It was taped to the wall above the changing table with a strip of blue painter’s tape. Melissa’s handwriting, bubbly and casual, like she was leaving directions for a plant.
Went to the Bahamas with girlfriends – back next week. Baby will be fine.
For a second my mind refused to process it. The words were too wrong to sit together. Bahamas. Girlfriends. Back next week. Baby will be fine. Like the baby was a crockpot. Like he could just be left on “warm.”
My hands shook so hard I almost dropped him. I tightened my hold and pressed my face to his hair. He smelled like him under the mess, like baby shampoo and skin and that faint clean sweetness babies carry when they’ve been cared for.
I carried him to the changing table and laid him down gently. He wailed, throwing his arms and legs in protest, terrified I was leaving too. I worked quickly, fingers clumsy, anger making me clumsier.
The diaper tabs were stuck to his skin. When I peeled them away, he screamed like it hurt, and it probably did.
“I know, I know,” I murmured. “I’ve got you.”
His skin was red where the diaper had rubbed. I dabbed carefully with wipes until the wipes came away clean, then slathered on diaper cream like I was icing a cake. I found a fresh diaper in the drawer. I found a clean onesie under a pile of unfolded laundry that smelled like it had been sitting damp.
When I picked him up again, he kept crying, but it softened into exhausted hiccups. He buried his face in my shoulder and clutched me like I was a life raft.
I took him to the kitchen, made a bottle with the formula I found in the pantry, and tested it on my wrist the way my wife, Mary, had taught Melissa when she was little.
