Drew was ecstatic—there was no getting him to pay attention to the game after that. Next came a menagerie of stuffed animals in their own little “zoo” enclosures, a couple of Star Wars LEGO sets, and a large table where he could put his space command station so that it would no longer have to be kept on the floor.
“Normally, we can’t spoil him this much,” Laura murmured to me as Drew tore into his gifts with gusto. “You know that, right?”
“I know that,” I told her. “I don’t want to replace you in any way. I know I’m not just a friend, I’m a parent, and I want to be that. I just figured…it’s my fault that his birthday was ruined, and this won’t just keep him happy, it’ll keep him distracted from the reporters outside. Sometimes you have to go a little overboard with one thing so that people don’t notice another thing. Or when you’re trying to make up for a bad thing.”
“You learned that from politics?” Laura teased me.
I chuckled. “Maybe.”
The final thing to arrive was a puppet master who played the “zookeeper” of all her stuffed animal puppets. She was exceptionally good at animal noises, and Drew shrieked with delight when she made the lion roar or had her giraffe give him a kiss.
“Too bad you couldn’t get a real astronaut,” Laura whispered, enjoying the show.
“Trust me, I was tempted,” I replied. “But I figured that I didn’t want to go too overboard. I don’t want to be the guy who shows up one day and spoils him. I want to be in his life for the rest of my life.”
Laura looked at me like she might burst into tears, smiling. “Thank you.”
After the puppet master (who I tipped handsomely and requested that she go out the back and not talk to any of the reporters) left, we settled down to finish our board game. After that, I helped Drew move his space command to the new table and help build his new Star Wars sets.
By the evening, I’d hoped that the reporters would trickle away, bored with the fact that they couldn’t get anything to entertain them. After all, some deliveries of food and toys wasn’t really the front-page news that they’d been hoping for. But they remained outside, relentless.
“I’m going to punch every single one of them,” Caitlyn muttered, peering at the crowd of them through the window.
Laura didn’t seem angry, but more…concerned. I understood why—Caitlyn could get angry because she wasn’t the mother, but Laura was scared for her child.
As we approached dinnertime and still had no respite from the reporters, I ordered pizza for us. Then I took Laura to Drew’s bedroom to talk to her alone. “They’re not going to leave.”
Laura sat down heavily on the small bed. It was a lovely bedroom, done up in soft blues, clearly decorated on a budget. I wondered what I could do for her if I got her a place and enough money to do it up the way she wanted, with all-new furniture.
“Thank you for making his birthday special,” she said. “I really don’t have words for how much it means to him. How happy he has been today.”
“It’s the least I could do after I ruined it in the first place,” I replied. “The most important thing right now is to get these reporters away from you and Drew.”
I sat down next to her and pulled her into me, kissing her softly. Laura responded, clutching at my shirt like it was a lifeline.
When I pulled back, I said gently, “I have to go.”
Laura stared at me. “What—what about Drew? And me? You said that you would be here for him—you just met him and now you’re—”
“Hey, hey…” I stroked her hair. “That’s not why. I love the kid already. And I love you. But they’re not going to leave. This is part of why I left you all those years ago. I knew that you’d be subjected to a life like this. I didn’t want that for you. I can’t…I can’t watch you be torn apart by the media, mocked and followed, Laura. I can’t. I won’t do that to you.”
“But you can’t leave!” Laura sounded desperate.
I hated that I was doing this to her, but I saw no other way. Just like the last time, I was going to have to protect her by abandoning her. It felt like I was ripping my heart out of my chest.
“These reporters want me and my life, not you. If I leave and act like it’s no big deal, then they’ll leave too. I might be able to come back and see you—just not right now. What’s most important is getting your life back on track, and letting Drew be able to go to school or the park or the damn zoo without a bunch of assholes following him around.”
Laura shook her head, her eyes wet. “We can get through this together, as a family. We can figure this out.”
“That’s not how this works, sweetheart,” I gently removed her hands from my shirt and kissed her knuckles. “I know how this goes and trust me, it’s not going to give us a happy ending.”
Laura gave me a look of betrayal. “So, you’re just going to give up,” she said, her voice dull.
She got up and walked towards the bathroom, quietly closing the door. I heard the snick of the lock click into place and I swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. I wanted to go to the door and knock on it, beg her to come out so that I could kiss her one last time, talk to her so that she understood that this was the only way to take care of her and Drew. But I already
