,” Noah told me. “We fed him and gave him water, but one day he wasn’t moving. So we had to dig a hole in the dirt and put him in it.”

“He was the hamster,” I said, remembering Noah telling me about Ted a few months ago.

“Uh-huh.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s the same thing,” I said, completely unsure if I was saying the right thing. “I’m sure Ted didn’t want to leave, either…like your mom.”

“Why is she wearing that?” Noah asked, looking towards her picture.

I stared at Daphne for a moment. I remembered the day I had hung up that frame. I had tried desperately to find a shot of her smiling, but that didn’t leave me with very many options. She was wearing her uniform in the picture I had finally chosen. Even though she wasn’t smiling, there was contentment on her face that gave me some measure of peace when I looked at it.

“That was her uniform,” I told Noah. “She was in the army, like me. That was how we met.”

“And then you married?”

“We did,” I nodded. “And then we had you.”

“And then Mommy died?”

He said it so bluntly, as though he had been saying it for years. I had been doing my best the whole time to avoid using that word, thinking it would be too confronting for Noah. But I was probably just projecting.

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s not fair,” he said suddenly. “Tina has two mommies, and I don’t even have one.”

“I know, buddy,” I said gently. “It’s not fair; you’re right.”

Noah looked at me for a second, and then he turned back to his blocks. I felt even more drained after that conversation and considered the possibility of hiring a live-in nanny. Perhaps Noah would benefit from having a woman around all the time. He was missing the feminine energy in his life.

Again, I felt guilty. Was this because of how much I worked? Noah was right; he spent more time with Janet than he did with me. He didn’t have a mother, and he had an absent father to boot—that couldn’t be good for any child.

I felt extremely inadequate at that moment, and I knew I would need to reconsider a few things if I was going to make a difference in Noah’s life. My goal had always been to do my utmost to make sure Noah didn’t miss Daphne’s presence in his life too much, and I had failed miserably at that.

“What are you building, buddy?” I asked, forcing a smile onto my face.

“A ship,” he replied immediately. “Like the ones you sail.”

“I see,” I said. “That’s a nice ship.”

“Thank you,” he replied politely.

I leaned back and watched Noah at his games. I wondered how different our lives would have been had Daphne lived to watch her son grow up. I remembered the first few months after Noah’s birth and felt that familiar darkness engulf me. It had been a very difficult time. And, it had been even worse because I had been completely unprepared for Daphne’s reaction to the birth. I think she had been, too.

I remember her looking at me while she was nursing Noah. Her hazel eyes were wide with panic and fear, and she looked drained and tired.

“It’ll pass, Jake, won’t it?” she had asked me. “Won’t it?”

“Of course,” I had told her confidently.

But the truth was I was terrified. I had just stumbled into fatherhood, and I didn’t have the tools or the understanding to help Daphne. She had looked at me to save her, and I had turned my face away. Had I been selfish or ignorant? Had I been too young or simply too judgmental? My head spun with the torrent of memories that threatened to sink me under the weight of its pain.

“Daddy?” the sound of Noah’s voice gave me strength.

“Yes, buddy?”

“Will you help me?” he asked. “Will you help me build my ship?”

I forced back my fears and regrets and nodded. “Of course, son,” I said. “Of course, I will.”