I hesitate. This passport is long out of date. I don’t think it’ll actually be much use. I edit the last sentence.
Will travel within the United States.
OCTOBER 23RD, 2025
Pine Ridge, New York
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
I sit up with a snort, and my mind starts playing the dizzy roulette game that’s become part of my life.
Is that the dishwasher telling me the bottles have gone through the sterilization cycle? The bottle warmer? The alarm on my phone? Or, please no, not again—the smoke detector?
I can’t keep doing this, I think, and the little voice that whispers about my looming failure is louder than ever.
I can’t be a full-time employee—even from home—and a full-time parent to an infant. Not to mention the time spent being a part-time student and detective.
I spend Laurel’s naptimes reading every baby book I can download. I have my old refurbished gaming PC open next to my work laptop. Any break I get, I research missing persons’ cases, child abduction, child deformities, and diseases, trying to discover what Laurel might have or who she might be.
There’s nothing I can find. No missing children in the state, or on the whole East Coast, for that matter, that match her age and description, and no book or article that makes sense. The horns, little hooves, and tiny tail—they’re real. They’re all real, and so is Laurel. Books that speak about devils and demons get a quick skim and are consigned to the dark corners of the internet, where they can rot someone else’s brain.
My baby girl is sweet and wonderful. There is nothing evil about her, except her parents or abductors, or whatever piece of shit that left her to die in the woods!
Fatherly rage fuels me and shuts down the voice that whispers that I never had a father, never even had a decent male role model, unless you count guys from sit-coms. I’m running on instinct, being the dad I never had.
“Whh!” Laurel lets out one fretful whimper from the cheap crib next to me, and my eyes focus.
Dad Mode: Activated.
Up, with a stagger, but who the fuck cares, I’m up. “I’m here, baby. I’m not going to let you go or give you away. I’m going to protect you, always. I’m going to love you no matter what you look like or how good you are at sports, or how bad you are at math or reading. Got it? Good.” I pick her up, kiss her little chin (which is getting adorable round now that someone is feeding her), and shuffle us downstairs for bottle, diaper, and Baby Brainzilla, the only show approved for babies under one year oldfor more than thirty minutes at a time, according to the pediatric pamphlet I found online.
“You know, you can nap today for longer than two hours at a time. I have a big project due today, and I’m way behind. If I mess this up, you and I are going to be living in a car. And how is that going to work, stinker? You have way too much stuff,” I tell her as she snuggles onto my shoulder. I look around the beautiful house Mr. Wickstaff rented me—and almost puke. If he were to come in right now, he’d kick me out.
Cardboard boxes are everywhere. Laundry, stacks of clean diapers stashed on any flat surface, like I have a baby changing addiction. Toys. Blankets. Bibs and burp cloths. I need to clean. I need to organize.
“The guys in high school said women were expensive. The guys in community college talked about how a woman would take up a lot of space in your apartment. Well, they were right. To be fair, it wouldn’t have mattered if you were a boy or a girl; you are one expensive, adorable package. Yes. Yes, you are,” I rub my hand along her back, and feel her snuggle in deeper. We walk and bounce, my step now like a permanent jig to keep her from crying, even when she’s not fussy. “Gotta tell you, I thought I’d have a mommy for the baby before the baby came along and ate all the money and space. I don’t think I’m ever going to get you a—”
I stop. Okay, I’m not a great ladies’ man or anything, and I know there’s no hope in hell that a skinny nerd with a really “special” baby is going to get a girlfriend, let alone a wife and mother for his baby, but I can’t tell Laurel that.
I pause and let the bottle warmer do its thing while she mumbles on my shoulder, sleepy baby noises that are like music to my ears. I think of all the times I wished for parents, for a mom to hug me when I was confused or bullied, to havesomeone relentlessly in my corner... I don’t tell Laurel that she’ll never have that. I want something better for her.
“Ee!”
She makes a high-pitched noise that makes me giggle and shift position. Based on her weight after a few days of regular feedings, I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s probably between two and three months old. “Your baby sling thing is supposed to arrive today, and I’m going to wear you like a scarf. Or a backpack, but in front. I like that you’re totally building up my arm muscles, but I’m getting cramps, kid,” I tease.
“Aaa!”
Oh my God. She’s so precious. She looks at me with big forest-green eyes in her little pink face, and a toothless smile that would melt a stone. Sometimes, her little tail (which starts a few inches above her bottom and hangs out over her diaper or down the back of her unsnapped baby onesies) curls around my fingers while I hold her, and my eyes well up.
Fuck, I’m completely, utterly a softie, a marshmallow. A few weeks with this kid, and I’ve lost any of the hard armor I built up during my rotten life.
I look around again.
Mess.
Stress.
Every appliance running or beeping.
