Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions of a Gay Dad Read Online Free PDF

plane.” She rolled her eyes. We both laughed and rolled our eyes as well, as though she’d been singled out for this injustice. Don commiserated: “The airlines are always making up crazy rules.It’s not like it used to be, that’s for sure.” What the hell was he talking about? Like he and she were experienced business travelers from the seventies!
    She wore her hair pulled back and wasn’t overly made up. This girl dressed for comfort and convenience and was a bit of a blank slate—really hard to read. But this didn’t stop me from studying her for clues. She looked down a lot. Was she shy? Scared? She was definitely low-key. And quiet. Let me just say that I am terrible with people who are quiet and hard to read. I immediately assume they’re miserable or mad at me and I overcompensate.
    “Do you like Thai food? I do. We’re taking you to Thai tonight. And a movie! Have I mentioned that? If you want. We’re not going to force you to see Ocean’s Twelve . How about Dodgeball ? Does that sound good to you? Supposed to be hilarious. Maybe you’d rather not see a comedy. I get that. Right? I mean, what’s so funny, anyway . . . ?” Wham! I felt a kick. Thank God. Don was able to make the tap dancing stop.
    We had meals, went to appointments, and talked about movies we liked. We didn’t talk that much about the baby, the adoption, or the fact that she was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day! I wanted to rip them from her hands. But we’d been warned through the process that we had to pick our battles, and smoking wasn’t worth the fight. Most of the birth moms smoked, and the risk of low birth weight was far less grave than if the fetus was exposed to alcohol, cocaine, or crystal meth. I decided to try and let it go. Or at least act as though I had.
    We learned Samantha’s three-year old, Tye, was from aprevious boyfriend. We learned that her current boyfriend (the father of the baby she was carrying) was a crystal meth dealer. I was impressed with Samantha’s honesty. She could have made up anything about him but didn’t feel the need. She did, however, want to reassure us.
    “But I have nothing to do with that part of his life,” she said casually, in between sips of a milkshake. “The baby is fine.”
    “Right. Of course,” I replied. But I registered the information in some dark notepad in my brain. Could she really have nothing to do with that part of his life? If my boyfriend sold, say, designer shoes, wouldn’t I be lumping around the house in his samples? Would I really be able to resist the occasional employee discount? Realistically, wouldn’t my closet be full? Loafers, wing tips, boots—I’d want them all! Don and I pretended not to care.
    We took her to Universal. We thought she’d like the VIP tour we’d begged some friends to help us get. Samantha seemed unimpressed—numb, even, to most of what was put in her path. I wondered if it was a coping mechanism for cruel and violent things she may have lived through. I couldn’t help wondering what this sweet girl must have seen in her short twenty-five years. I also wondered what those experiences might sound like in utero.
    The tram slowed down as it approached the house where they shot Psycho and I noticed Samantha had jumped out. Don and I followed after her. She said she needed a cigarette break. Samantha was clearly impervious to Hollywood nostalgia, so we headed back to the parking garage.
    The next morning we visited the obstetrician for acheckup. He confirmed that Samantha was in her third month of pregnancy and asked to see her again in four weeks. He gave her a few boxes of prenatal vitamins and sent her off. “You got anything for me?” I asked the doctor. I wanted to do something in preparation for this baby. He smiled and made us a print of her ultrasound that Don and I stared at for about two hours when we got home.
    We took Samantha to the airport, slipped her some “travel money,” and promised to call her the