Mack Daddy(79)

I’d always dreamt that I’d have a daughter with the same red hair as her mother. Turned out, my beautiful baby girl was meant to look just like me instead. She did have Frankie’s pudgy nose, though. It made me laugh to see my wife’s cute nose on a little human who otherwise looked like me. It was like our own special version of Face Swap.

Joy Elena had just turned one and was starting to walk. Jonah was holding his sister’s hands and stood behind her to make sure she wouldn’t fall. Having a little sister to watch over and protect had given my son a new purpose and helped take his mind off of himself. Jonah still struggled with his anxiety disorder but had made a lot of progress in the past few years.

I’d come up with the name Joy for obvious reasons. I would always thank Frankie for bringing Joy into my life, and having our daughter gave new meaning to that. Her middle name, Elena, was after Mrs. Migillicutty, who’d passed away suddenly around the time Joy was born. My former neighbor had elected to have her ashes distributed amongst the various people she cared about. Some time after her death, we received a notice from her family that we were one of the recipients of some of those ashes. When the small urn was delivered to our house, it was clear that even in death, Mrs. M. could manage to make us laugh. There was a note included that said, Keep me somewhere at the bar. Just don’t mistake me for margarita salt. We decided to keep her ashes inside a bottle of her favorite rum in a special spot.

On this particular night, I was in my glory. I had my wife, mother, son, and daughter with me. We were celebrating Joy’s first birthday. Earlier, we’d watched as she smashed her little chubby hand repeatedly into her very own special cake, making a huge mess.

Frankie was loving being a stay-at-home mother. Even though she never returned to teaching full-time, she tutored on the side in the evenings and planned to go back to graduate school eventually to become an OCD therapist.

We were still estranged from my father, who’d just been re-elected to public office. While his political career thrived, his personal life remained a mess as we continued to live our lives separated from him. To the best of my knowledge, he’d followed through with all of his promises, including discreetly seeking therapy. Torrie still worked for him, but overall, my relationship with her had turned into a cordial but distant one. After the intervention at my father’s office, the question of Jonah’s paternity was never brought up again.

Joy inched her way toward me with wobbly legs. Jonah was right behind her every step of the way, leading his sister straight into my arms. I lifted my daughter up and kissed her chubby, rosy cheeks that still smelled like sugary frosting. She’d taught me that I had an even greater capacity to love than I’d ever thought possible.

Frankie plopped down onto the couch next to us. She looked over at my mother. “Did you notice that Joy has the same twin toes as Jonah?”

“You mean webbed feet? my mother asked.

“Yes. Just the two toes but the same two.” Frankie lifted our daughter’s foot. “Look at the way these two toes look like they’re sewn together. Jonah’s are the exact same way.”

“Just like their grandma,” my mother noted.

“You mean…you?” I asked. “You have twin toes?”

Mom pointed to her feet. “Yes, I have them, too.”

My eyes widened. “How did I never know that?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I never pointed it out, or you just didn’t care to look at your mother’s feet. It’s genetic, you know. My mother and sister had them, too. Many of the Mackenzies did. It can skip a generation, which is why you were spared, Mack.”

My world seemed to stop in that moment as I processed what she’d just told me.

“You mean to tell me that my kids inherited these twin toes from you? Joy inherited them from you? And Jonah…Jonah…inherited them from you, too? So, it’s a Mackenzie trait, not a Morrison trait. You see what I’m getting at?”

My mother beamed. “I can’t believe we never figured this out before. I never once noticed Jonah’s toes. Otherwise, I would’ve said something.”

Frankie’s expression brightened, and tears began to form in her eyes. She had figured out exactly what I was getting at. If webbed feet were genetic and ran in my mother’s family, then there was a damn good chance Jonah had inherited his from me. Not from my father. From me.

I reached over to him and planted a huge kiss on his face. He was completely taken aback and perplexed. “Dad, what are you doing? Gross!”

“Nothing, son. Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

But it did. It mattered so much—more than I ever thought it did.

We didn’t need the damn test.

He was my son.

Jonah walked away oblivious as he helped Joy take her wobbly baby steps to the other side of the room.

My wife, who understood the magnitude of this discovery, leapt into my arms and whispered, “Congratulations, Mack Daddy.”





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