I'm Just a Teenage Dirtbag, Baby

Once I get home from the hospital, Adam has to go right back to Sudbury to get back into the season when the Christmas break is over. Will stays with me in the apartment to help take care of Aaron. He really becomes the father figure to Aaron with Adam gone and Jeff too busy with University to visit every other day.

Adam still hasn’t come back to Cornwall for a visit since Aaron was born on December 29 and it’s already the middle of March. I tried to call him several times but he must have changed his cell phone number because the call drops every time.

Finally, when May rolls around and it’s been almost a year since any of this started, Adam comes home for the offseason.

I get word of him being home from Jeff when he comes to see us the first Saturday of the month. “He said he wanted to talk to you about Aaron."

-

The next day, Adam comes over. He knocks on the door but then walks right in when he remembers he has a key to the apartment still. I get up from Will and Aaron on the floor in the living room and walk into the kitchen to talk to him.

“So just welcome yourself in,” I say quietly so not to disturb Aaron and Will.

“I wanted to see Aaron,” he says, glancing behind me and into the living room.

I shake my head and start getting a bottle ready for Aaron. “Dada!” I hear from the living room. I smile, he’s been using that word nonstop for the past week. Adam starts smiling too, walking to the counter that looks into the living room.

“He…”

“He thinks Will is his daddy,” I say to Adam, looking at Will and Aaron playing on the floor.

“He’s not,” Adam says, an edge of hostility making its way into his voice.

“Aaron doesn’t know that, does he?” I ask, taking the bottle with me as I walk back into the living room with the two of them. I glance back and see a defeated look on Adam’s face as he sighs and walks out of the apartment.

-

I take Aaron a day later to see my parents.

When I get back to the apartment, Will’s gone and I assume the apartment is empty, until I get into the kitchen and see Adam sitting at the table set up by the window in the room. “Adam, what do you want?” I ask, walking down the hallway and putting Aaron in his crib for his nap.

“I still want to see Aaron,” he replies, coming into the nursery and leaning over the crib and smiling down at Aaron.

I sigh. I could at least let him see his son for a few minutes. “Fine.”

He pulls up the rocking chair in the corner of the room to the side of the crib and sits down, mumbling something to Aaron I can’t hear from the doorway where I now stand.

I walk out of the nursery and back to the kitchen just as Will gets in. He smiles at me as he closes the door behind him and goes towards the nursery. “Will, wait-”

“What the hell is he doing here?!” Will yells in the doorway of the room. I hear Aaron start crying and rush past Will to see Adam already has him in his arms, calming him down. I walk up to both of them, seeing Aaron already falling back asleep in his dad’s arms.

I look up at Adam, “How…?”

He smiles, still keeping his gaze on Aaron. Finally, he shakes his head and looks at me, “I don’t know.”

-

Adam keeps coming over each day earlier and earlier, sometimes keeping Aaron in the apartment and playing with him in the living room, but a few times he’s taken him to the park in Cornwall or his parents’ house for a few hours.

It was one of those days today that Adam had decided to take him for a walk around Cornwall. He’s just about to leave when he sees me on the couch idly watching a movie. “Do you wanna come?”

I glance up from the TV and see him, his hand already on the doorknob, ready to leave. “Y-yeah,” I say, shocked by his question. I get up and slip on a pair of shoes and walk out of the apartment building with the two of them.

We get on the train and go out to Cornwall, walking in the direction of the park. Once we get there, my question of what they do when they get here is answered when Adam pushes Aaron’s stroller in the direction of the track surrounding the soccer field.

We walk around in silence for a few minutes until Adam speaks, “I was thinking the other day about Sudbury…and what happens when I go back in August.”

I glance at him sideways, then down at Aaron, happily taking in his surroundings, “What about it?”

“I was looking into you guys moving out there with me,” he says unsurely. I look back at him again like he’s gone crazy.

“You want Aaron and me to move over a thousand miles away to a completely different province to a city I’ve never been, and into an apartment that you won’t even be in half the time?”

He gives me a dirty look and stops pushing the stroller. “I’m sorry I want to be involved in my son’s life! Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“I wanted you to be involved in your son’s life, yes, but not move us out almost a twenty hour drive away from home. Cornwall is home to me Adam, I don’t care if you moved on, I haven’t and I’m not leaving,” I say, grabbing the stroller from his grip and pushing Aaron away from the soccer field and back home.