JD DRAMA PUBLISHING

Fatherhood
By Stephen Mizell

ISBN 978-1-945916-18-2

*Suggested cuts for time limit purposes.

When I was five years old, my parents brought home

my little brother Joe. He was perfect in every way
imaginable. He was tiny and covered in old man wrinkles.
Even his crying was magic to me. It was then that I knew; I
wanted to be a father. I threw myself into helping with baby
Joe’s raising. I would help change diapers, I almost
single-handedly potty trained him. My parents were both
confused and happy I was so earnest. They allowed me to
help as much as I wanted. I think they thought it was cute
how adult I was trying to be. To be honest, I don’t know if it
was the fact that Joe was one of those rare good behaving
babies or some genetic disposition that drove me. All I know
is that my path toward fatherhood began there and lead me to
where I am today. Because even as a child, I knew that, no
matter what else happened in my life, I was going to have
kids and be the best father I could be for them.

My sophomore year in college I met Anna. She was

beautiful in all ways. She was a history major, with a minor
in economics. She was brilliantly intelligent and stunningly
good looking, which made me wonder why on earth, she
even took a second look at me. I was prematurely balding,
probably too thin, and in general studies.

She came up to me in the cafeteria one day when I

was sitting alone, eating my bologna sandwich and chips.
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She just plopped down on the other side of the table like we
had been meeting this way for months.

“Do you have any mayonnaise?” she asked, already

reaching for one of my extra packets. That is how I met my
future wife.

That fateful lunch turned into a relationship worthy

of all the poets and epics that have ever put pen to paper. At
least in my eyes. We continued to meet for lunch, and I
always had an extra mayo packet, regardless of what we
were eating. It was our little inside joke. When she asked me
why I hadn’t picked a definitive major, I was hesitant to tell
her the real reason. You see, the real reason I hadn’t is that I
was already planning on being a stay-at-home dad. Which
then brings up the discussion of having children, which is
about as taboo to talk about early on in a relationship as past
relationships.

However, I wanted to be honest with her and knew

that if I truly wanted to make this relationship last, this was
going to come up eventually. So, I explained, “I am honestly
here to meet my wife so that we can have children, and I can
stay home with them.” The whole thing was so backwards to
what is normal that she was stunned into silence. We sat at
the table for a bit as she digested this, no extra mayo needed.
Then a smile the size of her entire face appeared.

“So I would be the big moneymaker, eh? The one

wearing the pants? Bringing home the bacon? Making that
dough?” She took my hand and kissed it on the middle
knuckle. I will never forget that light brushing of her lips,
confirming our future.

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 We were engaged within the week and married three
months later. When we got married, Anna was going into her
final year of college. We discussed our options and decided
to hold off on having kids until after she graduated. Since I
planned on being a stay-at-home father, I decided to settle for
an associate’s degree so I could graduate with my wife. I am
now the proud owner of a degree in business management.
Anna received her bachelor’s in History with honors, as well
as the opportunity to teach in a small town in Kansas.

The town was quaint, and we were welcomed in as

family almost immediately. I took a part-time job working in
the town’s small library as Anna began teaching. Everyone
adored her as I knew they would. Finally, feeling settled, we
decided it was finally time to expand our family. It helped
that we were asked by the older members of the town on a
daily basis when we planned on doing just that. Anna
downloaded an app on her phone and fed it information
about her daily life and monthly cycle, and in return, it told
us what days, and even times, were the best for each attempt.

Month after month went by. We kept our heads up, as

best we could, but now when the app told her it was time to
try again, the joy and fun that had once come with that
announcement were replaced with reluctant acceptance. We
clocked in like work and clocked out shortly after to
continue with our daily activities. I was annoyed, knowing
that people who have one-night stands and never wanted kids
have walked away with the prize we were so desperately
fighting for. It all seemed hopelessly unfair.

Then, seven months after we first began trying, Anna

was late. We tried so hard to hold in our excitement,
knowing that even the stress from the past few months could
be the culprit. But after a week went by, and nothing had

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happened, we decided to crack open one of the many
pregnancy tests we had bought in anticipation of this
moment. The seconds felt like years as we watched for a plus
sign to appear. Then slowly a red crossfaded into existence,
and with it the knowledge that we were going to have a
baby!

We each must have downloaded at least ten apps that

tracked baby development, size, symptoms, and everything
else that comes with the joys of pregnancy. She was the
picture of a perfect pregnancy. I mean sure there was the
morning sickness. I would wake up in the middle of the night
to her tearing out of bed in a mad dash to the toilet as if she
were outrunning the need to vomit. She never did outrun the
need, but at least always made it to the toilet. However, she
handled this inconvenience with class and was too excited
about the life growing inside of her to let it cause her too
much distress.

We both kept our jobs while she was pregnant, which

was difficult for me because I had this insane need to know
about every ache and pain her body felt. Anna was getting
annoyed with me, because every time she felt any movement
or new pain, I offered to call the doctor. She would point out
that every one of the multiple apps we had told us that those
aches and pains are normal.

I began not just to read, but to study the baby

preparation books. I left notes and questions in the margins
and highlighted sections that I knew would be important to
look back on. I destroyed my mother-in-law’s old baby name
book, simply by reading each entry over and over again,
trying each one with our last name, using them in sentences I
assumed I would say. “Isaiah, you cut that out.” “Priscilla,

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honey, your mother needs help with the laundry.” “How was
school today JJ?” “Your dress is beautiful Erin.”

Then, of course, there was the nursery. The walls

were painted kelly green, as the gender was going to remain
a mystery until the day of delivery. I decorated the walls with
patterns of leaves, trees, and animals, forming a rainforest
down the hallway from our room. I had the crib put together
and placed before she was even halfway through her second
trimester. I studied and bought all the best baby swings,
carriers, toys, soaps, and whatever else a new baby could
ever need, want, or use. Anna allowed me to run wild with
my nesting as she knew how important fatherhood was to me
and gave her opinions when called upon. For being the one
growing the baby inside her, she was remarkably chill about
the whole process.

As far as family is concerned, my parents had

completely cut me out of their lives when I went to college,
upset over my choices to pursue fatherhood over a career.
Her parents, on the other hand, were already considering
looking into houses near ours to be closer to their first
grandchild. Her mother had started to plan Anna’s baby
shower, and we thought a month before the due date would
be safe. She started sending invites, planning activities and
picking out the food options. However, Anna’s body had
different plans.

I must have been sleeping hard because she ended up

hitting me to wake me up. I sat up with a start and looked at
her in the dark. The street light showed through our window,
illuminating her face, shining on the tears pouring down her
face.

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“I think I’m in labor,” she said. The fear in her voice grabbed
me more than the words themselves. This was wrong.
Everything about this was wrong and she knew it. I went to
ask her if she was sure, because she had felt Braxton Hicks
contractions on and off for the past few weeks. But I was
unable to even start before she was bent over in excruciating
pain. That got me moving. I jumped out of bed, grabbing my
phone from the side table as I went. I had our OB GYN’s
office on speed dial and knew that despite the hour there was
a nurse on-call at all times to field questions and concerns.
Like what to do when your wife goes into labor at 32 weeks.

Every bump, turn, and stoplight on the way to the

hospital was torture, she was in agonizing pain, and the car
was a sealed box of hopeless fear. This wasn’t how it was
supposed to go. We were supposed to wait at home drinking
coffee, counting through the contractions together, picking
out which outfit our child would come home in. Everything
about this felt wrong; the pain wasn’t in waves, but
continuous. We didn’t even grab the delivery bag we had
packed weeks earlier. There was no counting contractions or
taking breaks in between. There was just pain, fear, and
hopelessness.

We got to the hospital, and I parked in front of the

Emergency room doors. I barely remembered to put it in
park before I was out and around, opening her door and
helping her out. There was a pool of blood on the front
passenger leather seat. I didn’t allow myself to dwell on that
as I all but dragged my wife pale-faced through the front
doors. We were swarmed by nurses the moment we walked
through the door. They gently, but firmly pulled her from me
and sat her in a wheelchair while others simultaneously
asked for information. I realized I had left my wallet with all
our information in the glove box. “I’ll be right back, honey. I

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just need to grab my wallet.” Those were the last words I
ever said to her.

Within the couple minutes it took to run to my car,

open the glove box, grab my wallet and return to the
emergency room entrance, they had carted her into an
operating room that I was not allowed into. I was instructed
to wait in the ER waiting room and shown the coffee bar. I
couldn’t help but hate the poor nurse showing me these
things. Coffee? You think I want coffee while my wife and
future child are literally fighting for their lives. What made
the matter worse, was that I desperately did and ended up
getting some. So, there I was, sitting placidly on a hard,
uncomfortable chair, sipping a Styrofoam cup of terrible
coffee, waiting. I kept thinking I should call her parents. I
hadn’t talked to my parents in years after one of our many
fights, but we frequently went to visit her parents and they
were more than excited to be grandparents. The only thing
keeping me from it was thinking that it would be better to
call them with the good news and then tell them about the
scary night leading up to it. I convinced myself that when
Anna was better, we would call and explain that we had a
scare, but everything was fine now.

An hour or so later, I honestly couldn’t tell you how

long I sat there because it felt like years, a chaplain came and
sat next to me. She was younger than I felt she had any right
to be, but I didn’t say that. I just sat and after her greeting
and a few words of encouragement, so did she. She was just
a calming presence, and that was enough until the doctor
came out and knelt in front of me.

“We lost your wife,” was how he started. As if Anna

was a piece of jewelry you couldn’t find or one of the socks
from the dryer. They lost her? The rest of the words became

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white noise to me with words cutting through here and there
like a bad radio connection. Words like hemorrhage and
uncontrollable, and then came words that cut through the
static entirely. “The baby survived and is stable, but will
need to stay in the NICU for a while.” The baby! After
hearing they had misplaced my wife, I had completely
forgotten about the baby. “It’s a girl,” he said and left me
there with the chaplain’s reassuring hand resting on my
shoulder as I began to weep.

“A while” turned out to be four weeks. As premature

babies go, our Elizabeth was pretty, healthy, and well
developed. She stunned all the nurses and doctors as she
surpassed all predictions and grew perfectly, naturally, and
healthily. Anna’s funeral was held while Elizabeth was still
in the NICU. To be honest, those four weeks were a blur to
me. I was told repeatedly by everyone how sorry they were,
but how glad they were that the baby lived. It was surreal;
the mix of sorrow and joy that everyone had. Anna’s parents
came up to meet their granddaughter and also bury their own
daughter. Even Joe made an appearance flying in from
Florida but was only able to spare the day of the funeral,
stopping by the hospital afterward to look in at his new niece
and then had to return to his own family. As I could have
predicted, my parents were nowhere to be seen, a small
mercy. I spent most of my time at the hospital, not really
knowing what to do, thankful to the nurses and doctors there
for taking up the slack.

I brought Elizabeth to an empty home and set her in

her crib, and just stared at her for a long time. Anna’s parents
showed up shortly after and helped me get the house in order
and stayed with us for the first week. Elizabeth cried nearly
nonstop. Between the three of us, we probably got a total of
three hours of sleep a night. Even when she slept, I would lie

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awake in our too-big bed, feeling the emptiness beside me,
knowing it would never be filled.

Anna’s parents left a week after we came home, they

had already spent too much time away from their jobs but
promised they would come back soon. Then it was just
Elizabeth and me. The reason Anna was gone. I tried so hard
to separate the two. It was obviously not Elizabeth’s fault
that Anna had died, but had we not tried to have a kid, then
Anna would still be alive, and those were the facts. It didn’t
help that Elizabeth was colicky and constantly screaming at
me, nothing like the experience I had with my baby brother.
All this, as I tried to wrestle with the complex emotions that
come with being a new widower and father.

Over the next three days, I began to approach the end

of my very short rope. Elizabeth would scream, and I would
scream right back. I began to shout insults and unfair
accusations right into her tiny, pitiful face. Her lack of
understanding, the fact that she refused to contest my horrific
claims only angered me more. I could no longer take it, I
could not even remember the last time I had slept for longer
than 30 minutes at a time. I simply needed sleep. I saw sleep
as the answer to most of my problems. With a good night’s
sleep, I could finally think straight and be the father I had
always dreamed of being. I thought it over and decided that
she would be ok for one night on her own. She wouldn’t
starve, her diaper would be changed the moment I returned,
and it was good to let a baby cry it out. Right? I knew that
she would actually be safer if I had some sleep under my belt
because I would be more forgiving of the flaws that she
could not control. So, I fed her, changed and swaddled her,
and placed her carefully in her crib. Then I packed a small
bag and left her, along with my phone, knowing that the only
way to get real rest would be to make sure there were no

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distractions. I then checked into a motel a few blocks over
for the night.

It was four weeks later when the cops began

pounding on my motel door. I calmly got out of bed, walked
slowly to the door, and opened it. I was yanked forward and
very forcibly, almost viciously, handcuffed. I didn’t protest
as they dragged me toward the cruiser, nearly ripping my
shoulder out of its socket. I can only imagine that these cops
were the same ones that had gone to my house looking for
me at the bequest of Anna’s parents. The same ones who had
found Elizabeth. It would explain their harsh treatment of me
as they pushed me into the back of their cruiser. I didn’t put
up a fight, didn’t plead my innocence. After all, I was guilty.
Guilty of thinking that I was meant to be a father. Even
guiltier of being completely wrong.

Stephen Mizell lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with his

lovely wife, new son, and old cat. He enjoys reading almost
as much as coffee and has decided to contribute to the world
of literature through dramatic prose.

This script is for the buyer’s use only. Under copyright law,
this selection is not to be copied by any process.

Fatherhood by Stephen Mizell is a work of fiction and

published as a single script by JD Drama Publishing in 2019.

JD Drama Publishing

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WWW.JDDRAMAPUBLISHING.COM
Copyright Stephen Mizell 2019
ISBN 978-1-945916-18-2

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