Page 50 of Daddy's Unexpected Gift

She sat across from me, her legs folded in front of her, Georgie perched in the space. Her plate had more of the things that Georgie could feed herself. Cecelia picked out a stuffed olive from its container and popped it in her mouth and chased it with two slices of cheese.

“I mean, dishes and not paper plates. Even all of the containers are the good stuff and not worn-out plastic to-go containers you’ll toss before packing up and going home.”

“Is that how you picnic?” I asked.

“Are you in the mood for a lecture on the differences in socio-economic activities?” she teased.

I shook my head. “Not really, but shoot.”

“When I was a kid, a picnic was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly. We’d take plastic knives and a roll of paper towels. Make sandwiches there, until we were out of bread. And toss everything, unless there was a lot of peanut butter and jelly left. If we were being fancy, my dad would buy a bucket of fried chicken and all the sides. We’d eat off paper plates. There wasn’t an actual wicker basket, maybe just a plastic grocery bag.”

“Are you saying I made this too complicated?”

“You made it?” she asked.

“Okay, fine, are you saying Wayne made this picnic too fancy?”

She nodded. “He made it rich. I’ve been thinking about something you said. And maybe I wasn’t actually doing you any good. I wasn’t treating you like someone who has the resources to have picnics like this put together or as someone who drops five grand on a leather tote bag. I was treating you as someone who needed to learn how to take care of a child when in reality, I probably should have spent more time focusing on getting you set up with a nanny.”

“Why would you say that? Those first few days with Georgie were incredibly hard and completely worth it. I learned that she is her own person, but she isn’t a mini, logical adult. I learned so much about her, about babies, about myself. I wouldn’t have gotten any of that if you had swept in and put a nanny in place. Look, Cecelia, I was raised by nannies, not my mother. I was raised with old-fashioned ideals that somehow linked my masculinity to my ability to care for a tiny human. Had my parents gotten their way, I never would have changed a diaper or learned how to heat up a bottle. I thought I was doing great all on my own.”

I took a sip of the sparkling water that had been packed instead of champagne.

“Argene, Georgie’s mother, ran away so many times because our parents wanted her to fit into this ideal expectation of a young lady in society. Everything was so much stricter for her than it ever had been for me. It wasn’t until she was fourteen or fifteen that I even saw her as her own person. She was a troublemaker, so she was sent away to school. She was an embarrassment to the family. I don’t recall exactly what my mother said, but that summer, she threatened to not take Argene that summer, said she was too wild. Mother took us to islands. She loved islands. Majorca, Greece, the Caribbean. We would go with her for weeks every summer. My struggling sister was being punished for struggling. We lost my mom the next year, and my father, who had never once gotten to know his only daughter, lashed out at her. I tried to step in. I tried to be an older brother, but it was too little, too late. I’m never going to be able to make that up to her.”

“But maybe you can.” Cecelia set her plate down and lifted Georgie off her lap before leaning in and putting her hand on my chest. Her voice was low, and her words were soft. “You can make it up to Argene by taking care of Georgie properly, giving Georgie the love of a father that Argene never had.”

I covered her hands with mine and closed the gap between us. Her lips were cool and tasted like berries. The urge to deepen the kiss welled up and then was smashed down as Georgie bashed her way between us.

Cecelia sat back with a laugh as I scooped Georgie to me. I closed my eyes and leaned against her precious little head. I had failed Argene. That guilt was mine. But I was not going to fail Georgie.

“Have you heard any news from the investigators trying to locate her biological father?”

I shook my head. “We submitted a DNA test the first week she was in my custody. I swabbed my cheek too, so that we could confirm there was a maternal relation match between us. That’s the only relation match that any system has pinged.”

“What if her father’s family used a different company?”

I nodded. “That’s part of the search. As I understand it, they send out Georgie’s records with a DNA match request for a paternity search. If anyone on his side has done one of those ancestor heredity searches, hopefully, they’ll get a match.”

“You’re lying,” Cecelia said. “You don’t want him to be found.”

“You’re right. Hopefully, there will never be a match. I don’t think they are as big in Europe.”

“You think her dad is European?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea, and I don’t want to speculate. We have at least five more months before absentee parental rights are terminated. Longer, if those lawyers Argene had working for her have the money to chase after this. But their contact information is being withheld.”

Cecelia grimaced. “Yeah, confidentiality and protecting the client.”

“Shouldn’t protecting the client allow me to choose who my case manager is? I want you back. I like having you around, but also for Georgie. You push me to be a better father to her.”

A slow smile spread on Cecelia’s lips. “I like how you are calling yourself her father.”

I let out a heavy breath. “I didn’t know I wanted kids. I actually thought I didn’t want them until I had her in my life. I can’t imagine, and I don’t want to imagine, not seeing her grow up. That’s not an option. So, you see, I need you, we need you. How else am I supposed to learn how to raise her?”

26

CECELIA

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