Chương 2
The plastic was cool from the store.
His fingers closed around it with a gratitude so sharp it felt humiliating.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He twisted off the cap.
“Wait.”
Daniel froze.
The woman pointed toward the bottle in his other hand.
“You have a clean nipple?”
His stomach dropped.
The nipple he had brought was attached to the bottle now lying half empty and sticky against his leg.
He stared at it as if betrayal had occurred.
The woman opened the cardboard sleeve again and removed a small package.
“Nipples too.”
Daniel gave a short, ugly laugh.
“Of course you have nipples too.”
“I told you, twins.”
He opened the package with his teeth because one hand was occupied.
The woman reached over without asking and steadied the formula bottle while he screwed the nipple into place.
For one strange second, their hands worked together above the aisle as naturally as if they had done this before.
Then Daniel settled Owen into the bend of his arm and offered him the bottle.
Owen latched immediately.
The silence that followed was so abrupt that Daniel heard the bus engine rattling beneath the floor.
Someone several seats back muttered, “Thank God.”
A few people laughed.
Daniel did too, once.
Then his eyes filled.
He looked down before anyone could see.
Owen drank with astonishing seriousness, one tiny hand resting against Daniel’s thumb.
“You’ve got to slow him down a little,” the woman said.
Daniel nodded.
“I know.”
She let the lie pass.
He adjusted the bottle.
The bus finally moved.
Buildings slid past the windows, pawnshops and pharmacies and a boarded laundromat Daniel had passed a hundred times without seeing.
He kept his attention on Owen because the alternative was looking at the stranger who had just solved a problem he should have been able to solve himself.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“Owen.”
“I’m Ruth.”
“Daniel.”
“First baby?”
He looked at her.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Painfully.”
That earned a real laugh, small and unwilling.
Ruth smiled and sat back.
“Where’s his mother?”
The question landed without cruelty, which somehow made it worse.
Daniel watched the level in the bottle fall.
“At the hospital.”
Ruth waited.
Daniel hated people who waited.
Waiting created spaces he felt obligated to fill.
“She had complications.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She’s alive.”
He said it too quickly.
Ruth’s face stayed still.
Daniel added, “She’s just not coming home with us.”
The sentence was true in the technical way lies were true.
He had been using versions of it all morning.
The discharge nurse had accepted it.
His neighbor had accepted it when Daniel called about picking up a package.
His supervisor had accepted it when Daniel said he needed another week away from work.
Ruth looked at Owen.
“Does she know you took him home?”
Daniel’s hand stopped moving.
The question was different from the others.
He lifted his eyes.
“Why would you ask me that?”
Ruth’s gaze dropped to the clear hospital bag wedged between his shoes.
Daniel followed it.
Inside were diapers, paperwork, two receiving blankets, a bulb syringe, and the folded discharge packet.
The top page had shifted during the ride.
Laura’s name was visible beneath his.
So was the handwritten notation in blue ink beside the discharge authorization.
Daniel shoved the papers deeper into the bag with his shoe.
Ruth looked back at him.
“I worked postpartum for twenty-eight years.”
“You said your daughter has twins.”
“She does.”
“That’s why you have formula.”
“That’s why I have formula.”
Her answer was calm, but something in the space between them had changed.
Daniel glanced toward the front of the bus.
His stop was six blocks away.
Owen continued drinking.
“Then what did you see?”
“I saw enough to wonder why a hospital discharged a five-day-old baby with one parent while the other parent is apparently still admitted.”
“That happens.”
“Yes.”
“So there you go.”
“It happens.”
Ruth folded the empty cardboard sleeve and flattened it between her palms.
Daniel disliked the deliberate neatness of the motion.
“You don’t know anything about us,” he said.
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like I stole him.”
The words came out louder than he intended.
The little girl ahead turned around again.
This time her mother looked too.
Ruth lowered her voice.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Daniel pulled Owen closer, jostling the bottle.
Owen lost the nipple and began to fuss.
“Easy,” Ruth said.
“I’ve got him.”
“I can see that.”
“Can you?”
Ruth’s mouth tightened.
Daniel immediately regretted it.
She had fed his child when he could not.
That should have made him grateful.
Instead, gratitude had turned into suspicion with humiliating speed.
He guided the nipple back into Owen’s mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Ruth looked out the window.
“You apologize a lot.”
“Apparently I screw up a lot.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
The bus stopped.
Two passengers got off.
Three boarded.
A man carrying a takeout container sat behind Ruth, filling the air with the smell of fried onions.
Daniel’s stomach contracted.
He had eaten half a granola bar since dawn.
His phone vibrated in his coat pocket.
He ignored it.
It vibrated again.
Ruth looked at the pocket, then away.
Daniel pulled out the phone.
Nine missed calls.
He had silenced it at the hospital.
Three calls were from his sister.
Two were from his supervisor.
Four were from St. Anne’s.
A voicemail notification appeared while he watched.
Then another call came through.
ST. ANNE’S WOMEN’S CENTER.
Daniel rejected it.
Ruth saw.
Neither of them spoke.
The phone rang again almost immediately.
“You should probably answer that,” she said.
“I know who it is.”
“That’s generally how caller ID works.”
He looked at her, and for a second her dry expression nearly disarmed him.
Then the phone stopped.
Owen finished the bottle.
Daniel lifted him carefully against his shoulder.
“Thank you for the formula.”
May you like
Ruth nodded.
He put the empty bottle into the diaper bag.
