Chương 1
The baby began screaming before the bus cleared the hospital parking lot, and by the third red light, everyone within six rows knew that Daniel Mercer had no idea how to feed his own son.
He held the newborn against his chest with one arm and fought with the bottle using the other, trying to keep the nipple in Owen’s mouth while the bus lurched through downtown Columbus.
“Come on, buddy,” Daniel whispered.
Owen turned his red face away and screamed harder.
The sound had a thin, desperate edge that Daniel had learned to distinguish from cold, wet, startled, and merely furious during the four nights he had spent sleeping upright beside a plastic hospital bassinet.
This was hunger.
Daniel knew because Owen had been trying to tell him for twenty minutes.
A woman across the aisle lowered her phone and looked over.
Daniel pretended not to notice.
He had become skilled at pretending not to notice people since Tuesday morning, when a nurse had handed him discharge papers meant for two parents and then quietly crossed out the instructions that no longer applied.
The bus hit a pothole, and formula splashed from the bottle onto Daniel’s jeans.
“Damn it.”
The word escaped before he could catch it.
A little girl in the seat ahead turned around.
Her mother turned her back again with a gentle pressure on one shoulder.
Daniel checked the bottle.
Almost nothing remained.
He stared at the wet stain spreading over his thigh.
For several seconds, the screaming around him seemed to move farther away.
He had packed one bottle because the ride from St. Anne’s to his apartment was supposed to take thirty-five minutes.
The discharge nurse had told him Owen would probably sleep.
Daniel had believed her because he needed one thing that morning to be easy.
Instead, an accident on Broad Street had stopped traffic, the bus had been rerouted twice, and the formula that was supposed to last until they reached home was now soaking into denim.
“Hey.”
Daniel looked up.
The woman across the aisle was perhaps sixty, though her silver hair made guessing difficult.
She wore navy scrubs beneath a tan coat and had a canvas grocery bag between her shoes.
“I’m not judging you,” she said.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re looking at me like I accused you of something.”
“I’m looking at everybody like that today.”
To Daniel’s surprise, one corner of her mouth moved.
“Fair enough.”
Owen screamed again.
Daniel bounced him carefully, terrified of bouncing too hard, terrified of holding him too loosely, terrified of the dozen invisible mistakes that apparently waited inside every ordinary act of keeping an eight-pound person alive.
“It’s okay,” he murmured.
The lie sounded ridiculous.
Nothing had been okay since Tuesday.
The woman leaned forward slightly.
“May I ask when he last ate?”
“He ate.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Daniel looked toward the front of the bus.
The driver was arguing with somebody who wanted to get off between stops.
Outside, brake lights stretched through the intersection.
“About three hours ago.”
“How old?”
“Five days.”
The woman’s expression changed, not dramatically, but enough that Daniel saw concern replace curiosity.
“Do you have more formula?”
“At home.”
“How far?”
“Twenty minutes if this thing ever moves.”
The driver shouted that nobody was opening any doors until the next designated stop.
Someone near the back shouted something in return.
Owen’s fists trembled beside his cheeks.
Daniel tried the bottle again, tilting it until the last thin wash of formula reached the nipple.
Owen sucked twice.
Then air filled the nipple.
His face collapsed.
Daniel pulled the bottle away and shut his eyes.
He had thirty-seven dollars in his checking account.
His credit card was six days past due.
There were three ready-to-feed formula bottles on the kitchen counter because the hospital had sent samples home with him, and another canister was supposed to arrive tomorrow from his sister in Dayton.
None of that mattered on a stalled city bus with a hungry newborn in his arms.
The woman across the aisle reached down into her grocery bag.
Daniel’s eyes opened immediately.
“No.”
She stopped.
“You don’t know what I’m getting.”
“I don’t need money.”
“I wasn’t getting money.”
That embarrassed him more.
He shifted Owen higher against his chest.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing to me and look at your baby.”
Daniel did.
Owen had exhausted himself enough that the screaming had broken into short, hoarse cries.
His mouth kept opening against Daniel’s shirt.
The woman removed a sealed four-pack of two-ounce infant formula bottles from the grocery bag.
Daniel stared at it.
She set it on her knee but did not offer it yet.
“My daughter has twins,” she said.
Daniel looked from the formula to her face.
“She lives near Livingston.”
“You carry formula around for your grandchildren?”
“I bought it ten minutes ago.”
He almost laughed, though nothing was funny.
“That’s convenient.”
“For once.”
She tore the cardboard sleeve open.
Daniel’s shoulders tightened.
“I can’t take that.”
“You can.”
“I said I can’t.”
“And he said he’s hungry.”
Several passengers were watching now.
Daniel could feel them without looking.
His ears burned.
He had spent most of his adult life fixing things before anyone saw they were broken.
At the warehouse, he repaired jammed conveyors before supervisors filed reports.
At home, he paid whichever bill was closest to becoming an emergency and hid the others under grocery flyers.
During Laura’s pregnancy, he had assembled the crib twice because the first time one corner squeaked.
He had believed preparedness was a moral quality.
Five days into fatherhood, preparedness had become a series of objects he had forgotten to put in a diaper bag.
The woman held out one sealed bottle.
“Take it.”
Daniel did not move.
“I’ll pay you.”
“Fine.”
“I mean it.”
“Then pay me someday.”
“I don’t know you.”
“That makes two of us.”
Owen cried against Daniel’s chest.
May you like
The woman extended her hand across the aisle.
Daniel finally took the bottle.
