Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

The screen door flew open and out dashed Nicole’s son Wyatt, clad in nothing more than Spider-Man underoos. Nicole’s husband, Josh, followed, his face reddened with what Rip interpreted as embarrassment and fury.

Rip waved hello and received a tight smile in return as Josh jogged after Wyatt, who skipped around the deck, effortlessly dodging his weak-chinned father. Josh wore wrinkled suit pants, and the armpits of his button-down shirt were dark with sweat. Rip looked down at his own ensemble. Frayed camo shorts and a tee shirt, stained, most likely from Hank’s greasy fingers. He took a swig of his beer and congratulated himself. The last time he’d worn a suit was just before Hank’s birth, when he had become an official stay-at-home parent, and when he had (with relief) quit his temp IT job at Grace’s investment firm.

When Nicole’s husband had arrived a half hour earlier, fresh from the Manhattan commute, Rip had caught the pale shadow of terror on the man’s face as he walked into the early-evening chaos; overtired children, wine-flushed parents, the floor carpeted with toys and cookie crumbs and puddles of spilled juice.

“Wyatt,” Josh called through clenched teeth, as Wyatt skipped across the deck, “Mommy says it’s time to go potty.”

Passive-aggressive parenting, Rip thought. Blame it on the other parent.

“He’ll make a decent soccer player,” Rip called out with a short laugh.

“Yep,” Josh said.

Whatever, Rip thought. Not like he was dying to make chitchat with the mommies’ SOs, aka Significant Others.

SOBs, Rip often joked toward the end of the playgroup dates, when everyone (except for Leigh, who was too almightier-than-thou to drink before sunset) had imbibed enough liquid courage for a bit of honesty to seep out, and with it, a collective venting about their partners, their kids, the monotony of life as a parent to small children. Rip played his part, griping about his fourteen-hour days alone with Hank, but, in all honesty, it was the best life Rip could imagine. Lately, the reality of that life running out (Hank would be in preschool next year) had Rip up at night, in a panic, strategizing over rum and Diet Coke on how to maintain his stay-at-home-daddy status.

Of course, he knew there wasn’t much strategy needed, though his mind still trembled in an endless cycle of what to do, what to do . It was simple. He had to convince Grace to have another baby, to accept the role of an anonymous sperm donor back into their lives, along with the hormone shots in the soft brown skin of her ass, the egg extraction, all leading to in vitro.

On the first try, it had seemed like science fiction to Rip, like one of the dog-eared paperbacks he’d loved as a kid. Brave New World. It had seemed routine by the third try, when the egg had finally stuck. Stuck was what the women on the trying-to-conceive online message boards called it, as in I hope to God this one sticks. Rip had spent hours (mostly during Hank’s afternoon naps) lurking on the anonymous boards of www.TryingToConceive.com, watching as the women sent each other good wishes ( sprinkles of sticky baby dust!! ) when they signed off. Off to check their basal temperatures, he assumed, or to pee on a plastic ovulation detector stick — all so they could time sex perfectly and catch that window of procreative opportunity.

As the sun slipped closer to the water and the pools of seawater on the sandbar caught its tangerine light, Rip thought of how he envied those women on TryingToConceive.com. Even if they were barren, at least their wombs ensured it was they who held the reins. He admired their bottomless optimism. Like him, they were believers, unwilling to surrender to that stubborn old bitch, Fate.

If only Grace had an ounce of the reproductive fervor those women had, he thought. Then he would have his baby.

Wyatt’s flip-flops slapped against the deck as the father-son pursuit wore on.

Josh hunched forward, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. “Wyatt! Come to Daddy already. It’s time to get dressed and go potty.” He coughed. “You can’t walk around half-naked, now can you?”

First mistake, Rip thought, kids don’t do reason. Second, do not ask your kid a question. Uh, yeah, Dad, you can walk around half-naked. I’m doing it right now!

There were a thousand Joshes in Brooklyn, Rip thought. All with the same sixty-dollar haircut and thick, black, Buddy Holly glasses. They dressed their offspring in tee shirts with ironic sayings, like the kids were their own private billboards. They wrote blogs describing life as a dad with an irreverence Rip was plain sick of. As if there were something uncool about loving your kids.

On weekends, the daddies came crawling out of the brownstones, numerous as cockroaches. Nervous they’d fuck up their kid in the few hours they had watch, they were either too lenient, trying to discuss the crime ( Now, Finn, you know we don’t grab ), or overbearing, giving their kid a time-out if they forgot to cough into their elbow. They wore self-doubt like a wet blanket, Rip thought, and left the playground as if they’d surrendered to an enemy.

Even now, Rip could see defeat coming, Wyatt running toward the edge of the seawall as a look of terror contorted Josh’s sweaty face.

“Stop,” Josh screeched.

Rip scooped up Wyatt just as he started to scale the wall.

“Little man,” Rip said. “You have got to chill.”

He handed the balled-up boy, still giddy with the chase, to his father.

“Thanks,” Josh heaved. “It’s Rip, right?”

“Yep.”

“Great to meet you,” Josh said.

Rip didn’t bother telling him they’d met before. Several times, actually.

As Josh walked back to the house, Rip watched the man whisper furiously into Wyatt’s ear. The boy sat upright, peeking over his father’s shoulder.

Rip gave him a wink, and Wyatt covered his mouth to stop a laugh.

Yep, there was no way in hell he’d be friends with that Josh dude. A dad who couldn’t have fun with his own kid.

Grace, and even Tiffany — who, lately, was the closest thing Rip had to a friend — had been urging Rip to make some guy friends. Someone to grab a beer with. A pal for a daddy double playdate to the zoo. They didn’t understand he couldn’t befriend just any guy. He wasn’t just any dad. He felt most comfortable with the mommies because, in the last four years, he had become a mommy.

Could they hook him up with a dad who made his own soap, shampoo, and lotion after his son was diagnosed with eczema? Who baked his own gluten-free bread, so not to aggravate Hank’s allergies? Who knew the names of all his son’s creatures, the stuffed animals (Mortimer, Polly, Pinky, Boy-boy, Nuk-nuk, Greenie) that Rip and Hank had christened together over the last four years. The only BFF daddy for Rip was the guy who, like him, spooned with his child every night while he told stories about the alien boy Zank and his pet robot Zork, and who, like Rip, was psyched to live in a time and place where daddies could be mommies, where they could embrace their domestic gifts, where they could nurture their offspring without being made to feel dickless. Rip baked a mean rhubarb pie and nobody (at least nobody in his mommy circle) would consider him less the man for it.

It didn’t hurt that Rip knew he embodied what the women of creative, yuppie, hipster, artisanal-obsessed, whatever they were calling themselves these days Brooklyn wanted in a man — the very opposite of their own fathers, whose duties had been limited to conception, financial support, and the occasional advice from on high. Today, the urban, and even suburban, streets were sprinkled with stay-at-home daddies pushing a toddler in a stroller on their way to a Tiff’s Riffs music class, an infant in a Baby Bjorn hanging like some mutant appendage from their chests.