Chapter 1

After my son was born, my parents were on medication all year round, and I was the only one bringing in money.

On Thanksgiving I quietly swapped my shifts and rushed home, wanting to surprise my wife, Marcella Sullivan.

The door opened, but it was her ex, Jude James.

He was wearing my slippers, a little girl in a pink dress in his arms.

Marcella came out from behind him, and the color drained from her face.

I asked, "Where's my son?"

She hooked her hand around my arm, her voice going soft.

"Honey, don't be angry yet."

"Jude's wife died in childbirth, and the baby won't take formula. She looked so pitifully hungry, so I helped feed her these past few months."

I stared at her. "So where's my son?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"I didn't have enough milk. I couldn't manage two babies, so I let my parents take him for now."

"Boys are tough. A little rice cereal won't hurt him."

The next day I hurried to my in-laws' place.

My six-month-old son was so thin his face had caved in, and there was only half a bottle of rice water in the bottle, so watered down I could see the bottom.

My mother-in-law even lectured me. "That other child has no mother. Marcy has a good heart. Don't be so difficult."

When I picked my son up, he was so hungry even his cry was faint.

I looked at my son in my arms, and for the first time I didn't soften.

"Marcella. From now on, go live with the one you feel so sorry for."

……

The line went quiet for two seconds.

Marcella let out a small laugh.

"Jealous again?"

There was even a note of exasperation in her voice.

"Alfred Gilbert, you're thirty-one. Can you not compete with a child who has no mother?"

I looked down at Drew Coleman in my arms.

Six months old, his face smaller than my palm, his wrist thin enough to close a hand around.

Before, when Marcella said things like that, I really would have wondered if I was being petty.

Five years married, and the worst fight we ever had was over Jude.

That year Jude got drunk and had stomach bleeding, and she drove to the hospital in the middle of the night.

I was so angry I slept on the couch all night.

The next day she crouched by the couch, holding my favorite beef noodle soup.

"No onions, no cilantro, double the beef."

I kept my eyes shut and ignored her.

"Mr. Gilbert, still angry?"

In under five minutes I got up and ate it.

She knew exactly how to coax me.

And she knew I could never bring myself to really fall out with her.

But today I didn't have the strength to fight with her.

I took Drew to the hospital.

The doctor lifted the baby's clothes, and his brow tightened.

"Six months?"

"Yes."

"Only about eleven pounds?"

My throat went tight.

The doctor asked again, "Has he had diarrhea lately?"

My mother-in-law cut in from the side. "What baby doesn't? His father's away all year. He doesn't understand these things."

The doctor looked up at her.

"This child is already malnourished and dehydrated. Substituting rice water for formula long-term, if this drags on any further, it'll affect his development."

My mother-in-law started to say they'd raised kids this way before.

The doctor shut her down. "Before, there was no other option. Now there's formula, there are hospitals. Why are you still experimenting on a child?"

The nurse jabbed three times before the needle went into the back of Drew's hand.

On the third stick he finally let out a bit of sound, faint as a kitten's mew.

My palms were slick with sweat.

I climb steel towers more than forty meters up in the mountains, a cliff right under my feet in winter.

A guy on my crew slid off a tower once, the safety line snapping two of his ribs, and I was never this scared.

At eight that night, Marcella finally came.

She'd run there in a hurry, still carrying a thermos.

"Where's the baby?"

The first thing she looked for was the child.

That knot of anger I'd held in all day actually loosened a little.

Marcella washed her hands twice.

"Let me hold him."

She reached for Drew.

The baby stared at her for a few seconds, then his mouth crumpled and he shrank back into me.

Marcella froze.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He probably doesn't recognize you."

"How could that be?"

She reached out again.

Drew started crying at once.

The people in the next bed all turned to look.

Marcella slowly lowered her hand.

"I've only gone two months without really caring for him…"

I didn't correct her. It was almost three.

She couldn't even get that right.

She opened the thermos.

Inside was chicken noodle soup, no onions.

"You definitely skipped lunch again."

She pushed the chopsticks into my hand.

"Eat first. Don't have your stomach acting up before the baby's even better."

She still remembered I didn't eat onions, remembered my bad stomach.

I looked at that bowl of noodles and I wanted so badly to ask her: you obviously care about me, so how could you bear to treat our own child like this?

I'd barely taken two bites when her phone rang.

Jude.

She didn't pick up the first time.

She didn't pick up the second time.

The third time, he sent a voice message.

A baby's heartbroken wailing burst out of it.

"Marcy, Joy suddenly spit up, her face is turning purple, I don't know what to do!"

Marcella shot to her feet.

She was already halfway into her coat before she seemed to remember me.

"Alfred, I'm going to go check on her."

"Drew's still on the IV."

"There are doctors here."

"And Joy doesn't have any?"

She stalled.

"Jude doesn't know how to do anything."

I laughed.

"It's my first time being a father. Am I supposed to know everything?"

She frowned.

"Do you have to fight about this right now?"

She quickly pushed down her temper and took my hand.

"Honey."

"Joy's only four months old. Her mother's gone."

When she said the words "no mother," her voice noticeably dropped.

Marcella lost her own mother when she was eight.

"Drew has you here, and the doctors, and my parents."

There it was again.

Drew had people, so Drew could wait.

Marcella bent down and kissed my forehead.

"I'll be back soon."

I didn't stop her.

She didn't come back that night.

At one in the morning she sent a message.

【Joy's fine, she just choked on her milk.】

Then one more line.

【Did you not finish the noodles? Don't blame me if your stomach hurts.】

I stared at it a long time and didn't reply.

In the middle of the night Drew woke up.

I carried him slowly up and down the hallway.

A nurse asked in passing, "The baby's mother still hasn't come back?"

I paused.

"She's busy."

Even I found it laughable once I'd said it.