Becoming "Daddy"

Short story about a father and son adjusting to one another after (literally) a life time apart. Hopefully part of a larger collection of short stories

Kendra, I love this one the best so far! This story has real potential! I really like it!

Jermain held the spoon clumsily in front of his face, watching the spaghetti slowly untwirl itself from around the surface of his spoon and plop back down on his plate.

"I don't like it with sauce," he whispered to his spoon.

"Yeah, well next time I'll make you some without sauce, but eat this for now," his Father replied, looking at his son who sometimes still looked back at him with eyes that registered "stranger." Jermain had been living in Ellis' home for three months now - it had taken him almost the same amount of time to prove to the State that he was a candidate to be a parent. The State didn't care about biology; they wanted paperwork, attendance, certificates, of completion, proof of clean urine. Ellis finally won over the social workers - winning over Jermain was proving to be more difficult.

Jermain eyed his Father across the table. Jermain's eyes were always upon Ellis, watching him, studying him. Jermain was that kind of kid - quiet, aloof, spoke when spoken to, maybe. His teachers would send notes home with concise handwriting conveying that Jermain was an advanced child, but withdrawn and needed some help socializing. Those notes never got read by anyone until the social workers and Ellis came around, but that didn't diminish their truth. Ellis didn't even know he had a child until he opened the mailbox and pulled out a letter with "Child Protective Services" in the right hand corner. 

"Paternity Test." "Alleged Father." "Hearing date on June 8, 2013." He could barely read the letter because the words that jumped off the page made him dizzy. He called the name signed at the bottom of the letter - Niecey Wright - and embarrassed himself by hollering into the phone about his rights and questioning what business the State had being in them. Niecey, being an old pro, let him say his piece and then said hers, and Ellis went to Court, because, at the end of the day, Ellis was a "do the right thing" kind of guy.

The hearing itself was the most nerve-wracking day of his life, and yet, everyone around him shuffled around like it was a day like any other. He waited in a large lobby area, sitting on a wooden bench that should have made a better seat given how much experience it had with being sat on. Ellis wore the right clothes - black pants, crisp white shirt, muted blue tie. Nothing too loud. This was not the kind of day for flash - he didn't want to make any impressions. He just wanted to know who Jermain was and what woman had he sprung from.

After two hours of painful waiting on the experienced wooden bench, the Court officer walked into the hallway, shouted his last name, "DAVIS!"

"Here sir."

"That's great. Your case is ready."

"Thank you," and he walked through the huge wooden doors into the small court room. Two rows of seating on either side of him, and then small double doors, almost like the gates to a corral. He walked through those gates and sat at the table that the court officer pointed to, the one with DEFENDANT, written on a small wooden block, resting at the head of the table. Ellis had never been a defendant in his entire life. He wondered how he had become one now.

The Judge barely looked at him, in fact, the Judge barely looked at any one - a morning full of names made everyone faceless to the bald sixty year old on the bench. For something that he had waited two months for, the hearing was over in a matter of minutes. Names were called, attorneys spoke, there was even an attorney appointed to him. That attorney told Ellis he needed to take a paternity test - pointed to the sentence on the court order at the end of the hearing - "Father is ordered to take paternity test." Ellis squinted at the paper. He didn't care about the paternity test part - curiosity was going to drive him to do that anyway, he didn't need a Judge to write it down for him. What Ellis really wanted to see was the name next to his - Chantel Sanders.

Chantel. 

Chantel had been a bad choice that Ellis had made over and over again. They went to high school together, had the same friends, their grandmothers played penuckle together on Sunday mornings. Chantel chased Ellis their entire senior year. Ellis had gotten a full scholarship to the state school that was an hour away, and the scholarship elevated him from relative anonymity to somebody that girls noticed. Some of them stopped noticing when he told them the scholarship was for academic achievement in the sciences, and that he was planning on majoring in chemistry. 

"Chemistry. Ain't nobody made no money off of chemistry." And that was the end of that.

But Chantel had vision. Maybe she understood chemistry so well because she regularly dabbled in it - lighting up rocks behind her row house before home room, melting them down until the liquid was something she could inject. She was a mixologist too because if that good rock wasn't enough, she'd mix it with some of that PCP her grandma's neighbor liked to pass out down the way, and take that too. 

Chantel chased and chased Ellis until one day, Ellis couldn't think of any more reasons to run. Their affair was brief - started in the spring before graduation, and ended the day Ellis got into his grandma's Buick for the ride to his new dorm. He gave Chantel his number and his address, and she called and wrote. But Ellis was a chemistry major, and had no time. Her phone calls went to voicemail and her letters got thrown into empty pizza boxes, which later got thrown into the trash. 

Apparently, Chantel also continued to study chemistry after high school, same as Ellis. Chantel got better at mixology, too. Crack, Dope, PCP, E, Mary, Crystal. She got better and better at the consumption of her chemicals. Pregnancy didn't stop her. She tried to tell Ellis that she was having his baby, but the message somehow got lost in a pizza box. Jermain was born in April of Ellis' freshman year. Ellis didn't feel anything magical when Jermain entered the universe. Neither did Chantel. Chantel spent the next seven years continuing business as usual, until one day, her Grandma missed a penuckle game because Chantel overdosed, and decided enough was enough and rang up social services. 

It took two more months for Chantel to finally tell the court that she thought Ellis Davis was the father - she had given the baby his father's name and screamed at the balding Judge that he should have just figured it out from the paperwork. Chantel stopped coming around after that - she had done all that she could for Jermain. 

The Judge's cheek swab was a painless process, and two weeks later, Ms. Niecey called him up and asked him when he wanted to start visiting with Jermain because there was a 99.9% chance he was the father. And so he visited every week, first for an hour, and then for two. He went to parenting classes and therapy. He peed in cups at random. Dotted all those State-required "i"s and crossed all those "t"s. 

And then, right before school started in September, Ms. Niecey showed up at his door, Jermain hiding behind her, all of his worldly possessions nestled in a child's backpack clutched in his tiny hands, chin pointed towards his chest. Ellis had been visiting with Jermain weekly for almost the past three months, but Jermain was slow to warm. Ellis suspected it had something to do with the small burn marks and scratches that covered Jermain's bony arms and legs. His tiny back, too. Ms. Niecey told him that Chantel had boyfriends who thought there was no better pastime than to conduct experiments about the effects that lit cigarettes had on a child's skin. Or what the cord to blinds would do if they were snapped across a child's back. 

Three months. And now they sat at a table eating spaghetti, with sauce that Jermain didn't like. Ellis thought they had made progress. Sometimes, Jermain would forget himself and call Ellis "Dad" or hug him before getting on the school bus. But, more often than not, any such action would prompt Jermain to freeze after execution, stare at Ellis, and look back at the floor. Willing those walls that had wavered slightly to gain their bearings. (I get what you are saying but maybe elaborate more.)

"I don't want it if it has sauce," Jermain said, louder this time.

"Come on Jermain, I told you. Sauce today and never again."

"Mommy never made me eat it with sauce."

"Mommy never made you eat it with anything because Mommy never gave you anything to eat," Ellis forced back at the child, regretting it as soon he said it. All the parenting classes in the world hadn't prepared him for this, and sometimes, his anger formed sentences for him, before his brain could temper their evacuation.

Jermain dropped his spoon, pushed the plate away, and pushed his thumbs into his eyes, letting the rest of his tiny fingers push against his forehead. Ellis knew Jermain was starting to cry because Jermain told him once that if he pushed his eyes very hard, he pushed the tears back inside. Ellis had asked him why he didn't just let the tears come out, and Jermain shrugged and got quiet. Jermain's therapist later told Ellis that Jermain told him a story about crying after an argument with his Mother. After the argument had reached its conclusion, Jeremian spent the next two days locked in his Mother's bedroom closet, while his Mother slurred between the rusting slits of the closet doors that "men don't cry."

Ellis sighed, and looked directly at Jermain, "I'm sorry. Jermain, I know this ain't easy, and that you miss your Mom, but I am trying. I won't make spaghetti with sauce again, I promise."

Jermain looked up at Ellis, and just stared. Jermain always stared at his father. Jermain needed to study, to know him. Ms. Niecey told him that he was supposed to call Ellis "Dad," but he never had any practice with the word. He had tried it once with one of his Mom's boyfriends, and got a hearty male laugh and a slap in the mouth from his Mother, with a stern, "Boy, don't you be calling nobody in this house Daddy. I'm your Daddy. I'm your Mommy. I'm all you got." After that, she left him in the living room with a TV that didn't work, and took the man who was not his Daddy into the bedroom, and stayed in there with him for the next 36 hours. Jermain was five at the time and a master boiler of spaghetti. He never got a handle for making the sauce, mostly because tomatoes didn't grow in an empty fridge.

Jermain kept staring at Ellis. Ellis implored again, "Come on Jermain. How about we make a list? You tell me what you like and how you like it. That way, if I buy spaghetti with sauce again, I can look at my list, and be like shoot, Jermain doesn't like sauce. Bye sauce." Ellis said "bye" with his best valley girl impersonation, and saw a tiny little smile push Jermain's cheeks up to his eyes just a little bit. Ellis pushed his chair back from the kitchen table, got up, and grabbed a notebook and pen from the drawer next to the stove. Ellis sat back down and was like, "OK. I'm taking notes. Go slow so I make sure I get this right."

"I like chicken nuggets."

"They have to be shapes, or can they be regular?"

"Regular is OK, but the dinosaur ones taste better." 

"OK. What else?"

"Mmmmm mac and cheese with hot dogs, and some hot sauce."

"Hot sauce? That's not too hot for you."

"No. Hot sauce is great."

"Ok, it's on the list."

They continued this back and forth until Ellis had filled three pages with Jermain's culinary preferences. Jermain watched his father as he carefully wrote each and every item Jermain listed. When Ellis looked up, Jermain would quickly look away, averting his eyes to the cabinets as if he was looking to them for suggestions. As Ellis wrote, Jermain slowly made his way from across the table, moving closer to Ellis every time Ellis pushed his head down to write the next menu item. By the time the list was complete, Jermain was leaning against his father, staring intently at the list to make sure it all looked right. When Ellis put his pen down, he pushed the pages towards Jermain. Jermain, standing and leaning his tiny frame on Ellis' resting arm, climbed into his father's lap, and grabbed the pen. Ellis watched his son write "J-E-R-M-A-I-N" at the top of each page, and smiled as Jermain let go of the pen, picked it back up, and finished, adding "D-A-V-I-S" to each page.

Ellis leaned forward and kissed the back of his boy's head, without thinking. Both parties froze, Ellis afraid that he pushed too much and Jermain not sure what to do with an unfamiliar gesture. Jermain slowly turned to face his father, contorting in Ellis' lap in a way that Ellis imagined had to be uncomfortable. Jermain took his two tiny hands, hands that were Ellis' hands, and rested them both against Ellis' cheeks. 

"I love you too, Daddy."  Ellis smiled, and Jermain slid off of his lap, walked to the fridge, and put his three pages underneath three individual magnets, taking great pains to make sure all three pages were evenly spaced - smiling as he worked.

Author's Note

Any tips or commentary are appreciated. Thank you!