"Bet you can't wait for "Dad-dee" to get home, the mom says, plunging the knife in yet again. I want to flick her across the forehead for assuming I'm married. I want to tell her it's 2009, not 1940. Most of all, I want to tell her we're doing just fine without Daddy. I earn the bread in my household. I also do massive amounts of laundry that JD generates at the damn laundromat that I loathe. I work endlessly at teaching him to master pointing to a cat, while simultaneously saying "cat." I rock him to sleep when he doesn't want to sleep and I wake up every morning at six a.m. because he wants a cup of milk. I worry myself sick when he has a fever that won't quit and feel abnormally guilty if I happen to spend a few hours away from him, say, having a drink with girlfriends instead of singing the ABC's on repeat and finger painting. I pay the bills every month, then let out a breath of relief — we survived another month.

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I do other things too. I cuddle with him every single night and read the same book as many times as he wants to hear it. I taught him how to make duck noises and where his nose is. We eat snacks together everyday at three p.m. He pops half-grapes into my mouth. We take long walks and JD stops to hug trees or point at airplanes. He hands me a sneaker when he sees me putting the other one on. He randomly stops whatever he is doing and wraps his arms around my leg and when I open the front door he extends his hand to mine because he knows we hold hands outside. He still falls asleep on my chest like he did when he was hours old and I still nuzzle his head with my nose, smelling his sweet, shampooed hair. See, I get to do everything. It's awesome.

Even in his absence, my ex is always present. And sometimes it's awful. Last night I surrendered to tears and anxiety behind the shower curtain because the pressure to be enough all of the time, to financially and emotionally support my son on my own is overwhelming. I am the one that keeps us going, but it is inevitable that my son is going to ask about his father. It's haunting. Even in his absence, my ex is always present. Of course, a lot of this is my projection. JD isn't really asking for his Daddy now. See, JD calls the orange rubber ball that goes to his basketball hoop "Dad-dee" sometimes. When I ask him if he wants some corn, sometimes he squeals "Dad-dee-eee-eee." The other day he got really excited when I let him hold a letter from the mailbox and he smiled, then sang "Dad-dee."

Our pediatrician told me it's a really easy word for babies to say when I confided that JD says it often. "It's essentially their tongue bouncing off the roof of their mouth," he assured me. "It's one of the first words they say, in fact." So for now "Dad-dee" is just a word, a hiccup of a sound. But I know one day "Dad-dee" will have to turn into a conversation. A big one. I'm not sure how it will go just yet. I think I'll tell JD a "Dad-dee" is kind of like Uncle Carlo (my older brother). A Dad-dee helps a mom move into an apartment. He drives a mom to the hospital when she is going to have a baby. He changes diapers — even poo ones. He switches the fitted sheet on the crib mattress because mommy thinks it's a torturous task that someone extremely evil thought up. Dad-dees spend five hours putting a train table together on Christmas Eve. They're people toddlers recognize and run to with open arms, bright-eyed when they push through the front door. "Dad-dees" are men who are around — in one way or another, no matter what.

Later on that night, while I am washing dishes and JD is smacking magnetic ABC letters to the garbage can and not the fridge, he trips on his pant leg and falls flat against the linoleum floor, arms out like he is sliding into first base. He pushes himself up with his little dimpled hands and blubbers "Mum-Ma." It sounds so sweet and true and not at all scripted. He is not performing or trying to get a rise out of someone. My hands are soaked in suds but I reach for him nonetheless, warm lemon-scented water dripping down my arms. I two-step with him by the window, finding the moon high in the sky. I feel JD's warm cheek on my neck and his fingers tangled in my hair and it pinches a bit but I don't care. "Mum-Ma-Mum-Ma-Mum-Ma," he says, pulling me closer. "We're okay, little bud," I say, blotting the wetness on his face with my sleeve. You see, he says "Mum-Ma" a lot too. When he really needs something.