Mommy Man (26 page)

“Do you want to drive?” Drew asked me.

“No way.”

“Me neither,” he said. “But I will.”

At least an hour separated us from our condo, if traffic was kind, but never before had the stakes felt higher for this kind of trip.

Drew took a deep breath and climbed into the driver’s seat. He turned off the radio, set the air conditioning to a comfortable level, and buckled his seat belt. The kids were silent, gazing around. Every single thing they focused their eyes on was something they’d never seen before, except for me and Drew. When they saw us, they instantly looked away in search of something more interesting.
Oh, those guys again. They’re always here.

Drew pulled up the GPS menu. He tapped a single button, the one labeled “Go Home,” and then we let the robot-voiced lady inside our car guide us ba
ck to the freeway.

Epilogue

A
s we turn off the interstate
toward Philadelphia, Drew and I begin to panic about the flower girl dress. For weeks, it’s all we’ve been talking about. The gray sash. The silky fabric. The fact that it’s so special you only get to wear it on one very important day. Every time we mention it, Sutton acts like she might spontaneously combust from a surge of little girl glee. If we mistakenly say that the dress is white, she’ll quickly correct us. “It’s cream-colored.” Right now, the dress hangs from a hanger in the back row of our minivan, blocking Sutton’s view of the window. She doesn’t mind, though. She’d rather stare at the dress than the Jersey Turnpike. The dress is elegant, shimmering, perfect. The problem is that we only have one of them.

“I’m going to be a flower girl, too!” Bennett insists. Now just over three years old, our son is sweet, sensitive and incredibly stubborn. “I want to wear a dress!” Perhaps we’ve made too big a deal about the dress.

“You’re a ring bearer,” I remind him. “You get to wear a white shirt and some really handsome suspenders and . . .”

“No!” he shouts. “I’m a flower girl!”

Sutton does not help our case. “I think you’d make a beauuuuuutiful flower girl, Bennett!” she coos.

It’s not that Drew’s brother Peter or his fiancé Ali would mind having a male flower girl at their wedding. After his initial hesitation about our plans to make a family, Peter has rallied to become our biggest champion. He dearly loves his nephew, a tough, outgoing boy who loves to play with both trains and dress up clothes. One thing my son excels at is his ability to defy people’s expectations of him. If that’s a result of him having two dads, it’s one I fully embrace.

This wedding is one of the reasons we moved back to the East Coast. After nearly two decades in Los Angeles, Drew and I packed up everything and relocated to the suburbs of New York so we could be closer to our families, so we’d be here for all the weddings, births, and happy moments. Just as everyone had warned us, having kids upended our priorities in ways we never expected.

When we arrive at the hotel, we’re greeted like celebrities. All of Peter’s friends and Ali’s family are eager to meet us. Peter has been sharing our story with them for months. “You guys, this is my brother Drew,” he announces proudly, “and his family.”

We’re not the only ones to upstage the bride and groom, though. “Grace!” Sutton squeals, darting across the room, almost as excited as she was the first time she saw the flower girl dress.

Drew and I gaze over at one of the other reasons we moved back to the East Coast, a tiny, gorgeous girl with giant happy eyes who’s carried into the room by Susie, her mom.

“Grace, you look so beautiful!” Sutton says.

After all of Dr. S’s warnings, Susie got pregnant without even trying. She had just moved in with her boyfriend and was taking birth control. Somehow, though, Grace’s need to be born was stronger than Susie’s fertility issues, stronger than the pills. My sister-in-law wasn’t quite prepared to be a mom, but when she learned the news, she embraced it fully. Things didn’t work out with her boyfriend, and now she was living back at home with her parents.

Nothing about Susie’s life has been a fairy tale, except for motherhood. She’s only been a mom for six months, but already, she doesn’t look complete without Grace in her arms. They dance together, laugh together. They own the room.

A moment later, Drew is hugging Susie tightly. They’re both in tears, as they are nearly every time they get together. Nothing is said, yet they manage to communicate everything they need to.

It’s almost too perfect a moment. Drew and Susie hugging, just a few feet from Bennett and Sutton, who are singing songs from the Broadway musical “Matilda,” which they’ve learned by heart. Sutton is performing the role of Matilda, and Bennett is playing Miss Honey, her good-natured schoolteacher. It’s taken me three years to appreciate it fully, but what Susie has given us is so much more than just a couple of eggs. It’s something more special than we’d imagined, more wonderful than I’d ever realized. It’s a brother and sister, tiny, perfect, and gradually forming a special bond all their own.

A moment later, Drew is hugging his brother Matt. Together, they’ll be Peter’s Best Men, alongside a half dozen of Peter’s macho buddies as groomsmen. Privately, I joke to Matt’s partner Casey that we got left out because the wedding party had filled its gay quota.

While the brothers bond, Casey and I talk about fatherhood. He and Matt are right where Drew and I were a few years earlier, trying very hard to have a baby with a surrogate. Susie offered them her eggs, of course, but Casey nixed the idea. They went with an anonymous egg donor instead.

Casey shakes his head, informing me that their third in vitro attempt just failed. They need to find a new surrogate, but the laws are trickier in New York. It’s illegal there to pay someone to carry a baby for you. Virtually the only way to make an agreement is to find someone you know who’ll do it purely out of love. They were lucky to find their first surrogate. How would they ever replace her?

“I’ll carry the baby for you,” a voice says from beside us. We don’t even have to look over to see who it is.

“Susie, are you serious?” Casey asks. Susie just smiles and shrugs. We all know the answer.

The next day, Bennett marches down the aisle in suspenders and a white shirt, soaking up the compliments about how spiffy he looks. Behind him, Sutton spreads rose petals for her new aunt to walk on. Drew and Matt stand at one side of the altar beside Peter. Susie is on the other.

Six months later, she will be pregnant again.

Acknowledgments

O
ne of the many valuable lessons
I learned from my peerless agent, Laurie Abkemeier, is that agents always read the acknowledgments section first. Therefore, I will not keep her waiting. Laurie, I could not ask for a more enthusiastic, tireless, encouraging advocate to introduce me to the world of publishing. If the day you sold my book was the most exciting day in my writing career, then number 2 would have to be the day you read my query and responded in record time. Thanks for everything, and thanks also to Brian DeFiore and the rest of the staff at DeFiore and Company.

To Flannery Scott, thanks for believing in this book and for all the guidance you’ve given me. You’ve made my first publishing experience everything I hoped it would be, and I couldn’t be happier to be on this journey with you. Thanks also to Karie, Kalen, Sam, Rick, and the rest of the staff at Taylor Trade Publishing.

Enormous thanks also go, naturally, to Drew Tappon, for being my partner both in becoming a dad and in writing it all down. Drew, I couldn’t have done either one without your love and support. Thanks for being the most awesome “Other Daddy” in the world.

To Susie Tappon, thanks for your generosity not just in creating our kids but in letting me share your story. If there’s one thing I want the kids to take away from this book when they’re old enough to read it, it’s what an incredible woman Aunt Susie is. (As if they won’t already know.)

To Tiffany Ireland, another incredible woman, thanks for letting us into your life, and thanks for saying “yes.” Thanks also to Eric and Gavin for being part of our extended family.

I also have to thank everyone who allowed me to write about them, even when I wasn’t portraying them in the most flattering light. To Greg Scordato, who doesn’t remember telling me he couldn’t be friends with someone who was gay and who feels awful about it, thanks for letting me put that in anyway. To Jessica, thanks for being a good sport and for talking us out of the wipe warmers. To Eric S., thanks for giving me the last word—until you write your book, at least. To Dr. S—you know who you are—thanks for being just the guy we needed to get us through all of this, and thanks to your entire staff for their professionalism and friendship. Thanks to Katye and Jenn for being such amazing people.

To my family—Mom, Mary, Kathy, Larry, Kiernan, Megan, Bridget, Mr. & Mrs. T, Mrs. Shoe, Matt & Casey, Peter & Ali, Grace, Lillian, and those yet to come, thanks for all the support you’ve given me throughout this journey. The love you’ve all shown me is what made me so eager to start a family of my own. And to my dad, Jerry Sr., who loved kids and who loved to read more than anyone I’ve ever known, thanks for passing on your love of both to me. I hope you get to read this somewhere. I wish you could’ve been here to witness it all firsthand.

Thanks to my fellow Barracudas—Dave Boerger, James Dutcher, Julie Singer, Victoria Strouse, Adam Tobin, and Janice “Sassymama” Bech for making me a better writer.

Thanks to the friends who might as well be family—Tia Lauren, Janice & C.B. Browne, Drew Greenberg, Michael Messer, Robin Sindler, Chuck & Meredith Stephenson, Alex Cobo, Tom Kenney & Dimitry Grushko, Matthew Allan, and Michael Markowitz. To anyone who’s looking at this list and saying, “Aw, man! Why didn’t that jerk mention me, too?,” the answer is because I know you’re too humble to be called out directly. But thank you most of all.

Thanks to Daniel Jones and the Modern Love column for convincing me there was a story here worth telling. Thanks to Richard Suckle for being one of the good guys. Thanks to Melissa Kagan for making me a “mom.”

I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t also acknowledge everyone who’s read, shared, followed, linked, reblogged, aggregated, upvoted, stumbled upon, commented on, or in any other way supported my blog. Thanks to Jill Smokler, Karen Alpert, Sandra Parsons, Paula Turner, Charly Walker, Kelly Suellentrop, Lovely Lici, the Good Men Project, Lifetime Moms, everyone at
Raising America with Kyra Phillips
, and everyone else who’s been nice to me one way or another. And OK, thanks to @fender_splendor, who tweeted that he wanted in on the acknowledgments action. There you go.