Doing the Best I Can by Kathryn Edin

Author:Kathryn Edin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520274068
Publisher: University of California Press

Peter Lewinski is a white twenty-five-year-old native of New Jersey who moved to Philadelphia after dropping out of Stockton State College in his sophomore year. He works evenings at a tattoo parlor on South Street, sings lead vocal in a friend’s heavy metal band, and has aspirations of becoming a professional gambler in Atlantic City. Peter met Shawna, who is seven years older, just after moving to the city. When Shawna told Peter that she was pregnant, he, unlike most of his peers, felt an impending sense of doom and tried to persuade her to have an abortion. Shawna refused to listen, and after three months of arguing, Peter resigned himself to the fact that Shawna wasn’t going to budge; he was about to become a father. With this realization came another—he had to grow up and take life more seriously. He began asking his supervisor for more responsibility, but the boss—apparently unimpressed with Peter’s work ethic—rebuffed him. Peter left that job, in a used CD store, to work the front desk at the tattoo parlor. Slowly, his relationship with Shawna began to improve as he made peace with his fate, but their tenuous relationship was mortally wounded the night his daughter, Erin, was born. Shawna demanded his presence in the delivery room, but Peter pleaded that he couldn’t handle seeing the pain and the blood.

Erin is now seventeen months old, and while Shawna and Peter still live together in a large one-bedroom apartment in Pennsport, they are no more than roommates. They split the bills down the middle and take shifts with Erin, passing like two ships in the night. On weekends he makes sure he stays out of her way—he’s either in Atlantic City (to further his gambling career) or out singing with his friend’s band. Still, things are tense and Shawna is beginning to pressure Peter to move out. But while Peter’s relationship with Shawna has withered, his bond with Erin—the child he was so set against having—has flourished. To keep peace, he suggests partitioning the apartment with a curtain to create two separate living spaces.

Peter cherishes the routine he and his daughter have established—their Sesame Street mornings, their outings to Independence Park, the afternoon naps together on the couch—so much that he refuses to let anyone else take care of her if Shawna cannot. Recently, he turned down a chance to fly out west for a friend’s bachelor party; Shawna had other plans and he wouldn’t entrust Erin to his mother. “I’d rather stay home than be in Las Vegas whooping it up. If something happened to her, you know, I’d never be able to live with myself.” When we ask him if he wants any more children, Peter shakes his head. “No. I mean,” he pauses and looks over at Erin playing quietly on the rug before adding, “I really don’t think I could do any better than her.” Although Peter’s definition of what a good father does is broad, it is clear that the heart of it is the “quality time” he spends with Erin.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.