by Kelly Utt
I should have done more.
I don’t have any choice but to reassure Ethan and tell him I will always be here to keep him safe. At his young age, he needs that reassurance. He needs a father who can give him that reassurance.
“Yes, Ethan,” I confirm. “I will always be here to keep you safe. I can’t promise that bad things won’t happen, but I can promise I will do everything possible to make sure that you, your brothers, and your mom stay safe.“
“I promise to keep you safe, too,“ Marjorie adds. “Just like I did when our van crashed. It was very scary for all of us. But like your daddy says, we will get through it together if anything else bad should happen.“
Ethan stares off into the distance. It seems like he isn’t entirely convinced. I don’t blame him. His eyes rest on the television which is still showing cable news footage of us on the hospital roof. His eyebrows raise as he realizes.
“Daddy, is that us on the TV?“
“Yes, it is,“ I say simply. “Mama Marjorie saw us on the news this morning. She came in to tell me about it and was showing me on the TV right before you woke up.“
Ethan climbs out of bed and walks over to stand close to the television. He has to lean his head back to see it.
“That’s you and the bad man,“ he says, pointing up at the screen.
Upon hearing this description, I think about Clive claiming to be Ethan‘s biological father. If that should turn out to be true, I probably ought not to label him as a bad man. It sickens me to think about. But if Ethan ever ends up having to spend time with Clive, I don’t want my boy to be scared. And as strange as it sounds, I don’t think Clive would harm him. He proved that on the roof last night.
“That’s me,” I say. “You’re right about that part. And the other man standing next to me… well, I’m not sure that he’s bad. I think maybe he’s confused.“
“Being confused made him do bad things,” Ethan summarizes.
“I guess you could say that, yeah,” I confirm. “Good thinking.”
“What about the other man?” Ethan asks, pointing towards Clive’s accomplice. “That’s the man who pretended to be a nurse and took me away. He’s a bad man.“
It’s hard to know how much detail I should provide Ethan. Especially when it’s hard to make sense of the whole thing myself.
“I didn’t get as close to that man,“ I say. “He was further away from me. I don’t even know his name. He does seem like a bad man though. I know he scared you. And that was definitely a bad thing to do. Very bad.“
I can’t help but wonder if the accomplice had good intentions. What if he’s related to Clive and thought he was doing the right thing by trying to take Ethan? I suppose if he thought Ethan was his nephew, for instance, his intentions might have been good. I know that if Liam was trying to get Ethan back to us, he would have done what Clive’s accomplice did. And more. I again think about the possibility that Clive turns out to be Ethan‘s father. If his accomplice is a relative, then Ethan might have to someday meet the guy. I don’t want my boy to be scared of that either.
These are impossible scenarios. I have no idea how I’m supposed to reassure Ethan. I’m doing my best. I wish Ali was here to help. She always seems to know the right thing to say.
“The man with the black hair,” Ethan says, pointing to Clive again. “He caught me from falling off the roof like you did.”
“That’s right,” I confirm. “I’m glad he did.“
“Why did he do it?“ Ethan asks.
I have to be very careful about how I answer this question. When we were all on the roof, in the heat of the moment, Clive called Ethan his boy. I’m not sure Ethan was emotionally present enough to catch the reference, let alone process it. But in case he did, I want to be sure he knows he can always talk to me about it.
“I think because he didn’t want you to get hurt,” I reply.
Marjorie offers me a reassuring nod, letting me know I’m handling the discussion well. I appreciate her support.
Ethan stares at the TV as he thinks about my answer. I wait expectantly, hoping he’ll be satisfied enough to let the topic drop for now. I need more time to figure out what’s going on before I’ll know how to explain it to him.
“Daddy?” Ethan asks, still staring at the television. “When can we go home?“
I take a deep breath before I answer. It’s a tough question, but I prefer it to any more talk of Clive. “This is our temporary home for right now,” I say. “We’re going to be staying here a while longer. We could think of this as one of our homes if you like. What if we call it our Lake Tahoe house?“
“I want to go to our Ithaca house.“
I get out of bed and walk over to hug Ethan. I kneel in front of him and open my arms wide. He accepts the invitation and leans his little chin on my shoulder as he wraps his arms around my neck. I sure do love this little human. He and his brothers and his mom are my world.
“I want to go to our Ithaca house, too,” I say. “But we have to wait here in Lake Tahoe until Mommy is healed up enough to travel back home to New York. I don’t know how long it will take for that to happen.“
“But I want to go to our favorite places,” Ethan pleas, beginning to cry. “I want things to be like what I’m used to. I want my room and my toys. I want to go to the farmers’ market with you and pick out fruits and vegetables. I want to see Lady. I miss her a lot.“
He breaks down and begins to sob with big, fat tears.
“Awe, buddy,“ I say, wrapping my arms tightly around him. “I want to do those things, too. And I definitely want to see our Ladygirl. She’s waiting on us at Jen and Duke's house. She’s safe there. Jen is taking good care of her. But I understand how you feel. It’s okay to cry.”
Leo scoots himself up in the bed, becoming concerned about his big brother. Little Will is concerned as well. He sits up straighter in Marjorie‘s arms as he looks on. I had better sound more convincing. My boys need reassurance. They need to believe in me.
“I’ll tell you what,“ I say. “When I go to the hospital today to visit Mommy and talk to her doctor, I’m going to ask when he thinks she’ll be able to travel home to Ithaca. If Dr. Wong thinks it’s going to be longer than a few more days, then I’ll talk to Jen and we will find a way to get Lady here at our Lake Tahoe house with us. How does that sound?”
Marjorie looks at me skeptically, probably wondering why I just made things more complicated for myself. But I can tell she understands. Getting Lady out here would be a relatively easy thing to do. Her presence would make a huge difference in the well-being of my boys. Not to mention, I wouldn’t mind having our German Shepherd around to help watch over the place. She came through for us in a big way the night of the break-in. I know she’d do it again in a heartbeat if duty called. I’m sure we can work something out to get her here. Those logistics are not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
The mood in the room immediately lightens with this news. Marjorie and I get the boys dressed and fed, then I shower and prepare to face the day.
Maybe it won’t be so hard to comfort the boys after all. Maybe, with the help of our canine hero, we’ll all be okay.
2
Beginnings
I remember the day Ali told me she was pregnant with Ethan. I was working overseas in South Korea at the time. My wife and I had been going through a rough spell, but when she called to tell me the news about the pregnancy, something just settled over me. I knew we were going to be alright.
I lived in a dorm-style room on the Air Force Base in Osan back then. I had hung a few posters of my favorite bands on the walls and had placed a few framed photos of Ali and me on top of the dresser, but the place had never felt like home. How could it?
The building I worked in while stationed in South Korea was carefully disguised so as not to be identifiable from the air. There were trees and grass planted on the roof. It was relatively subtle, but the setup served as just enough of a reminder of the dange
r we were in to make me uneasy every day as I arrived for work. Even more unsettling was how we were told that no one would come for us if North Korea were to invade the South. Our supervisors spelled it out in black-and-white. If the North invaded, all aircraft would take off from the Air Force base and head for safety. Those of us left working on the base would have to stay here and fend for ourselves. They made it abundantly clear that Osan Air Force Base would be nothing more than a speed bump for enemy troops as they made their way down the peninsula.
North and South Korea had been at semi-peaceful terms for decades, but periodically, tensions would rise and the threat of the North invading became real. We knew that if an invasion ever did happen, it would take place during the wintertime because the rice patties would be frozen solid enough for tanks to drive on.
Living with that kind of fear day in and day out changes a person.
When I wasn’t working, I spent most of my free time lifting weights in the gym or playing volleyball and basketball. I must admit, I drank more than my fair share of alcohol during that period. It was the only way I could cope. I’d wake up, go to work for six or eight hours in the building with the trees on the roof, then head back to my room and change into athletic clothes. I usually got liquored up before heading out for the evening.
A Korean liquor called soju became my go-to. Because the alcohol content in soju varies wildly, I never knew just how much I was getting each time I opened a bottle. I’d drink my soju, walk across the base to the gym, do some reps on the weight machines, and then play ball until it was time to return for midnight chow.
South Korea was an unaccompanied tour, meaning spouses and families were not permitted to live with active duty service members in-country. The duty station was designated as such because the area was considered too unstable and dangerous. The Air Force didn’t want to put family members at that kind of risk. As a result, there were a lot of men and women who were homesick, missing their significant others and their kiddos.
I missed Ali terribly. We had been married for several years at that point and even though I had been deployed plenty of times prior, a year away in a potentially hostile environment felt especially cruel. I was only allowed to go home for a visit once, at the halfway mark. Being separated from my love for so long was excruciating.
The day Alessandra Davies called me to say she was pregnant, I had a few months left to serve in Korea before my year was up. I was counting the days until I would return home to my bed and my wife’s loving arms. I had been home on leave a few months prior for a week-long visit, so I had every reason to assume the baby was mine. The thought that the baby might not be mine never crossed my mind. Not once.
I had just gotten done with work when Ali called that day. I was changing into my athletic clothes to head out for the evening. It was morning in D.C., and Ali had woken up with first-trimester morning sickness. For several weeks prior, she’d been telling me she had the flu. But when the sickness didn’t go away, she decided to buy a pregnancy test. That morning, she had held her bladder long enough for a trip to the drug store and back. She told me she had wanted to save her first-morning urine to test since it’s more concentrated and supposed to give a more accurate result. Apparently, she’d been doing some reading about early pregnancy to even know about that little trick. When she returned home and relieved herself onto the pregnancy test, the stick immediately displayed two distinct pink lines indicating that Alessandra Davies was, in fact, pregnant.
When I picked up the phone, Ali was screaming on the other end. At first, I thought something was wrong. I remember standing up in my dorm room and looking out the window into the sad, depressing courtyard on base. It was reflexive, like I had to look at something to absorb whatever news my wife had to tell me. I hadn’t started drinking for the night, but I remember glancing at my bottle of soju and thinking it was probably time to start.
When she told me she was pregnant, a zap of energy went up and down my body, forever changing every fiber of my being. All of a sudden, I was a father. All of a sudden, we were parents. All of a sudden, our lives would never be about just us again.
I was completely and totally thrilled. We hadn’t been trying for a baby, but we both knew we wanted a family. We had planned on several kids, so it made sense to get going. Part of our struggles over the years prior related to which one of us was going to scale back their career to be home with the children. In many ways, we were overthinking things. Once a pregnancy was happening, I knew we’d be able to work it all out.
I remember hanging up the phone after that tearful, happy conversation and going out to play ball with my friends. I was so proud to tell them I was going to be a dad. I left the soju on the counter and didn’t drink a drop. Ali and I decided we would tell family members together on the phone the next day, so my friends on base were the only people I could share the news with. I intended to be sober while I did it.
I remember wanting to tell Liam so badly. It was all I could do to hold the news inside until the next morning. I remember looking at the pictures of Ali and me on my dorm-room dresser and thinking about how we were going to be someone’s parents. How one day, our child would look at these old pictures of us and hear the story of what life was like before he came into the world. Suddenly, every single thing about my life was filled with deeper meaning. Suddenly, my life had expanded.
Aside from the day Ali and I met and the day we got married, that ordinary day in South Korea when I went to work in a building with trees on the roof and sat in a gloomy dorm room changing into athletic clothes for what little fun I could squeeze out of the experience became one of the best days of my entire life. Life is funny that way. It will surprise you when you least expect it.
The next few years became a series of special days and happy times.
I’ll never forget the day I finally returned home from my unaccompanied tour and saw Ali for the first time as a pregnant woman. She was waiting on me as my flight landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington D.C. She was part of the crowd that had gathered to welcome us home. I remember my elation, walking through the doors of the hanger, finding my wife in the crowd, and walking towards her with the biggest, goofiest grin on my face. Not only was I home after a year away and seeing her after six months of being apart, but I was seeing her as a mother for the very first time, all while knowing I was a father. It was a glorious, beautiful moment.
I had to walk calmly with my group formation when we first entered the room and it was difficult to contain myself. It was all I could do to walk instead of run. When the formation broke and we were given the order to be at ease, I rushed towards my wife and picked her up into my arms. I kissed her passionately and placed my hand on her abdomen where our baby Ethan was growing. It was still early in her pregnancy and her athletic build hid her baby bump well, but she was beginning to show and her belly was distended. It made me feel so proud to have that physical evidence of our child-to-be. I was over the moon with happiness. Everything seemed good.
Now that I remember a lot of what happened to us during our shared past life in Ancient Greece, I can see why our excitement in this lifetime was so intense. Back in Greece, Ali and I knew from the beginning that we weren’t supposed to be together. We had to sneak around and hide our relationship. When she became pregnant and her belly began to grow back then, we had to hide it. By the time Ethan was born in Greece, the wheels were in motion to have him and Ali sent outside of the city. We were overjoyed to welcome our baby into the world, but there was a cloud of sadness which hung over the three of us because our family was not sanctioned by our society.
But this time, it was different. There was no one keeping us apart. No one telling us we shouldn’t be together or that we didn’t deserve to be a family with our baby boy. When we welcomed Ethan into our world in modern-day America, it felt on a deep, true level like everything really was right in the world. Finally. It felt like this was our destiny. It felt like it was my destiny. When Ethan
was born this time and I looked into his wise eyes, there was a soul recognition. He knew he was mine the same way I knew I was his. We knew we belonged together.
If it turns out that Clive is Ethan’s biological father, I’m not sure I’ll be able to trust my instincts ever again.
When Ali and I found out we were pregnant with Leo, things were very different. I was still deployed from time to time for up to a couple of months at each assignment, but I was home far more than the year I’d spent in South Korea. Ethan wasn’t quite two yet when Leo came to be.
As far as mine and Ali’s relationship went, things were dramatically better between us when we became pregnant with Leo as compared to when we became pregnant with Ethan. She had reduced her hours and was working from home quite a bit to be with our baby boy. She was settling into motherhood and it suited her. She spent her days taking Ethan for walks in his stroller, attending mommy-and-infant yoga classes, and working on some legal contract work here and there while Ethan napped. My wife was instantly a wonderful mother. It’s like she was born for the job. The three of us were in a rhythm, so when Leo came into our lives, he was joining an already well-oiled machine.
I remember the day we found out we were pregnant with Leo. This time, I didn’t have to hear the news over the phone while stuck halfway around the world. This time, I was right there with my love while she peed on the stick and waited for the results of the pregnancy test. Two pink lines appeared almost instantly, strong and certain. When we saw the result, we jumped up and down together in the bathroom. Then my wife leaned her head on my shoulder and we danced while happy tears streamed down our faces. It was beautiful and moving. Our little family was growing and we couldn’t have been happier.