Page 2 of Dr. Single Dad

Dealtwith it? What does that mean? I’m certainly not ready to be a father. Not now, not ever. That’s not what I’m here to do. Unlike my brothers, who all saw themselves as fathers at some point, I’ve never wanted to be someone’s dad.

“Like I said, I just need you to sign some paperwork. You’re down as the baby’s father on the birth certificate, so you need to sign the adoption agreement.”

More heat pushes down my body and across my limbs. For a second or two or three, I can’t speak. I can barely form a thought. “You had a baby?”

“I did,” she says, her voice a little pinched. “I haven’t asked you for anything. I did it all through my dad’s health insurance.”

There’s a buzz in my ears, and I can’t tell if the sound is coming over the line or from inside my head. I try and swallow, try to push it away, but it remains. “You…had a baby?” I ask, trying to clarify what exactly has happened.

“Yes. She was born about an hour ago.”

She.

She.

She.

“And you were planning on telling me when, exactly?”

“Never!” she says. “I found a family willing to adopt her. I did everything. I just didn’t realize you’d need to sign the paperwork in person. It’s adoption agency policy or something. I’m a little fuzzy on the details. I just gave birth.”

“The adoption paperwork,” I say, trying to sort through the quagmire of information being lobbed at me. “So, you got pregnant, had the child today, and you’re trying to sign the baby over for adoption as we speak.”

I have a child. In this world. Right now.

I’m trying to be logical. To organize the information and figure out what I’m meant to do, how I’m supposed to respond. My knees buckle as the realization of what’s happening starts to sink in. I stagger to the wall for support, before I fall down. The buzzing gets louder and louder and I cover my free ear with my hand.

I don’t know what to say or do or think. It’s like I’ve lost executive brain function or something.

“Right,” she says. “I need you to join a video call with your passport in hand so this guy at the adoption agency knows you’re consenting. Then you need to sign the agreement. That’s all you have to do.”

I have a kid.

A daughter.

I don’t want a child. Ever. Kids aren’t part of my plan. I have no interest in doing what my brothers have done—settling down, popping out babies. It’s not that I don’t love my nieces. I do. I just don’t understand my brothers’ desire to cloud their focus. To create a distraction when it’s not necessary. To wipe bottoms and blow raspberries rather than do the important work I know they’re all capable of. I don’t understand why they would want to sacrifice so much for so little reward.

It’s their decision. It was my parents’ decision. It’s definitely not my decision.

I have work to do—work that’s going to change millions of lives. Raising one life can’t matter more than the many others at stake.

None of that changes the fact that at this moment in time, I’m a father. I have a child who’s about to be adopted…and despite the fact that I absolutely don’t want a daughter, there’s something about having someone else raise her that doesn’t sit easily with me.

I was brought up by doctors who were accustomed to taking responsibility for people’s lives, and they instilled the same sense of duty and responsibility in me and all my brothers. Leaving someone else to care for a child that I brought into the world goes against everything I believe in—everything I know.

At the same time, this wasn’t my choice. Yes, I chose to have sex with Kelly. Yes, consenting to sex is implicit consent to accept the consequences of that action. But I took steps to mitigate those consequences, just like I always have. This was an accident. A mistake. And it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to be a father. I have bigger, more important things to do.

All I have to do is sign some papers and my life will be as it was less than five minutes ago.

So that’s what I’m going to do. Sign the papers. Forget this ever happened. Get on with the work changing a million lives, rather than just one.

TWO

Dax

I punch Vincent’s name into the phone and he answers before it rings.

“I need to borrow your jet. I have to fly to Washington, DC,” I say.

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