Single Father

Chapter 13

The next 4 months pass by in a blur. The company has expanded to a magazine located down town. The magazine gave us a good deal and delivers all over the US. Our company, in return for getting five pages in their magazine, airs a new commercial for the magazine monthly.

One person from each sector has to go to the magazine publisher every first Monday of the month to check magazine pages, pictures, and text. I was chosen from my sector to handle this job. Danny was also chosen from her sector.

The next time I saw her after our talk at McDonalds was a month later when all the selected coworkers met together before our first run to the magazine building. We both smiled and sat across the table from each other during the meeting.

She had also offered to give me a ride down town every month so that I don't have to ride my bike 45 minutes.

Over the next three months we have been partnered to create a shared page between our sectors. The two of us and three others from each sector meet every Wednesday right before we leave for down town.

I have only asked Danny out one other time, but I used the excuse "it's for work". Did we talk about work? Yes, sadly. I haven't had another chance to ask her because my work load grew and out of work I was either meeting with the judge or going to church classes with Lauren and Cole.

The church class has been going well. The priest teaching the class is great friends with Cole and has brought me "under his wing". The priest's name is Fr. Marsh and he teaches very well. He uses his hands a lot and uses art and drawings to show stories. His main aim is to introduce us to the story of Christ and leave the other stories for after our baptism. It's a long process but they said I get to choose the date of my baptism and confirmation.

Then there is Kylee and the baby. She is now 7 months pregnant and Kylee's attitude changes very often and we have argued a few times in the last month. But we are good about coming back around and making our main focus the baby.

Judge Taylor is an older man, maybe in his 60s. He has had meetings with just me and also meeting with all of us, even a meeting with just me and Kylee.

He was confused at first on why I wanted the baby and why Kylee didn't. After a few weeks of him asking questions he agreed that what we are doing is right. He said the process of filling out the paper work and giving me full custody will take about two months. Which is perfect with the timing of the pregnancy.

Then he suggested counseling for us individually. That starts next week. I'm meeting with a girl instead of a guy because they think I should have a woman's opinion in my life since I'm going to be the only parent of the baby. I heard that we will mostly discuss how to feed the baby without breast milk and how to nurture the baby without a mothers touch.

It may not seem that hard, but mothers are pretty perfect to their babies and scientifically it takes baby's WAY longer to recognize their father than it is to recognize their mother.

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I'm now at a meeting with the sectors at the down town location. The pages for this month's magazine are finally coming together and the theme matches the rest of the magazine perfectly. We all left in happy moods.

Pulling out of the parking lot Danny suggests we get ice cream to celebrate another good magazine. I agreed, but I argued that I will pay. She didn't argue with me long, but after a few seconds of silence she simply said fine.

This is one thing I like about Danny. She argues, but sees what's an appropriate decision and what is not.

"What flavor do you want?" I say when we walk into Dairy Queen.