The phone rang this evening while Jaclyn was out retrieving Miles from daycare. When I said, “Hello?” it wasn’t Jaclyn’s voice that greeted me.
“Daddy, mommy needs help,” Miles said. If Jaclyn was there, she wasn’t saying anything.
“What do you mean, buddy?”
“Mommy needs help and she can’t do something.”
At this point, with Jaclyn still silent, I actually started to panic a bit. Miles didn’t sound like he was playing around; if anything, he seemed to be trying to find the right words to explain what was going on. Had something happened? Was Jaclyn hurt?
“What do you mean?” I asked again, a bit more frantically.
“No, no!” Jaclyn finally said. “We’re fine!”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, useful information to have!”
“I’m sorry!” she replied. Then, to Miles, “Tell dad we’re stuck in traffic.”
“We were stuck in traffic,” Miles echoed, “but mommy was also stuck in the woods.”
“What?! No I wasn’t!”
“Yes, she was stuck in the woods and it was very dark.”
Nothing brings me peace of mind quite like knowing two-thirds of the people in my house seem hell-bent on communicating in ways that imply the worst.
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 