Prologue

Christmas Eve, 2023

Isaac Quintel

“ I know, Pop. I wish my flight hadn’t been canceled, too,” I sighed. My father had early onset dementia and lived in a home for memory care in Michigan, but he remembered I was supposed to be there for Christmas. “I’ll try to make it out there next month.”

When I’d been checked in and ready to go at the airport, the email had popped up informing all passengers to the Midwest that our flights were canceled due to a massive blizzard. I had only taken three days off work for the trip and had to be back in the office on the twenty-sixth. Even if I caught a flight in a day, I’d just be turning right around.

“You’ll have some new excuse in the new year,” Pop grumbled.

He’d been an auto worker for over four decades and always had a direct way of communicating. If Mom hadn’t passed around the same time he had a fall and needed physical therapy, I never would have gotten him into a home. It was good for him, though I did wish I could keep a closer eye on his care.

“I could move you closer,” I suggested, not for the first time. “California has excellent facilities and great weather. You’d get to go outside all year round.”

“And see you more often?” Pop asked with a skeptical tone. Sounded like he also remembered I postponed my last visit for work. It was the morning, and his memory was better then. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“You raised me to be a hard worker, and I’m a very successful, Pop,” I pointed out. The valet for my building had already taken my car, and I was about to get in the elevator to my condo, so I tried to wrap up our conversation. “I’ll call you tomorrow on Christmas morning.”

“Don’t do that video thing,” he insists, and I know he means video calling. “I know what your face looks like.”

As much as I wish that would always be true, I didn’t want him to start forgetting. I’d been off at college and then building a portfolio of clients here in San Francisco, I knew it was on me I hadn’t been around more. I could afford his home as well as any medical care he needed, and my million dollar condo, so I knew my hard work was worth the effort.

“I can’t promise I won’t try.” Pop harrumphed and I had to laugh. “Merry Christmas, Pop.”

The elevator dinged my arrival on the eighteenth floor right as my dad said his goodbyes and ended the call. Stepping into the gleaming marble hallway, I made my way down to my corner unit. Sure, the building was sinking, but they claimed underpinning had fixed the problem when I bought the place last summer. At least I wasn’t on the fiftieth floor.

Distracted by checking on my phone to make sure the building’s gym was open on Christmas Eve, I missed the package at my door. I almost kicked it when I stopped rolling my luggage to get in the door.

“What in the–?”

The large lumpy thing at my feet confused me, because I wasn’t expecting anything and it was covered by a blanket. Maybe a friend from X Club dropped off a gag gift and wanted to hide the contents from my neighbors?

Reaching for the fabric, I felt a handle underneath and decided to bring it inside to investigate. It was oddly balanced and I had no clue what to think. My neighbors didn’t need to know if my friends left me a fucking machine or something at my door.

Guess it was a good thing my flight got canceled, after all.

Unlocking the door with my key code and rolling my luggage in, I walked past my kitchen and set the delivery on my glass coffee table. It wasn’t light, and I was more than curious, so I pulled the fabric off and stepped back. What I saw was the absolute thing I would have ever guessed.

Nestled in a black car seat was a teddy bear. I mean, I was a Daddy in kink, but this was just odd. No one I played with would fit in this thing meant for babies. The teddy bear moved and I jumped back. When it didn’t move again, I wondered if I imagined the whole thing and crept closer.

Beside the fuzzy gray bear with its striped red scarf, there was an envelope with my name on it. Not delivered to the wrong address then.

Pulling the envelope out, I found it unsealed and containing a few pieces of paper. The first looked official, with the City and County of San Francisco stamped at the top and green filigree detailing around the edges. It looked like a birth certificate.

“Destiny Valentine Quintel,” I read aloud. “Birthdate: February fourteenth, twenty twenty-three.”

Destiny Valentine with that birthdate? Was this some elaborate invitation to a Daddy play party on Valentine's day? Wait, that was my last name.

Scanning the paper, I found the mother listed as Savannah Tyler. “Fuck, Savvy?” I hadn’t seen her in at least a year and a half. We’d parted on good terms after a month playing Daddy to her little, but she was too wild for me.

After my blast from the past rocked me with nostalgia, I looked at the paper again and found myself listed as the father. If this was her way of asking me to play again, it was a lot more effort than I gave her credit for. Savvy had been a brat, and not into monogamy, and could never hold down a job.

Maybe the second piece of paper would give me some clues. I placed the birth certificate that was a well-made fake on the table beside the car seat and sat down to read. I skipped to the end and found it signed by Savvy, then went back to the top.

A sense of foreboding ran through me, but I chalked it up to Deja vu at seeing her swirling script that used to show up on post-its in my laptop bag.

Dear Daddy Isaac,

I’m sorry this letter will come as a surprise, but you know I love surprises. Hopefully you think Dezi is the best surprise of all. I thought she came early, but when she arrived at a whopping nine pounds, I knew Dezi was yours. That guy split, and it hasn’t been easy. I really tried, I promise I did, but I just can’t do it. Between my own trauma and postpartum depression, I am not fit to be her mother.

When I looked for you at your old place, they said you moved. My therapist said I could surrender Dezi to the state, or leave her at a fire station or hospital. But she has a Dad. You.

I know we weren’t a good fit, but you were always the best Daddy this girl could ever dream to have. I wish you could have seen her first smile and heard Dezi’s first laugh. You’ll get the rest of her firsts. You’ll be the best parent for her, and I am signing our daughter over to you. The paperwork is all done on my end…

The rest of the letter blurred and I realized I was crying. She was talking about me being a father. A mewling sound came from the car seat and I leaned forward to see if the bear had made the noise. Because I had clearly lost my mind.

The bear fell forward onto its face, revealing the light brown skin of a baby blinking up at me. She had curly hair, a little darker than her skin, a button nose, and bow-shaped lips.

And she looked just like me as a baby.

“What the actual fuck, Savvy?”

Valentine’s Day, 2024

Celebrating my daughter’s first birthday was not what I’d normally be doing on Valentine’s day, but nothing in my life had been the same since Dezi had been left at my door.

“Bring that baby over here for Grand-Pop to cuddle,” my dad cooed and held out his arms. I’d just had him relocated to a facility only an hour from San Francisco, because I couldn’t keep traveling to him with a toddler on my hands. “I’m so glad to meet you properly, sweet girl.”

My dad ran a rough hand over her curls that I had yet to learn how to tame. I was a Black man, not a black woman. I kept my hair shorter than my beard. Everything was a learning curve, but at least I’d gotten permission to work from home after my one month leave of absence.

“She sleeping through the night yet?” Pop asked, bouncing a giggling Dezi on his knee. I’d never seen him so soft, and I couldn’t help being glad he got to be around Dezi before his dementia got worse.

“About six hours,” I admitted. It was when I got the majority of my work done. Client calls happened during her two naps a day. Scheduling anything on video was a crapshoot.

“Raising children takes a village. You need a woman,” Pop declared before he stopped bouncing Dezi and got a faraway look. I grabbed my daughter from his hands before they could go slack.

“Pop?” I tried, but he was gone, likely until he napped. It was time to go already.

Packing up Dezi’s diaper bag, I walked us out to my car and settled her in. She wasn’t happy about being back in the car seat, but I needed a minute. I turned the car on so the heat and defrosters were running, and then leaned against the door.

My current situation was the result of dating around in my mid-thirties and having fun in kink, but I had to put all of that aside for her. Dezi needed me to be her Daddy, and she had to be my main focus.

Sure, I could afford to hire a nanny if I never wanted to see my daughter. But I wasn’t able to maintain the same number of clients after taking a month off, and I didn't want to be an absent father. I had no clue how much attention or neglect Dezi had been through, and had no luck tracking down her mother. I needed to be there for her.

If only I had a partner on the new path my life had taken. Because my dad was right about one thing, I couldn’t do this alone.