Memory flashed like a camera bulb: Mary at our old kitchen table, laughing as Melissa insisted she could feed her doll. Mary’s hands guiding hers.
Mary would have known what to do next without thinking. Mary would have known what to say to our daughter to make her hear reality.
Mary was gone, and I was the one standing in this filthy kitchen with a starving baby on my hip.
Noah sucked the bottle down like he hadn’t eaten in a day. Maybe he hadn’t. I watched his eyelids flutter, his body finally unclench. When he finished, he looked at me with huge wet eyes and a bottom lip that still quivered, like he didn’t trust the relief.
“Where is your mother?” I asked him softly, then felt sick for even saying the word.
I pulled my phone out with one hand and called Melissa.
It rang three times. She answered on the fourth, her voice bright and airy like she’d been laughing at something. I could hear music in the background and the distant crash of waves, or at least the kind of sound people play when they want their life to feel like a vacation.
“Hey, Dad,” she said, like I’d called to ask about the weather. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” My voice came out low, not loud. It scared me how calm it sounded. “I’m at your house. I used my spare key.”
A pause. Then a little laugh. “Oh my God, why? I told you I was out of town.”
