By Stewart Lewis
Our fourth date was the birth of my daughter.
All Steve brought to the hospital was a cute card for me and a tiny baby suit for her, leaving all judgment behind. It didn’t matter that I was gay guy having a child with a female fan of my music who probably thought I was going to be famous.
Steve was there to support me, with his lovely bald head and stylish glasses, a 50-year-old with the smile of a boy. He’d recently come out, so in a sense he was a boy, discovering a new world for the first time. Yes, I had to clear his closet of plaids and dated brown shoes, but there he was with the sophisticated good looks of an executive and the energy of a kid in a candy store.
When I cut the umbilical cord my baby screamed. She was beautiful, we could tell from the start. I’d brought my guitar and played her a song as she wriggled on the little heated bed. I’ll never forget Steve in the doorway, a single tear escaping underneath his glasses like a raindrop down a window pane.
Steve was the soft yet solid ground I needed. The perfect house at the end of a winding road. We shared the love of eating at the bar (making what we call 20-minute friends), travelling (we’ll always have Ravello), live music (Sara Bareilles and Tony Bennet were two standouts), exercise (not gym rats but yes, devoted) and naps (especially now that we’re, ahem, older).
Years later we moved into a loft together in Manhattan; my daughter Rowan would visit. I was winging it as a father but Steve had done it twice in his other straight life, raising two wonderful, now grown men. He not only guided me but came through at crucial moments, like when she was shaking in the bathtub and I was so freaked out I didn’t even think to give her medicine. Steve came home and immediately took control. As I watched him cradle her back to normalcy, I marveled at my good fortune. It sounds simple, but he was the first boyfriend that never made me feel bad. He was inherently empathetic and kind, not to mention he could fix anything: faucets, light fixtures, in this case a child’s fever.
One morning, as he was watching his coffee brew and I was assembling a smoothie, I told him about the dream I had the night before.
“My mother was walking me down the aisle,” I told him.
I got no response. He simply stared harder at the coffee brewing. I didn’t bring it up again until he was halfway through his first mug.
“The vision for me was always a husband and a child,” I said. “But I never thought it would be possible. Now I have this beautiful girl, and…”
He hugged me. He smelled like bright citrus soap and dreams.
“I don’t think I could get married again,” he said.
I gulped my smoothie to hide the sting. It was silly to think that everything I pictured would come true. But every time I walked by a bridal store, or saw a male couple’s wedding picture in the New York Times, I thought, it could still happen.
About a year later, at an Inn on Nantucket, the sun just gone, the sky a canvas of red brush strokes above us, we walked down a sloping lawn out onto a dock over the sound. He grabbed a ring he’d hidden under a storage box, got on one knee and said, “I want to give you all of me.”
My heart filled with joy on tap. I could barely breathe.
“Will you marry me?” He asked.
“Yes!” I was able to say between hyperventilating, tears churning out of my eyes. I was so lucky, so grateful, so completely over the moon and every star.
After our grand wedding where our families and friends gathered on a fall evening overlooking the dunes of the same island where he proposed, we moved from NYC to DC and started our married life. Rowan visited as a tween and said flying alone was “Like, no big deal.” She was really becoming a sharp, curious person and it was fascinating to watch her evolve. The three of us would go get pizza and play games at the table (Steve never really liked playing games but did it for Rowan), go see Cirque du Soleil (most likely the seed of Rowan becoming the dancer she is today), and ride on roller coasters (it was worth it hearing her squeal with delight even if I was turning green).
We built our dream house on the island, and Rowan visited every summer. The three of us laughing in the waves, the sun glistening on our skin, our Frenchie Oliver watching from underneath the beach umbrella. It all felt like one of those commercials pushing some kind of medication. An idealistic tableau before they list the side effects. May cause: death of mother whom you adore more than anyone in the world, loss of husband’s job which was his whole identity, baby mama drama, emotional wounds from a teenager’s disdain, two pesky kidney stones.
But maybe that’s why love exists. By living in each other’s light, we can see in the dark. Steve is the person who administered the last bit of morphine to my mother, I am the person who held him in the middle of the night while he trembled with crippling anxiety. Steve is my voice of reason, and would do anything for me, as I would for him. Love is doing, sacrificing, showing up. Knowing when to keep quiet.
Recently, Rowan graduated high school, and when her name was called, we were like two crazed maniacs. Filming, taking still shots, yelling, about to jump out of our seats and onto the stage. Rowan looked at us, her smile a beacon. Yes, she had an unconventional childhood, but we were always in her life, and we always will be.
I looked over and saw that same raindrop tear in Steve’s eye, the one that rolled underneath his glasses 18 years ago in the hospital doorway, and I thought, Oh baby. We went as a river, and we have curved so far, around so many bends. Eventually we will reach the ocean and be washed away, but we can say we loved.
We loved.
Stewart Lewis is a singer songwriter, author, filmmaker, and father of an awesome teenager who sometimes thinks he’s cool.
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