“Mommy, when will second daddy come live with us?”

Aloe’s mother stops typing on her laptop. She turns to little Aloe, a strange expression on her face, and crouches down so she is at his eye level.

“Baby, what do you mean?”

His brown eyes look up at her with unease. He can’t identify it, but there’s a shift in the air that he only ever felt when he was in trouble for something. To comfort himself, he grips tight onto his puppy plush. 

Looking down at his feet, he tries to recount his experience as best as his little mind could.

“My friends said I was lying when I said I had a second daddy. They said mommies and daddies live together, and since second daddy doesn’t live with us, then he’s just a fake daddy.”

Aloe glances up at his mother, expecting her to be proud of him for explaining so well, but there’s a look in her eye that makes him anxious. She doesn’t frown, quite the contrary, but even at the young age of five, he can tell that there is something off with her smile. 

She runs her hand through his soft brown locks, and though she smiles as she pats his head, he can feel the shakiness of her hand. He wonders if he did something wrong.

“Aloe, baby, can you tell me who this second daddy is?”

He tilts his head upon hearing this. Did mommy not know?

“It’s Uncle Clem!” Aloe beams. “When is he going to live with us? Please tell me it’s soon! I can’t wait to have a mommy and two daddies!”

Uncle Clem is a family friend that often visits. When his mother isn’t around, he would come to their home and spend the day with Aloe and his father. 

He’s a really nice person who plays with Aloe and brings him lots of toys. So when he realized he would become his second father, Aloe was so overjoyed. So much so that he shared this happy piece of news with everyone in his class.

Because he’s always been told that happy things should be shared with others.

His mother embraces him tightly. “Tell me, why do you think he’s second daddy?”

“Because I saw second daddy kiss daddy, and my friends said only mommies and daddies kiss each other. That means he’s second daddy, right?”

But after that conversation, his Uncle Clem never actually comes to live with them as his second father. 

Instead, he hears his mother and father argue more often, and eventually, his father starts coming home less and less. He thinks his father must be hard at work in his office, so he wonders why his mother has been crying more often.

She must miss him a lot.

Little Aloe feels helpless.

All he can do is hug his mother tight. He tries to pat her on the head the way she does to comfort him.

One day, his father comes back home.

Aloe and his mother greet him at the door, and upon seeing Aloe, his father goes to hug him tight. He seems tired, but it was probably because he had been away at work for so long. 

He feels relieved, because this means his mother won’t have to cry so much anymore.

“I’m so, so sorry, Aloe,” his father whispers to him, his voice just as shaky as the arms wrapped around Aloe.

“It’s fine, daddy! You’re here now!” Aloe says, smiling—happy that his father is finally home. “At least we can live together again.”

His father flinches, and there is that shift in the atmosphere once more. Something heavy weighs in the air, but Aloe is too young to understand the weight of his words. 

All he knows is that he is happy enough to have his father and mother with him again.

His mother walks up to them and places a hand on his shoulder. She smiles at him, but there is a sadness in her eyes that contradicts it.

“Aloe, baby, there’s something me and your father want to talk to you about.”