Bagged Felines and Cloistered Bones

I’ve had a deep, not-so-dark secret. I’ve only told a few souls about my secret. It may not be so secret, but it has been to me. Hell, there are many ways to find out something that you want to know, so anybody could have found this out before I even said anything. “Mum” has not been the word on many fronts…

I don’t like secrets. Cats don’t reside in bags. Skeletons shouldn’t exist in my closet. I don’t like them there, but there has been one in mine for several months. Tonight I took him out and put him on display, just like the one in the Biology room at school. The cat that had been living in a bag jumped out and meowed.

I’m going to be a daddy again. I never stopped being a daddy, but I’m going to be a daddy to another child. A little “whoopsie”. A little girl. Rowan Gray Powers. Powers? Yep. Her mother has a strong last name…kinda reminds me of the name Homer Simpson took in an episode when he was a spy…Max Powers I think it was. Won’t ever get that out of my head.

Anyway, I met Rowan’s mama back in November of last year. If you go to her blog (http://dawnia.blogspot.com/) and search back to then, you can get most of the whole story. I haven’t talked much about her. I have, but I am the master (in my own mind) of allusion, the king of allegory, the knight of aversion. I’ve talked about her, but maybe because we haven’t been together as in “together forever and ever”, and we won’t be, I have almost avoided doing so in a blunt, in your face kind of way.

We hadn’t told my kids about this for a reason. First, we knew that we weren’t going to be a couple and she had given me the chance to “run”. I would never run from responsibility, but responsibility is not the reason I stayed. I know she wouldn’t want me to stay for feeling like I had to, for feeling like I was obligated to. I know that, for she has told me and the whole world that she wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have run away. I might have walked away, looking over my shoulder the entire time…I would have looked over my shoulder for the rest of my life, though. Another reason we didn’t tell my kids is because, well, I didn’t feel like they would be accepting of another sibling. My daughter told me once that she likes us the way we were (of course it would have been even better with “daddy-mama-sister-brother” together, she also said). I was so afraid of hurting her that I was holding out until I felt ready; until I felt she was ready.

D (my baby momma) had come over the other day to get the crib that both my kids had used when they were babies. It was here; it was going unused; it went to her. She got me a more “portable” one from a consignment sale this past weekend. Anyway, my daughter wanted to know why she was taking the crib. “Is Zero (D’s cat…one of many) going to sleep in it?” she asked. Tonight, I was showing D an “old-school” playpen, one that Ralph Nader surely tried to ban, one that gives you visions of hundreds of heads being simultaneously stuck in between the bars. My daughter (a bright one, she is) asked why I was showing it to D. The beginning of a thousand questions, and not a single one was I going to lie about. D was about to pull out of the driveway, when she asked me when I was going to tell them. I told her then that I was staying, and that I would tell her this weekend. She said that she would like to see the look on my daughter’s face, so I cocked my head towards the front door and said, “C’mon then”.

That’s all it took. Months of worry and thoughts of regret melted away with the utterance of the words from my mouth to my kids. Why did I worry about it? I know that I waited until I felt it was right. But what caused me to do it now?

This weekend has not been a good one for me. On Saturday, I discovered that I had gone into the overdraft reserve in my checking account. That’s not such a big deal, but I had gone into it almost to the limit. The bank charges me $10 for each day that a debit or check clears and I’m in the reserve. That I understand. It is part of the luxury of having the overdraft protection. But what drained the color from my face, made me turn around and head back home after leaving the bank, made my stomach instantly start hurting was this: I had a total of five debits come through that put me over my overdraft protection limit. Five debits. I don’t know how much each one was. They couldn’t have been for more than $20 for gas, or even less for some food, but each one added a $35 charge to my account. Five of them. $35 multiplied by 5. That’s $175. Gut wrenching sickness overcame me.

“Deep, dark depression, excessive misery…gloom, despair, and agony on me.”

I am at the lowest point of my life. Never before have I been this low. Even in my depression of the death of my marriage, I wasn’t this low. How can I pay for gas to get my kids to and from their aunt’s house, their “day care” for the summer? How can I pay for the food that they need? I haven’t been getting the hours that I so desperately need at work either. I need gas to get there to get the money to get gas and food…the wheel goes round and round. These and other questions popped up in my head all night last night and rummaged around in my brain today. I had emailed the manager of my local branch, telling her that I have been a loyal customer for nearly 15 years. I told her of the financial burden I was already in and the charges that depleted my account don’t help at all, in fact, there is no way to recover from this. I had heard of banks waiving these kinds of fees before, especially for hardship purposes. Even if they would waive a portion of them, that would help tremendously. I gave her my telephone number to call me on Monday. We’ll see what comes of it.

Welfare. Never thought about it. Not going to think about it either, but I am not above asking for help. I have already applied for food stamps, but with me moving to another county, I have to apply there as well. I tried to this past Friday, but by the time I got to Cleveland, the office had been closed for nearly 20 minutes. Just my luck.

So, in the darkest time of my life, why did I decide to stick and raise another child? Why did I decide to tell my kids about their new little sister? Maybe I did because there is no other place to go but up. Get this off my chest while I am down so low that maybe the enthusiasm shown would bring me up. I don’t know. I just did. I decided that the right thing to do, for me, for my kids, for Rowan, for D…but especially for me…the right thing to do would be for me to help raise this child. I know it will be hard. It will be hard financially (that’s the understatement of my life), it will be hard physically and mentally. But I’m going to do it because I feel it is right. I know it is right.

In the end, my fears went unfounded. My son, who is only 5, understood what I was saying, but seemed to not care one way or the other. He was only interested in turning the TV back on and let the grown up talk dissipate. My daughter, though, was ecstatic. She was especially happy to know that she was going to have a little “half-sister”. Half, whole, it doesn’t matter…it is going to be a sister, not another brother. Their mama knows (and surely everyone she knows “knows”) and, shoot, half of all those I know are in the know about it.

Was I happy about finding out about being a daddy again? No. And the congregation yelled, “Hell, no!” That’s another reason I have kept the cat in the bag, the skeleton in the closet. I haven’t been enthused. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t or won’t love this child as much as I love my other two. I won’t love it more or less than them. That is a promise. Am I enthused about it now? No. But I feel warmth and love all the same. Outwardly I don’t show it, but inwardly I am beaming with pride and love. Believe me, I am.

The cat has run away, so I fold up the bag and put it in the recycling bin. The skeleton looks hideous standing in the corner of my room. I’ll wheel him to the nearest haunted house and drop him off. There is no need for them to stick around anyway. Are there more secrets waiting to be told? Nope.

At least none that I am aware of, anyway…