Notes From A Non-Breeder: The Other Woman is Three
As “Daddy’s special friend,” what’s my role?
by Megan Haas
June 30, 2009
Our next stop is Murphy's restaurant, where Claudia is in a touching mood. She is all over Tim. We eat French fries together and Tim and I drink beer. Across the table, they are in another world from me — sitting next to each other and loving each other.
I listen to Tim say that she is his baby, that she is so pretty. He lets her put his glasses on him backwards and upside down. I see him run his finger in a straight line from the top of her forehead to the end of her nose. It is a familiar gesture, an absentminded
caress that he performs on my face as well. I see the gestures, hear the cadences of his voice with her, the same ones he uses on me, and wonder if he treats everyone like a child or does he love me because I am childlike?
And we sit in Murphy's, a group of three that is broken up into two and one. I think that Tim really must be okay with everything ending if he's bringing the three of us to a public place, a bar where his friends go. Is this his first rebellious act of freedom
after signing away his home to his ex-wife? I am thinking all sorts of things, and watching a boxing show on the twin TVs, when Tim prompts Claudia to come sit on my lap. This would have been nice if she'd thought of it herself, but I don't believe she did.
Soft and warm, the baby is on my lap for a mere second or two before she reaches out for the man whose duty she has done. Not a good way to teach a child to be true to herself, even if he thought it would please me.
Was I ready to have a child in my life? Tim called immediately after dropping me off at home. When I answered the phone, he said, "I worry about you when you're quiet." I told him I wished he hadn't prompted her to sit on me. He swore that she did it all on her own, and that she had total trust
in me. I lay back on my couch. Was I ready to have a child in my life?
Ultimately, I made the leap. Falling in love with a man means embracing his world. My sense of unease disappeared. Claudia and I developed a mutual adoration for each other, and for the following two years Tim and I stayed together, she and I spent a great deal of time
together on our own. The problem was that I eventually fell out of love with Tim. When I left him, he disallowed all contact between me and his daughter, which was his right, but truly painful. I heard from a mutual friend
that finally, after a year, Claudia stopped asking for me, but I still think about her. Perhaps the root of the unease I sensed upon meeting her was that leaving Claudia would be a thousand times more painful than leaving Tim.
©2009 Megan Haas and Babble.com
About the Author
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Megan Haas lives in Seattle, WA where she runs Vivaleap, a consulting company that builds cultural community systems into new and existing business foundations.
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