Now we are three: me, my daughter and my new fiancee Jul 20th 2013, 08:00
Widower Simon Van Booy was the perfect parent to his young daughter. So was there room in their airtight life for a woman who burned the eggs, flooded the bath and overfed the fish?
In the weeks leading up to Mother's Day, I kept reminding my eight-year-old daughter, Madeleine, to make a card, or at least draw a picture, for Christina. It was not the first Mother's Day the three of us would spend together, but in the past 12 months there had been a subtle shift in the relationship between Madeleine and my fiancee. They both felt it, and each in her own way had begun to reach for a deeper connection. Some nights at bedtime, Madeleine asked Christina to stay in her room after I'd turned out the lights, to lie with her in the darkness and stroke her hair. When a waiter commented brightly on the physical resemblance between mother and daughter, Christina didn't correct him.
I had observed these moments of trust from a distance but, as we neared Mother's Day, I feared one of them might suddenly retreat from the glare of hyperbole that accompanies the commercialism of the date. The greatest danger to their burgeoning intimacy, however, was not some catastrophic emotional meltdown over the absence of a card, but me, and the habits I had acquired when functioning as a single parent. Over the several years since the sudden death of Madeleine's mother, I had grown used to directing every detail of our lives. Close friends and family watched with a mixture of fear and pity as the evil bedtime enforcer swooped down upon unfinished games of Beagle-opoly (a form of Monopoly with dogs). There were few compromises, and I earned a Dickensian reputation with Madeleine's aunts for my complete ban on bubble gum and restrictions on how much television could be watched. I handed Madeleine's doctor's business card to anyone who looked after her, and offered to go over CPR training, or demonstrate the Heimlich manoeuvre on Big Bird.
I had become like Ben Stiller's single father character in The Royal Tenenbaums, who wakes his children in the middle of the night to run fire drills. I had a certain way of doing everything, from loading the dishwasher and preparing school lunches to more important tasks, such as checking the tap water for excessive chlorine and inspecting the smoke, poisonous gas and carbon monoxide detectors that flashed throughout our apartment. These fears seem silly now that everything has changed. But at one point I even considered buying an emergency ladder to unroll from Madeleine's third-floor window as imaginary flames licked our pyjamas.
The most frustrating part of trying to direct everything is not that it alienates you from people who genuinely want to help, but that it's actually impossible. Here is an example of something I couldn't control: the odour of marijuana in the hallway of our apartment building. The converted shoe factory we have made our home is also home to drummers, photographers, actors and DJs. Although I'm not opposed to recreational marijuana, I don't like smelling it in the hallway as I wait for the lift with my child. I finally decided to do something when Madeleine (then almost seven) said, "What's that lovely flower smell?"
I sometimes see a therapist called Carol (advice: don't wait until you're frothing at the mouth to talk things over with a psychologist). She suggested that the way we react to something negative can sometimes do more damage than the negative thing itself. So, instead of pounding on my neighbour's doors, I tried to be a normal person and wrote a strong letter to building management that achieved nothing, as strong letters often do. A month later, however, the offending parties (friendly actors in their early 30s) moved out and that was that.
As a single parent, I had become tyrannical in order to survive, and anything I couldn't control caused me enormous anxiety. As a naturally untidy, disorganised man who never made lists or kept receipts, morphing into someone who could take care of a toddler on his own may have caused me to overcompensate a little.
You have to realise that, for single parents, the list of tasks that simply must get done is endless. But, as I was soon to learn after meeting Christina, surviving and living are not the same, and these routine obsessions, which seemed normal to me for so long, would now have to become obsolete.
At first glance, I thought the transition would be easy. Finally, someone to share the burden of worry when Madeleine is up all night coughing, someone to help cook, shop, set up Beagle-opoly and enforce nightly dental flossing.
For the 18 months of our relationship that preceded us living together, Christina's relationship with Madeleine was one of pure friendship. I still had to enforce the rules, or come running as they flooded the bathroom with bathtub waves large enough to sink a Lego fleet. Christina's ideas were fun and new – but I had no hesitation in dismissing them if I felt they threatened the stability of our routine.
However, after she moved in (and we were engaged), it was soon quite clear that my instinct to take charge and make the final decision was emotionally inhibitive. The single-mindedness and determination that had once ensured our survival was now its biggest threat.
In world mythology, there are countless examples of tragic characters whose greatest strength is also the source of their undoing. But the ancient Greeks and Romans also held the view that acceptance is the beginning of wisdom. Here's interesting advice from the Greek philosopher Epictetus: "If you think you have free rein over things that are naturally beyond your control, or if you attempt to adopt the affairs of others as your own, your pursuits will be thwarted and you will become a frustrated, anxious and fault-finding person."
Whenever Christina tried to do anything, I offered "suggestions" on how to do it better, or more safely, or with less mess. The fact that she said nothing for so long is a testament to her love, because this woman is no pushover: a fierce Wall Street litigator for many years, she now runs a public relations and advertising business. She was simply kind enough to say nothing when, all along, it was me making the mistakes, doing everything wrong – ruining the house. Even if I was technically correct in these matters (it is better to load knives point down in the dishwasher, isn't it?), the truth is she had to learn this for herself, just as she had to flood the bathroom, burn the eggs and bloat the fish by overfeeding them.
Perhaps the most important reason to stop interfering was that if I didn't show complete trust in Christina, why should Madeleine? This all came to a crisis point when I had to fly to Paris for a book signing soon after Christina moved in. The two of them would be by themselves for several days and nights.
While going over the logistics of things such as getting Madeleine to school, Christina mentioned she might take her into Central Park on Sunday. I reacted with horror: "FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T TAKE HER ON THE SUBWAY!"
I lay in bed that night wondering if I should cancel the trip. But then my usually quiet father pointed out that any future for us as a family depended on my trusting Christina to look after Madeleine safely. The reality, of course, is that there is no such thing as absolute safety; danger and disease are part of our everyday lives, and if we manage to avoid them it's pure luck.
Christina was in a difficult position. She had chosen to build a relationship with a single parent, which meant she was having a relationship with two people. It takes a very special person to do this: someone who has the courage to speak and let their voice be heard, but also the sensitivity and confidence to know when to let things go. And the emotional risks of getting involved with someone who has a child are much greater, for in the event of discord you lose not one but two people. You have to negotiate with two personalities at the same time and suffer the loneliness of sometimes feeling like an outsider, because the truth is you are – at least at the beginning.It really takes guts to be a good step-parent, and men and women in these roles deserve more than Disney films pointing out how evil they are.
Madeleine and I cooked together, shared the same popcorn at the movies, went clothes shopping, argued, got the flu, had late-night chats – all part of a closeness that had been forced upon us. It would be a long time before Christina could enjoy a similar level of intimacy, yet she was never discouraged by the countless trials that accompanied her slow journey to motherhood. To enable their relationship to grow, I would not only have to give up control, but also learn to share the joys of parenting. These pleasures are sometimes subtle. When Madeleine is at school, I often sit in her bedroom looking at the colourful objects scattered across her desk, and imagine the child ideas that brought together such a mysterious landscape. I remember a cool September day in the park when Madeleine was four. I released my grip on her bicycle saddle and stood, breathless, as she wobbled across the football pitch. What can't be remembered has to be imagined, so picture the round, astonished face of a little girl, realising that her father is far away – a figure in the distance, waving madly from the other side of the field.
This is the first time I've ever told the story of Madeleine's maiden voyage without stabilisers. Similarly, I've never told anyone about the time she glued a Tupperware container to her forehead like one of Isabella Blow's hats, or when we searched an entire shopping mall for her missing blue bear. When we eventually found him in the fitting room of Brooks Brothers, Madeleine's relief was marred by two white dots in the bear's eyes, which she assured me were not there before.
Until Christina came into our lives, these joys, sorrows, milestones of development and amusing anecdotes were all mine to retell, quietly savour or even forget.
Now, however, the success and depth of their relationship hinged on my sharing not only the responsibility of parenting, but also its joys. If Madeleine was to have any closeness with a new parent, they would have to build trust in their own way, and for that to happen I would have to let them share their own moments and have milestones that might not include me. I realised this when I got back from the business trip to Paris. Neither Christina nor Madeleine had been killed, maimed, electrocuted, bitten, burned or run over. In fact, the opposite. As Madeleine blurted out: "It's actually more fun without you, Dad."
Later, I found out that during a play session Madeleine had taken out the little photo album she kept, to show Christina. "This is me as a baby," she said, "and this is my first mother."
On my second date with Christina years before, I had shown up very late. Most people would have left, but I found her having a quiet drink at the bar. The reason for my tardiness, I explained breathlessly, was that the air conditioner in my daughter's bedroom had broken and, because of the 30C-plus heatwave we were having, I couldn't leave before settling her down in my bedroom, where it was much cooler and there were fans. That single sentence, like a spotlight, illuminated her road ahead, should she continue to see me.
About that time, Madeleine asked if I would ever get married again. At some point she must have come to the realisation that, in the Fred Astaire films we always watched, dance partners Fred and Ginger were not actually father and daughter. Like an eccentric aunt, she commanded that I "go to the opera – there are women there".
The strange thing is that the Metropolitan Opera in New York is exactly where Christina and I fell in love.
After we had been dating for several months, Christina met Madeleine for the first time in the pouring rain outside the Museum of Natural History on Central Park West. Christina had anticipated the rain and bought museum tickets online. In the much smaller line to pick up preordered tickets, I can still picture them laughing at nothing to mitigate the awkwardness. What resembled an average scene to others was for them something unknown, unprecedented, and I would have to learn to stand back and wait in the wings of our lives, like an understudy, as they found their roles and began to forge what for others had been given.
Madeleine did the right thing about Mother's Day by waving me off like a fly when I stood over her desk making suggestions for cards, eyeing the crayon into her hand. When Sunday finally came, I cooked their favourite lunches and arranged for an afternoon pottery class for the two of them. Over lunch, Madeleine gave Christina the card she had drawn in secret. It was of a rabbit, Christina's favourite animal.
They looked at it together, all smiles. Then Madeleine said: "But your real present is that from now on I'm going to call you Mom."
• Illusion Of Separateness, by Simon Van Booy, is published next week by Oneworld at £12.99. To order a copy for £9.99, including free mainland UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop.
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