As a single mom in a small town, there's only one thing I want. Another baby. When all the roads to getting what I want lead to dead ends, I turn to one of my best friends for help.
In my mind, Trent Castillo is the perfect baby daddy. He has good g...
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Father's Day morning arrives in the house like Christmas. Amir is up before the sun, knocking on my door asking if it's time to make breakfast for Trent. I convince him to come back to my bed for more sleep, and I send a text to Trent telling him not to go downstairs if we're still sleeping when he wakes up.
When Amir wakes up again, it's ten in the morning, and I'm sure Trent's been cursing my instruction to stay in bed. He's often up and gone to the gym early on Sundays.
My son is frantic, convinced Trent wouldn't have followed instructions and his Father's Day dream of delivering breakfast in bed will be ruined. When he goes into Trent's room to take his order, he's happy he has to wake Trent up. But I wonder if Trent was faking sleep after hearing Amir's distraught rambling in the hallway.
Either way, I'm grateful to him for playing along.
Amir skips down the stairs with Trent's breakfast order of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee in his head. Trent and I talked about the food we had in the house last night because I knew Amir wanted to play waiter.
Amir puts on his superhero apron, and he shows me how he learned to crack an egg with one hand from some online chef he watched. It's impressive. Some days I can barely crack an egg with two hands without ending up with some stray shell.
Since breakfast isn't anything fancy, we're done in no time, and Amir is carefully balancing the plate in his hands on the way up the stairs. I follow behind with the scalding hot coffee. Trent can drink it straight out of the pot without cream or sugar like some sort of unhinged person.
As soon as we get to the top of the stairs, Amir whips around, almost sending the breakfast flying off the plate. "I forgot the presents in my school bag," he says.
"That's okay," I say. "We can drop off breakfast and then you can come down and get the stuff to deliver it to him."
"It's already wrapped," Amir says, and then he waits for me to open Trent's door.
I give a light tap with my knuckles before we enter. Trent is sitting up in bed, on his phone, and when he glances up, Amir yells, "Happy step-dad day!"
"Uh," I say, shocked by what's come out of his mouth.
"Here," Amir says, passing Trent the plate before dashing back out the door.
"I have no idea what that's about," I say as soon as he's gone.
"Not exactly what we talked about," Trent says with a strained chuckle. "He must not know what it means."
Amir comes shooting back into the room, two decorated brown paper bags in his hands. He puts one out to Trent, then draws it back and puts out the other, as though he can't decide which to deliver first.
"Which one do you like best, bud? Give me that one first."
"This one," he says, passing Trent the longer one.
