Page 80 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“It is hard work, but Dalisay is worth it.” He wasn’t going to let his dad talk him out of anything again. “I love her.”

His dad took a deep breath and stared off toward the garden from his seat on the patio, soaking up the bright sun.“Well …,” he started to say, then paused before trying again. “Relationships are like a garden. They need to be cultivated, cared for. There will be weeds, that’s something you have to come to terms with, but things will grow anyway.”

“A garden metaphor? Really?”

His dad chuckled. “I thought you would appreciate the literary nature of it.” He took another moment before saying, “Your mother and I, we didn’t do any of that. We off-loaded a lot on each other, and it spilled over onto you. For that, I’m sorry.”

Evan had never heard his dad apologize before. He didn’t know how to reply.

“Learn from my mistakes. Communication is key,” his dad continued. “Never leave the unsaid thing for later. Trust your gut and you can’t go wrong.”

Evan takes that to heart.

At Dalisay’s house, Evan knocks again on the door after not hearing anything at first and this time frenzied footsteps hurry down the stairs. The door opens to reveal Melinda.

She carries an infant swaddled in her arms, and deep, dark circles run under her eyes, but her face breaks into a relieved smile when she sees him.

“Oh, thank God,” she says. The baby starts fussing and Melinda makes gentle shushing noises.

Evan is taken aback. Somehow, he’d forgotten that she was due to give birth. Where did the time go? “Whoa! A baby! Congratulations!” he says.

Melinda lets out an exasperated sigh and smiles. “Yeah. It’s a lot!”

Inside the house, Evan can hear Little Luis’s scream, piercing through the air and making Melinda wince. It must be tough raising a rambunctious toddler and baby at the same time. She smiles apologetically, but Evan can tell she’s at the end of her rope.

“I’m here to help,” Evan says. “Anything you and the family need, I’m more than happy to be of service.”

“Perfect,” Melinda says. “I’ve got my hands full with baby Rosie. I need someone to look after Little Luis. I don’t care what you do, just get him out of the house.”

As if summoned like a demon from hell, Little Luis appears at the head of the stairs holding a plastic baseball bat. He smacks the railings and laughs maniacally, wild-eyed and obviously planning some mass chaos.

“Everyone else is out,” Melinda says. “I can’t put the baby down, I haven’t taken a shower—”

It’s clear she could go on forever. Evan stops her before she loses her breath. “It’s okay, I can take him off your hands for a few hours.”

“All day.”

“All day?” Evan asks.

“All day! All day! All day!” Little Luis chants, thrusting his baseball bat over his head like a gladiator pumped with bloodlust.

Evan swallows a lump in his throat. He knows his dad told him to trust his gut, and right now his gut is telling him to be afraid, beveryafraid. But of course, he can’t say no.

Evan smiles at the terrible two-year-old. “We’ll make an adventure of it, right, buddy?”

Little Luis seems to know exactly what he’s getting into, his lips curling.

Melinda says to Evan, “Good luck!”

Evan takes Little Luis to the San Francisco Zoo. Some of his favorite childhood memories were of his parents bringing him here to see the giraffes and rhinos. It’s been years since he’s set foot in the zoo, but he’s surprised by how little it’s changed. Memories come flooding back to him: riding the carousel, taking the Little Puffer train around Bear Country, and getting face to face with a lion behind thick glass. He decides that Little Luis deserves to have those kinds of memories too.

Despite Little Luis’s predilection for chaos, the day starts off spectacularly. They walk through the African Savanna while Evan points out the kudus and gorillas, and he likes watching Little Luis’s eyes go wide as his brain undoubtably melts at the sight of them. Kids love animals, it’s an easy win.

As the day progresses, Little Luis becomes even more manageable than Evan ever hoped. Evan expected Little Luis would get cranky and start throwing a temper tantrum, but instead he’s the one who leads Evan by the hand to see the bears and the lions and the anteaters. He sort of reminds Evan of himself when he was that age, full of curiosity and wonder. His interests just needed to be directed in the right place. One day Little Luis might even make for a good travel writer if he really wants to be one.

They eat lunch at the cafe and watch the flamingos stand in the shallow waters of the pond. Little Luis does his best impression of a leaping lemur, much to the amusement ofother visitors. When he gets tired, he even accepts Evan’s offer to let him ride on his shoulders.

Evan buys Little Luis a lion balloon and Little Luis has a steel-like grip on the string as they continue to walk through the zoo. Evan’s only goal today is to tucker this little tot out so that Melinda can finally get some peace and quiet. This is the least he can do to help out the family. In fact, Evan starts to think it’s one of the few things he might actually be good at. Little Luis and Evan may have started out rough with introductions, but Evan is truly starting to think he could manage having a kid of his own someday. Hopefully with Dalisay. But he’s getting ahead of himself. It’s still early. She could always say no at stage five, but … He has to believe in something.

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