Page 7 of A Very Grumpy Father's Day
“I don’t think she’s mad at you, honey, she just wants to play with her toys right now.”
I look over at him. He is so concerned. He is also hungover, but he has thisWhy Doesn’t My Daughter Love Me as Much as I Love Her?expression on his face most of the time when he stares at Ciara lately, and even when I want to bop him on the forehead for being an asshat, I wish Ciara could somehow show him what a good dad he is.
He’s a moron as a husband sometimes, but he is always a good dad.
“I don’t get it,” he says. “My nieces and nephews think I’m the coolest guy alive, but my own daughter doesn’t think I’m awesome.”
“She’s ten months old. She thinks her Elmo Travel Buddy is awesome.”
“I’m more awesome than Elmo. Right?”
“Oh, yes! Declan waaaayyyyy more awesome than Elmo!”
His lips don’t even curve up the tiniest bit at my Elmo impression.
I rub his arm with the hand that isn’t holding a sippy cup. Even after sharing a bathroom with him for a few years, I still don’t understand how he has the satiny golden skin of an oiled-up sunworshipper when he spends most of his life inside not-exfoliating and not-moisturizing.
We both sigh at the same time, for different reasons.
Him because he thinks his love for his daughter is unrequited, me because I will have to put a pin in my justifiable rage against him so I can figure out a way to ease his pain just a little. Last month he made my first Mother’s Day celebration as a mom very special, and I want to do the same for him on Father’s Day. I just don’t know if either of us are going to survive another week of no sex.
“Can you watch her for a few minutes while I make some calls?” I ask.
“Yeah. ’Course.” He hasn’t stopped watching her since he walked in here.
I take the sippy cup to the kitchen and try to remember where I left my phone. I never thought I’d have Mom Brain, but do I ever. Or it might be Declan Brain. Or I Just Need To Get Freaky Brain.
Oh yes—my phone’s still on the dresser next to that spot where I almost got railed by my husband.
I shut the door to our bedroom and pull up the nanny’s number. I don’t have a new plan for today so much as I have a physical and emotional need, and I already know that Greta Stern will not like that. But fuck it, I’m asking anyway.
“Yes, hello?” she answers. She is sixty and German and proper and wonderful with Ciara but absolutely terrifying to me and Declan. “Disis Greta Stern.” She sounds a little worried and, as always, a little angry.
“Hello, Greta, it’s Maddie Cannavale.”
“Yah. I seedison my phone.”
“Of course. Well, I’m so sorry to call you on a Sunday—”
“Yah.”
“But I just wondered if you would be free to come in for two or three hours this evening? I would pay double your regular rate.”
“Isdisan emergency? Issomesingwrong?”
“No, not at all. I was just hoping Declan and I could have a little date night.”
I can hear her breathing and frowning. “No.Dis vasnot planned.”
I feel ashamed, as if I’ve done something terrible. I have to grit my teeth to stop myself from offering her a raise. “Right. Well, I will see you tomorrow morning, then. And again, I am so sorry to have bothered you.”
“Goodbye.”
“Have a wonderful—” Yeah, she hung up.
I open up the text app and find my niece Piper. She is sixteen years old and the perfect babysitter, but I think she still has school tomorrow. It’s June, right? I’m an awful aunt.
ME: Piper! How are you? Do you have school tomorrow? Want to get paid to hang with Ciara for a few hours? Tonight?
