TYLER
"Is that… is that a baby screaming in the background?"
"Yeah. She was on my doorstep. Her name is Harper. There's a birth certificate. Em, she's mine, and I have no idea what I'm doing, and she won't stop crying, and I tried to make a bottle, but it didn't work and?—"
"Tyler." Her voice shifts, shock still in it, but underneath that, something settles into focus. The Emma who handles things. "Tyler. Breathe."
"I am breathing."
"You're not. Breathe." A pause. "Did you feed her?"
"I tried. I made a bottle, but she wouldn't take it."
"Okay. Did you boil the water?"
"I used tap water. It was faster, she was screaming?—"
"Tyler."
"It was really fast?—"
"No. No, no, no. You cannot use tap water for formula. You need to boil it." She's already moving. I can hear something in the background. "Do you have a kettle?"
I grab the electric kettle. My hands are shaking badly enough that I nearly drop it.
“Yes.”
"Fill it, boil it, then wait thirty minutes for it to cool.Thirty minutes,Tyler. Not five. Not fifteen. Thirty. It needs to be warm, not hot, or it'll destroy the nutrients."
Thirty minutes.Harper is going to scream for thirty more minutes, and I might not survive it. I fill the kettle and flip it on anyway.
“Okay.”
"Good. Now read me the formula instructions."
I read them aloud. My voice shakes worse than my hands. Emma walks me through it one step at a time, the way you walk someone through something critical: two ounces ofcooledboiled water, one level scoop of powder, lid on, and shake until it dissolves. She makes me repeat it back twice.
"I'm setting a timer for thirty minutes," Emma says. "Don’t worry, I'm staying on the phone."
The waiting is its own kind of misery. Harper screams herself hoarse while I pace the kitchen with the phone pressed to my ear. Emma talks. Ethan's soccer practice. Sofia's new obsession with dinosaurs, the plastic kind that she lines up along the windowsill every morning. Normal things, real things. Things that exist in a world where I have not just had a baby left on my doorstep. I focus on her voice and try not to think about the fact that I have been a father for approximately four hours, and I am already failing.
The timer goes off.
"Measure carefully. Two ounces exactly."
I burn my finger on the kettle lid. The word I say makes Emma sigh. The water sloshes when I pour, some of it landing on the counter, and I measure two ounces three times before I believe it's right. My heart is going the way it does before a penalty shot. It's formula powder. It shouldn't feel like this.
"One level scoop."
I dip the scoop and try to level it off, and white powder explodes across the counter when I tap it. I stop. Breathe throughmy nose. Try again, slower, and get it into the bottle without disaster.
"Lid on. Shake it."
The powder clumps and then gradually dissolves. I shake harder. Some leaks through the nipple and soaks my hand, and I barely feel it.
"Test it on your wrist. Warm, not hot."
I squeeze a few drops. It's warm. Maybe too warm. I genuinely cannot tell anymore. I tell Emma I think it's ready, because I have to say something.