It’s Saturday afternoon, and you’re in a Toys "R" Us with your eight-year-old son evaluating the new stock of Mutant Leader action toys. This has become a part of your weekend routine, especially on rainy days. Besides, in the last two weekends, you’ve met three other bachelor dads at the store, including a guy from work you didn’t even know had been married, let alone a dad.
Your son is agitating about Mutant Leader Gold Edition, a six-inch tall spider-looking thing with gold accents on two of its plastic tentacles. He wants you to buy it for him.
“Dave, can I have this?” he pleads.
You wince. He’s been calling you by your first name for months, having decided for his own unexplained reasons to abandon “Dad.” Your ex thinks this is adorable, and tells you not to make a big deal about it.
“He’s dealing with the separation, Dave,” she tells you, while you stand in her new kitchen drinking coffee. “Let him process it.” Easy for her to say. She’s still “Mom,” and probably always will be.
Behind you in the toy store, a couple walking with a little girl overhears your son making his case for the purchase. “Dave, the Gold Edition works with my Green Edition. They go together. Can’t we buy it, Dave?”
You catch the eye of the other dad and smile sheepishly. He smiles back, but you already know what he’s thinking: So sad. That stepdad is trying to buy the boy’s affection.
You consider telling him what’s really going on. “No, no. I’m not his stepdad. He’s mine. I was in the delivery room when he… See, I’m going through a divorce, and my wife … my ex wife … she thinks I shouldn’t make a big deal about him calling me by my first name. I think it’ll blow over. What do you think?”
But the couple is already at the end of the aisle, turning right. They’re headed to Barbies, you say to yourself. Your son has put Gold Edition back on the shelf, and is now holding a miniature plastic machine gun, pointing its red-tipped muzzle nonchalantly at your zipper. “Can I have this, Dave?”