Father’s Day Post #3: Life is Full of Fine Surprises

One day my husband had no children and the next day he was the stepfather of an 11-year old girl. It happened that fast, overnight.

None of us knew what we were doing.

We just lurched. We lurched from getting along well enough to detesting each other and wishing an Annulment Angel would appear and make everything a hazy, long ago memory. My daughter’s eye-rolling matched my own ambivalence, having married a man I’d only known five short months after living as a single person for a very long time. The phrase ‘what was I thinking’ was on perpetual echo in my brain. The two of us, my daughter and I, had made a life. It was occasionally short on cash and clouded by unpredictable and undependable relationships, but otherwise we had our routine. We had our tuna casserole and we were fine.

My daughter also already had a father…