The Single Undead Moms(60)

“Ew.”

“You asked.”

“I should have clarified which details I was asking for,” I mumbled.

“Sooner or later, we just lost interest,” he said. “I stopped callin’, and she moved on. But a couple weeks later, she shows up with a pink plus sign on a stick. She didn’t believe in ‘options,’ said she was keepin’ it. I had my doubts, I’m not going to lie. But when a Tucker screws up, he pays the price. So I gave her money for the doctor’s appointments, baby things, vitamins. Hell, I even asked her to marry me. She said no, thank God. And she got real quiet at the end, just when I was really starting to think of that bump under her tank top as a real little person. She just shut herself off. Wouldn’t tour the hospital. Wouldn’t take those breathin’ classes. Wouldn’t talk about what was gonna happen after he got here.

“That baby was born, and he was a Tucker, all right. There was no denying him. Not that I would have anyway. I took one look, and that was it. I was in love with my boy, and it was deeper than anything I’d ever felt in my life.”

I smiled with the silly sort of kinship only another parent would understand. “And Lisa Ann?”

“Checked out of the hospital the minute she was allowed, signed the papers sayin’ she didn’t want him. She told the nurses that I could give him up for adoption if I wanted to, but she was done.”

“And you never saw her again?”

“Naw. She moved to Nashville, last I heard, waitin’ tables in some karaoke bar. We don’t need her. A mama who’s going to ditch and run when things get tough? That’s worse than no mama at all. Besides, we do just fine on our own. Can’t say it doesn’t pay off. ’Cause in return, I get this.” He pulled a drawing from his back pocket. It showed a little boy and a bigger man, both with bright yellow hair, sitting on a motorcycle, big smiles on their faces.

“Aw, that’s beautiful. I got this.” I pulled out Danny’s drawing.

“Is that Bigfoot?”

I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

He guffawed. “That’s awesome.”

“But it never gets any easier, does it?” I sighed, looking at Danny’s “nighttime family.”

“Do ya ever get mad, that ya had to go through all this to keep your son?”

“I’m not one for ‘why me’s,” I told him. “I mean, why not me? When people hear that someone they know is sick, they want to hear something that person did to bring it on themselves. Something they did to deserve it, you know? Like ‘She was a two-pack-a-day smoker’ or ‘He worked with radioactive waste’ or ‘He’s the Nielsen family that kept According to Jim on for so long.’ They’re looking for something that will separate them from whoever’s suffering, because they need to tell themselves that it’s not going to happen to them. But honestly, I was a nonsmoker who stayed away from the sun and processed foods and hair dye. My only crime was faulty genes. There are times when I wonder if I’ve done the right thing. I mean, there were times when I was human that I was absolutely sure I was the worst mother in the world, but at least then, I didn’t pose a direct threat to my son. I question myself constantly.”

“That’s the job, the doubtin’,” Wade said with a shrug. “When Harley was a baby, ’bout two months old, I got him to sleep almost through the night through a combination of a warm bath, a big bottle, and a whole album’s worth of Kenny Rogers songs. I felt like the smartest man alive. And the very next day, he started hollering like he was about to explode. Nothing would soothe him. Late-onset colic, the doctor called it.”

“It happens sometimes,” I said.

“Well, it was friggin’ awful. The next six months were like one of those psychological experiments you see in horror movies, the ones with the sleep deprivation and the hallucinations? One morning, I stumbled into the pediatrician’s office—in my sweatpants and my huntin’ boots—after being up all night with Harley screamin’ his head off, convinced that my baby had one of those exotic diseases people catch in the rainforest. The doctor actually sent me down to the radiology department for a full workup—X-rays, scans, the whole bit. And while we were waiting for the results, I changed Harley’s diaper. I pulled his foot out of his onesie, and the doctor noticed that his big toe was just about purple. He had a ‘hair tourniquet’ wrapped around his big toe. It happens sometimes when hair gets trapped inside the baby’s pajamas in the dryer. The doctor cut the hair loose, and Harley stopped cryin’ all at once. I felt like the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. All that fuss over a damn hairball. And then I thought about all those hospital bills I was about to get, over some stupid hair. I will admit, I started cryin’, big boo-hoo sobbin’ right there in the middle of the exam room. It was not my manliest moment by a long shot. But the doctor patted my shoulder through the whole thing and gave me a piece of advice.”