Becoming Shayla's Father

I open the door, and my daughter walks in first. She is wearing a black leather jacket, and I can see her red maternity top peeking through, and I glimpse the mound underneath. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair is perfectly styled. She smiles widely. She has my eyes, my mouth and my smile. Her mother follows Shayla in and puts her arm around her daughter, as if to hold her up. Shayla says nothing, her expression gentle, observing. She moves forward and hugs me.

Daddy, I've been waiting to meet you for a long time, she says.

When my twin daughters were born, as I stood in the delivery room, something came over my entire body. I feel the same emotion and energy charging through me now. Baby girl, I say, my face wet with tears, me and your momma have not done a very good job of this, but I am here now, and I want to be in your life, for the rest of your life, if you will have me.

I'd like that, Daddy, she replies.

We move to the suite's sitting room, and I sit in the wingback chair, while Shayla and her mother sit down on the couch near me.

You're just as beautiful as your pictures, I tell Shayla. I know I've not been there for you for 18 years, and I'm sorry that we can't have those days back. But I'm going to be there for you for the next 19 years and many more, but we have years ahead of us. I am Compliment Man, but I also mean it.

Who's the baby's father? I ask.

She tells me his name, that they've been dating for a number of years and that she's in love with him. She says she met him in high school and that he was now working on his GED. She says she's not sure she's going to marry him.

I struggle to say the right thing, in just the right way. I am thinking that I want more for my daughter, that he is not the right one, not smart enough, not rich enough, not good enough, and that he won't be there for her. I feel compelled to counsel her, but it's far too late for that. How do I counsel my daughter about marriage within minutes of meeting her? I have no credibility. So I just listen.

She tells me what it was like growing up in Trenton without me around. Her mother had told her that her father was living in Washington, D.C., with his family and couldn't be there with her. She didn't give a reason. Her mother even shared newspaper clippings with her -- from my days as a prosecutor, when I made partner at Reed Smith and other career highlights. And it was true that Shayla's mother never asked me to take a DNA test, had never asked that I pay child support, had never berated me for not being there. Maybe she gave birth to Shayla for reasons that had nothing to do with me. Whatever the reason for her mother's lack of rancor, Shayla appears to have adopted it. She says she missed me on career days, at daddy-daughter dances, and that she still doesn't understand why I wasn't around. But she is not angry. I imagine you might think that we're just avoiding the past, but I think somehow we both realize there's no resolution there. It is what it is.

SHAYLA CALLS ME FROM THE HOSPITAL THAT JUNE to tell me my grandbaby has been born. I drop my work and rush down to Atlanta, where Shayla has since moved to be close to her mother's family, and stride into her hospital room.

Where's my baby? Where's my grandbaby? I say, somehow overlooking the lump swaddled in a white blanket on Shayla's chest. She turns the lump and shows me the baby's face. She is one fine baby girl, all sleepy, her mouth working noiselessly. I pick her up and hold her against my chest, where I can feel the beating of her tiny heart. I am here, I am thinking. I am being Shayla's father.