Page 63 of Finding the Pieces

“Do you remember what’s on my bookshelf in my office at home?” he asks.

“Uh, not really?” I answer honestly.

“It was Father’s Day, and your mother brought you and me somewhere just like this. You know her, always trying to make memories and hold them like keepsakes of the past.”

“I don’t remember that,” I say, my heart stirring at the sweet image of my parents, around my age with a baby, just like Dom, Luca, and me.

“I’d be surprised if you did. I think you were only two or three. She brought us here, picked out a bowl just like this one, and you and I each put our handprint inside, mine first, and then your much smaller one right over top of it. Then we used our thumbs and pressed polka dots around the edges. It’s one of my favorites. I thought if you didn’t know what you wanted to make, if nothing here stood out to you, that you might want to do the same. Sort of recreate it, with Luca and you this time. I’ve had mine ever since.”

I smile at the sentiment and know that this is something I’ll cherish.

“On one condition,” I say. “You have to put your handprint down first.” I bump his shoulder with mine, and his eyes shine with unspoken emotion.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

***

Thirty minutes later, we’re all a bit messy, but we have our finished keepsake. We’ll leave it here to be glazed and fired and pick it up in a few days.

It’s messy and imperfect, and I can’t wait to display it at home. All the accidental swipes of paint, strung across the sides as I wrestled a squirmy, but happy, toddler’s hand covered in paint into the bowl. Luca loved the entire experience and clapped every time he made his mark. No matter how chaotic the finished product turned out, all those small imperfections are what brought him the most joy. The realization stitches up a tear in my heart I didn’t realize he could mend.

“Ready for the finale?” Dad asks, after we clean up.

“Ice cream next door? I think somehow Luca will be on board with that plan.”

We settle into a booth in the ice cream shop with Luca on the end strapped into a high chair. I share bits of my ice cream with him, and he plays with the toys the cashier gave him at checkout.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say, suddenly embarrassed about how much this is affecting me. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to put effort into things like this. I haven’t even started Luca’s baby book.”

The last time I wrote in it, I was pregnant. Guilt creeps along my skin, sinking its way further until it sits heavy in my gut.

Will Luca resent me when he’s older? An incomplete baby book. Minimal photographs printed. I can’t remember the last time Dom, Luca, and I all took a photo together, the three of us. I know Dom and I collectively have about a billion photos and video clips of Luca on our phones, but I’m no Pinterest mom, that’s for sure.

“You say it like there isn’t time for all that,” Dad says.

“More like I have no motivation for it…or time for that matter.”

We sit in silence for a minute or two, Dad seemingly deep in thought, watching as I clean up a massive glob of ice cream Luca managed to fling onto the table when he slapped excitedly at my hand as I offered him a spoonful of dessert.

“Do you think it’s hard because you don’t have time? Or is it difficult because you don’t like what you’d write? What you’d see in the photos? Do you think a baby book has to be perfect? Curated like some kind of prestigious museum? These are memories, Ellie. They’re not going to be perfect, and that’s okay.”

My face falls.

Fuck, is that why?

It makes sense. The last page I completed was the prompt aboutMom and Dad’s final thoughts before meeting you. The next page wasThe day you were born. I opened it once after Luca was born. I shut the book and never opened it again.

“How am I ever going to talk to Luca about the day he was born?” Shame, fear, and remorse threaten to overtake me.

“What do you want Luca to know?” he asks.

I give the question some thought. “I want him to know the important things. How things happened quickly, but that everyone worked hard to bring him safely into my arms. That I’ve loved him more than anything from that secondon.”

“Then that’s where you start, and you go from there. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. Luca will eventually have questions. Some may be painful to talk about. There’s no handbook for these conversations or any of the questions he’ll shoot your way. In my experience, parenting is ninety percent good intentions and ten percent flying by the seat of your pants. You do the best you can with what you have at the time, Ellie. That’s all you can ask of yourself. You love your son, and he knows it. As long as that remains, everything else can be learned along the way.”

“You and Mom made it look too easy,” I say.

“Being your dad is the best thing I’ve ever done, and I love you, kiddo. But damn, it was anything but easy…as you’ve learned.” We both laugh and Luca laughs with us like he’s in on the joke. “That’s why you lean on Dominic, Mom, your friends, and me…you don’t have to do this alone. It might feel like failing…asking for help, but that’s success in my book.”

---