Chapter 8
Theo
Istood in front of my closet like it was a puzzle I’d never learned to solve, a Rubik’s Cube of clothing scattered across my bed in varying degrees of rejection. A navy cardigan lay crumpled beside a pair of khakis I’d deemed “too professorial.” My lone button-down shirt—the one I wore to parent-teacher conferences—hung wrinkled on the closet door, already dismissed as “trying too hard.”
An annoying thought chirped in my head:When was the last time I’d been on an actual date?
The question made my stomach clench with a mixture of excitement and abject terror.
Three years.
It had to be at least three years.
Maybe four.
Fine. Five.
Before Debbie, back when I still had the luxury of spontaneous evening plans and clothes that weren’t perpetually dusted withGoldfish crumbs and glue that no amount of Tide could ever remove.
I blew out a sigh. What was I doing? I should just stay home, gorge myself on Chinese delivery, and drown my lack of confidence in Pino Noir. No. Cabernet—dry and bitter, like my ever-shrinking heart.
“Daddy, why are you making that face?” Debbie bounded into my room to perch on my bed. “You look like you have to poop. Don’t poop your pants. The mailman will smell it. It’ll ruin the mood.”
“I don’t have to poop,” I muttered, holding up a gray sweater and immediately discarding it. Too drab. Then her words sank in. “What do you know about ruining a mood? Where did you hear that?”
She shrugged her spindly shoulders. “The mood. You know, like for kissing and stuff.”
Stuff? My five-year-old knew about “stuff”? My gut twisted.
“Baby—”
“Holding hands. Kissing. That kind of stuff. It sounds gross, but they do those things in the movies you watch.”
Right. I did have an unnatural obsession with Lifetime. I made a mental note to block that channel, at least while she was around. She did not need to know about kissing or holding hands until she was a solid seventeen or eighteen years old.
“It’s okay, Button. Daddy’s just struggling with what to wear.”
“Ooh! I can help!” She bounced to her knees, suddenly animated. “I’m really good at picking clothes. Mrs. Rodriguez says I have an eye for fashion.”
I looked at her skeptically.
She was currently wearing a tutu over dinosaur leggings and a shirt that proclaimed, “I’m Not Short, I’m Fun Sized,” in glittery letters.
Then again, my fashion sense had abandoned me shortly after birth.
“Okay, Fizzy Bug,” I said, using another of her many nicknames that always made her giggle. “What do you think?”
She scrambled across the bed with the seriousness of a general examining a battle plan, perusing the chaos I’d created. After a moment of intense deliberation, she pointed to a dark green henley I’d forgotten I owned.
“That one. It makes your eyes look pretty, like when you read me stories and get all happy.”
Kids missed nothing. Jesus.
I picked up the shirt, surprised. It was soft, fitted but not tight, with a subtle texture that looked quite nice. How had a five-year-old spotted something I’d completely overlooked?
“And these!” She grabbed a pair of dark jeans from the pile. “Not the teacher pants. The mailman doesn’t wear teacher pants. He’s a hottie potato.”
“A . . . what?”
