My daughter, the light of my life, was 18 when she got knocked up. I had been a single dad since my ex left for the store one day and never came back. Teddy, named by the ex, a name given just because she "liked" it, was one of those enigmas. She was good-looking, not pretty but cute if I'm being honest, smart, and athletic as hell. She ran track, did gymnastics, and even seemed to enjoy helping me work on old cars.
But she always had this thing about boys.
Hell, I don't know, maybe it was genetic. God knows her mother loved the dick.
We had The Talk and she assured me she was waiting for love. I took her to the doctor anyway after I realized she had her first period, and got her a shot that was supposed to be good for three months, something called Depo-Provera. That was when she was 13 and starting to bloom, and I figured that would take care of it.
Silly me.
I didn't mind when she said she was ready to date at 14. Hell, I trusted her.
I didn't mind when she cried in my arms when she was 15 as we stood, waiting to see if the damn stick turned blue. "Do you love him?" I asked and she said, "Daddy, I don't know but it felt so good."
So I wasn't surprised when this time the stick did turn blue. She was 18 then and I kind of liked the boy. But I wasn't surprised when he told her to get an abortion. I was surprised, at least a bit when she said no.
So I held her hand while she told me she was pregnant and held her in my arms while she cried. I wiped her nose and washed her face and for the next nine months, I tended to her, as I had with her mom while she was pregnant.
And that strange intimacy of the man and the pregnant woman grew between us. I mean, come on. What is more personal, more intimate, than holding a woman's hair back while she's going through morning sickness, and in Teddy's case this meant that practically every morning I would be surprised to NOT see her toenails in the water when she flushed. Her morning sickness was so violent that many times I had to get an old towel I learned to keep for the purpose, wet it with warm water, and clean her up where the force of her puking had left her ass dirty too. By the time she was getting close to delivery, I would use another damp, wet towel to wipe down her back and cool her off.
She was just starting to show when I took her out for her 18th birthday. She couldn't drink, of course, but she seemed genuinely happy for the first time since she got pregnant. She laughed at the comedian who was doing stand-up and ate her steak with gusto. She giggled, a little hysterically I thought, when a one-liner caught her off guard and she laughed around her Chocolate Lava dessert, leaving a smear on her rising belly.
She decided she wanted to do the natural childbirth thing. You know, the Lamaze classes and all that. So, of course, I became her coach/partner, and that strange, beautiful, forbidden intimacy grew even stronger.
I wasn't surprised when she climbed into my bed after our first Lamaze class. There is such a perfect rapport about those classes, as she sat, her back leaning against my chest, both of our hands lightly caressing her belly as she did that weird whistling panting breathing thing and the instructor counted slowly back from 10 and 15, and finally from 60. It was impossible to NOT feel her heavy breasts, preparing for the baby, pressing against my arms as I reached and caressed the hard roundness that was her belly.
She climbed into the bed with me, gravid now at seven months, her belly big and hard, very dark stretch marks ran across the tops of her hips, once narrow, now spread as her body prepared for motherhood.
She lay next to me, naked, and laid my hand on her belly.
"He's running tonight," she said and after a few seconds I felt what she meant, I felt movement and could actually see a small lump move across her belly.
Her head was turned on the pillow and she was looking at me.
"I wish it was your baby, Daddy," she said, "Our baby."
And I was lost.
The taboos no longer mattered. This was the woman I loved, the woman I wanted.
"The next one will be," I said, kissing, her, not a quick father-daughter peck but a real man-woman kiss.
When I broke the kiss we were both crying a little.