Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions of a Gay Dad (8 page)

I know I have to help my daughter learn to drive her vagina responsibly. Eventually. You know, so she comes to realize the respect she should have for her hoo-hoo. And maybe by then her daddy will too. Or at least have evolved enough to stop calling it a “hoo-hoo.” But what’s the hurry? Don wants grandkids early, so he may have a different approach. For right now? I’d be happy to put police tape over the area and scoot her in another direction:
Move along now, nothing to see here
.

I
met my friend Julie (not her real name) at the same game of Celebrity where I met Don in 1992. She had worked with him on some eighties television show about a hospital staff that spent a lot of time disrobing. They jokingly referred to the show as
High Hair and Underpants
. Don and I were forced by Linda, who set us up, to be a team during the first round of Celebrity. I remember feeling like an idiot when I couldn’t guess the clues for Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Rula Lenska, and Julie very sweetly came to my rescue. I liked her right away. She was funny, smart, and irreverent. And she immediately made me feel comfortable when I was clearly an outsider. At the time, she sort of worked the grunge thing before anyone else had—and then worked it way past its expiration date. She wore a lot of hats. I teased her that one of them looked like a colander and she laughed. We both did. That was it. We were friends. Pretty soon we were talking every day, laughing, gossiping.

Many years later, Julie came down with a pesky case of depression. She retreated, closed herself off, and rarely left the house. Occasionally, though, she would agree to meet at a
Sizzler or an Applebee’s, where she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew.

A short time after my fateful call to Don from the film set in Italy, Julie and I met for one of her trademark clandestine dinners deep in the Valley, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a blooming onion—or a meth lab. I told her the good news: Don and I were thinking of adopting! Now, there’s a reason people like being bearers of good news. The response is always predictably great: a squeal of delight, a big hug, a “hip, hip hooray!”

But Julie distinguished herself from everyone else by her reaction: she tried to talk me out of it. “Your life will never be the same.” “You’ll never sleep soundly again.” “You can kiss your relationship goodbye.” “Do you know how fast people age once they have kids?” “Old and fat. Get used to those words.” “You don’t have a house for kids. Your floors are limestone. Your stairs are treacherous. Try recovering from a dead baby.”

And then, as though she still saw a tiny bit of life, in my still and lifeless body, one more: “It’s not just babies who die, mister. You know how many people die during childbirth?”

I managed to croak out, “But we’re going to adopt.”

She was obstinate: “Google it!”

I didn’t quite know what to say. I just started laughing. Nervously. The way you laugh when you think,
Oh dear, am I in a car, miles from anywhere with a crazy person who might at any moment whip out an axe and hack away at my neck in what will undoubtedly become an urban legend told by frightened campers zipped into sleeping bags?

We had limited contact with Julie over the next couple of years. A few short visits to see the baby. Once with a gift:
a pink, stuffed elephant in disco pants, seriously, which I decided to take as a dig. And that was it. Until Eliza was almost two and having a procedure to repair a hole in her heart called an atrial septal defect (ASD).

Julie fought back her demons and came out of hibernation to join us at the hospital. She was there along with many of our other close friends, by our side, all day and night. The procedure involved inserting a device called an Aplatzer Septal Occluder via catheter through a vein in her leg, as they do with stents. The operation was supposed to take only ninety minutes. But due to complications it took an unbearable four hours. To say nothing prepares you for parenthood is a cliché. But when you are watching your twenty-month-old baby girl on a gurney, clutching her stuffed kitten with one arm, the other plugged with an IV as she’s wheeled back into an operating room—that’s a feeling of powerlessness and sheer panic that would deter anyone from becoming a parent in the first place. It was in that moment I wondered if Julie hadn’t been right. It’s one thing to paint a nursery or shop for diaper bags to prepare for the arrival of your baby. But what about all the variables you could never predict? Having a kid had brought us to this free-falling moment for which there seemed to be no safety net. Our friends, and Julie in particular, showered us with reassuring optimism and confidence. And we had complete faith in our pediatric cardiologist. But the
what-ifs
really started to kick in at hour two. It was particularly hard on Don, who was panicked over the possibility the procedure might not work and we’d be faced with open-heart surgery. At that point, I managed to summon an inner strength I
hadn’t realized I had. I looked Don squarely in the eyes and reminded him our little girl was depending on us to be pillars of courage and reassurance.

Eliza’s procedure was a success. The next day, we took her home, and by the third day, surprisingly she had pretty much recovered. We were nervous, of course, but Eliza seemed to have an unexpected surge in energy almost immediately. She had blossomed into a different kid! Poor thing, her heart had been working overtime for nearly two years.

Something changed with Julie too and she was suddenly much more present in our lives. We had never really talked about the time before the surgery, but afterward she started coming around once a week to spend time with Eliza and later with Jonah too. It was awkward at first. She was uncharacteristically chipper and energetic and, let’s just say, had no concept of an “inside voice.” She’d whip Eliza around in the air and they’d both scream with laughter.

Though the doctors said it was fine, we weren’t so much into the roughhousing right after heart surgery. We liked smooth-housing or, better yet,
no
-housing, like: “Hey, Eliza? You know what would be fun? Let’s sit
very
still and try to listen for heartbeats.
Your
heartbeat, actually. Do you have a heartbeat, darling? Please say yes . . .”

But that wasn’t how Julie played it. Julie had a funsy, Bozo the Clown–type energy. We were sure it was too much for our delicate little flower. But Eliza loved it. Julie had a way with Eliza that was irresistible. She managed to be so magically intuitive, focused, and yes, fun! We had a real-life Barney playing with our daughter—and not just when she wore purple. They also developed delicious secrets, which
the kids loved. Me? Not so much. I snuck in on them once watching TV and eating cookies out of a box. Julie was whispering, “We don’t have to tell Papi or Daddy about every cookie we eat, do we?”

Oh,
yes you do!
But when Eliza was with Julie, there were no rules, no bedtimes, no limits. Julie was her irresistibly wild-eyed, energetic, and fun-loving aunt. We affectionately called her Aunt Cuckoo.

Even a year after the operation, we were still Aunt Cuckoo’s bitches. Every morning as we’d drive Eliza to school, she’d start asking to call Julie as we backed down the driveway. I would dial her on speakerphone.

Ring. Ring
. Eliza’s face would beam with anticipation.
Ring. Ring
. No answer. I’d start to panic.

“Pick up the phone, Aunt Cuckoo!”
Ring. Ring
. Eliza would look at me, worried. Then, thank God, the click.

“Hello?”

I could breathe again.

Eliza would beam from ear to ear. “Hi . . .” she’d say, suddenly shy, as though she were talking to Lady Gaga, or Anderson Cooper or okay, no,
Cinderella
.

Julie would always say the same thing: “It’s peanut butter jelly time!”

Eliza would laugh. Highlight of her day. I couldn’t help but resent Aunt Cuckoo for it. And Eliza. Here I was, working so hard to be her parent, to love and provide for her and teach her about kindness and moderation and limits. Why didn’t she like me, her own father, better than our friend, an unabashed, hedonistic, sugar and TV pusher? Oh yeah, that’s why.

At especially low moments, I would try to imitate Aunt Cuckoo. “Peanut butter jelly time!” I’d sing. And my kids would just look at me. Blink. Blink. I’ve seen that look countless times in casting. A look that says,
Aww. Nice try. But we’re gonna go a different way
.

Bedtime was no different. I’d pick up a book and three-year-old Eliza would just say, “Can we call Aunt Julie?” I’d think,
No way! It’s story time
.

“No, sweetie. Aunt Julie is—is—well . . .”
No. Don’t do it
, I’d think. But I couldn’t help myself. “Julie is sick. Very sick.” I’d hit an all-time low. Sick? Did I really want to be
that
guy?

“I mean tired, sweetie. She’s sleeping, which is what you should be doing.” I’d try and distract her with some tickling and tempt her with an organic, all-natural, fiber gummy bear. Didn’t quite cut it.

“Sweet dreams, monkey. Tomorrow morning, Daddy is going to make pancakes in little animal shapes and—”

She’d cut me off: “Call Julie?”

“
Yes!
Fine,” I’d concede. “Tomorrow you can call Julie.”

Next morning, my sleeping angel’s eyes peek open, blink, and her first words are
“Call Julie?” For the love of God!
What about Daddy’s pancakes, huh?
What about Daddy’s fucking pancakes in the shape of Daddy’s broken heart?

On the afternoons of Julie’s visits, Eliza would even sit in a chair at the front door and wait for her up to an hour before she was scheduled to arrive. She wasn’t waiting like that for me to get home. How did it happen? My daughter had become a crazy, stalky fan of the one person who had done everything in her power to talk me out of having a child in the first place.

Of course it is a two-way street. The kids did more for Aunt Cuckoo than any of us grown-ups could. They loved her unconditionally and made her feel important; they made her able to laugh and run and forget herself, at least for the amount of time it takes to get through
101 Dalmatians
and a dozen chocolate-chip-and-partially-hydrogenated-oil cookies. But there it is.
I
didn’t do that.

I want life to be neat and predictable and safe and calm and quiet and controlled, with
no
surprises like tricky little heart defects. But Eliza herself proved how small and wrong and petty that thinking was with her big, open, generous heart. After all this time, turns out it was Daddy who had the heart defect, not Eliza. So my kids teach me what Aunt Cuckoo teaches them: that life is infinitely more fun when it’s crazy and unpredictable and undisciplined and fundamentally bad for your health. And the sooner you get an Aunt Cuckoo in your life to show you that, the better.

D
on and I decided to try and adopt another baby just before Eliza’s second birthday. We were conflicted about it, for sure. It was only about a month after Eliza’s heart procedure—an ordeal that seemed to test the very limits of our emotional capacities. She was fully recovered. Tons more energy; she was a different kid, really. We took a little longer. I mean, every time she’d smile at us or do something cute or, you know, not dead-like, we’d squirt tears of joy.

“Did you see that? She’s eating yogurt!”
Boo-hoo-hoo . .
. We were so happy with our healthy little girl and felt so complete already as a family of three, it seemed piggy to ask for a second. We tried to put all thoughts of baby number two out of our heads.

But it kept coming up. Both Don and I are close with our siblings. My sister was there for me at so many crucial moments of my life, not the least of which was the day after Eliza was born. Don escorted Monica back to Wisconsin with her one-year-old twins and I was home with a newborn. My sister dropped everything, three kids of her own, and came to my rescue for a few days. Likewise, there is no way I could’ve gotten through the loss of my father that same year if it weren’t
for my sister. We both believed Eliza deserved to have that kind of ally in her life. Even if it just meant another person with whom she could bitch about her crazy, faggy dads!

We called our lawyer and he put our names on the list. But months went by and we weren’t getting any calls. “The birth mom market is drying up,” our lawyer said. We couldn’t imagine why. Had high school hall monitors gotten more vigilant about checking bathroom stalls? Don and I were both secretly relieved. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. People are always saying that “you wind up with the kid you’re
supposed
to have.” I never used to believe that “everything happens for a reason” crap, but maybe in this instance, we were supposed to have just one.

That’s when the phone rang. It was around February. Monica, Eliza’s then twenty-one-year-old birth mom, called us.

“You ready for a new one?” she asked me casually, as though she worked at a dealership and was calling with a friendly reminder that our lease was up.

She and her “husband” were having a hard enough time making things work with her three-year-old twins; another baby wasn’t going to be possible for them. We tried to contain our joy out of respect for Monica. But she knew we were thrilled. And she was relieved. Eliza would have a sibling! There was no way we could say no.

Off we embarked on another six-month journey to prepare for baby number two. Don and I were both sort of in denial about it. I kept telling myself the reality would kick in when the baby was here. Given the year we’d had—Eliza’s surgery, followed by my dad’s death—it all felt like I was getting a crash course in the circle of life.

But on September 6 at around eight in the morning there was no denying it anymore. We were back in the delivery room to witness the birth of our gorgeous, eight-pound, twenty-one-inch, healthy baby boy, Jonah (the “J” from my dad Julio’s name) Paul (Don’s middle name) Bucatinsky (because my family was dwindling and I won at rock/paper/scissors).