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You should never leave a toddler, a child in your care, unattended.  The life that you have given to them hangs loosely by a thread and breaking that thread can be life changing, life giving, or life ending.

 

It is, of course, a necessity of protection.  Nurture versus Nature.  Which one would win?  It depended on whether you saw if life was a competition.

 

Life is a competition.

 

On this day they should not have left Karen alone.  There was no danger, nothing out of the ordinary.  But Karen’s parents had turned their back.  They were having a petty dispute, if paying bills can ever be deemed as being petty.

 

 

*

**

 

 

At first, they did not know how to label themselves.  Many children do not have, or certainly do not know, their fathers.  Karen could recognise her father certainly but the problem was that she had double vision.

 

Karen had two fathers.

 

Karen did not have a mother.

 

*

**

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The labels they decided on were very simple.  They used their own monikers, simply their own names.  It had not been a simple decision.  There were two fathers – Simon and Tim.  That was the decision that they had made; that was how Karen would know them. 

 

Her two fathers.

 

When Karen was growing up, she just wanted a Mum and Dad and to call them so – Karen wanted what every other child seemed to have.

 

*

**

 

Today Simon and Tim rowed.  They often rowed; it was the nature of their relationship.  Solid partners often row. 

 

If they looked back, which they did not, they would not remember what the row was about; it was insignificant.

 

So, both Simon and Tim missed the significant moment.

 

*

**

 

Unlike some of their contemporaries, Simon had not experienced great anxiety when he came out.  His family were quite liberal.  They were more anxious when he formed a union with Tim.  Simon’s family worried that the pair were too different to succeed.

 

Simon was regular in his appearance and regular in his routines.  Routines defined him.  Diagnosed with a mild form of OCD, everything had to be in its place.  There was not a hair out of place.

 

Tim did not have a hair out of place; Tim did not have any hair.  Of course, he did once, when he was young, but Tim was not young any more.  If everything was in its place then Tim knew his place.  He always had.

 

Both families were uncomfortable about the age difference.  But then everything about them was different.  Tim hardly lifted a finger towards the household.  It was how he was brought up.  His mother had always done everything for him.

 

So had his wife.

 

The wife who could not get over the revelation – the devastation.  Tim had walked away from Kelly.  He didn’t walk towards Simon.  The path for Tim and Simon had not been crossed – they had not even met.

 

Tim had simply walked away from the lie; the lie that was his life.

 

*

**

 

At first Kelly would not allow Tim to see his children, and it was only at their insistence that he periodically could see them.  Kelly would not allow them to visit his new home.  Kelly would not allow them to visit Simon and certainly Kelly would not allow them to visit Karen.

 

Karen was Simon and Tim’s daughter.  Two fathers – one biological.  Karen was the image of Tim and looked very similar to his twins – Katie and Chloe.  Maybe that was why Kelly resented the child so much.

 

*

**

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If truth be known, and only they and Sandra knew, Simon was Karen’s father.

 

A surrogate and a sinner they said.

 

Sandra only met Karen at her birth.  Because she had to be there.

 

Naturally.

 

*

**

 

Tim and Simon did not want people to know which one of them it was, simply because to them it was not important – but it was important that Karen did not know.  They did not want Karen to differentiate between them.

 

Two fathers.

 

One family.

 

*

**

 

Today Simon and Tim took their eyes off the ball and they took their eyes off their daughter.

 

*

**

 

When they had bought the cottage, they had idyllic dreams; roses and picket fences.  It was all going to be so easy.

 

*

**

 

It was hard work.

 

*

**

 

When Karen was gifted to them it was even harder. They had to provide a safe environment to protect the child.  Sacrifices had to be made – ornaments and sharp edges were removed.  Tim and Simon had the task of transforming their adult haven into a haven for Karen.  And they didn’t know where to start.

 

When they had completed the exercise Simon and Tim considered they had adapted their rural retreat and had created …

 

 

…a haven.

 

*

**

 

Today, Simon and Tim were arguing and they took their eye off the ball; they took their eye off their daughter.

 

Nothing dangerous happened, no accidents, nothing momentous.

 

Something momentous.

 

*

**

 

If Tim and Simon had looked into their kitchen, their fashionable, rural kitchen, they would have seen.

 

*

**

 

They would have seen Karen taking her first steps.

 

Over the flagstones.

 

*

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It happens only once.

 

Once upon a time.

 

*

**

 

Once upon a time.

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They missed it.

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