The Secret That Broke Us novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: Nate's POV: Three A.M.

Nate's POV

The county gave me a room on the second floor of a family shelter off Superior Street.

It had a bed, a small crib, a hot plate, and a window onto a parking lot.

They discharged my daughter on Thursday, and I carried her up the stairs myself.

I was so proud of that.

By Thursday night I understood that I had never done anything in my life.

I had adjusted claims.

I had signed things.

I had never once been the only person awake in a room with a living thing that depended on me.

She woke at nine.

I fed her, and she took two ounces and spit the rest onto my shirt.

She woke at eleven.

I changed her and got the diaper on backward.

I stood in the yellow light holding her feet, not knowing what to do next.

She woke at one.

I had read the social worker's pamphlet three times.

It said, Newborns cry to communicate.

I said out loud, "Communicate what?"

She screamed.

It went on for forty minutes, a flat, endless, scratchy scream I felt in my back teeth.

I walked her.

I bounced her.

I put her over my shoulder and patted her back, the way I'd seen June pat Anders.

She arched away from me.

I thought, she knows.

She knows I'm the reason she was born in a car.

I thought, she knows I'm not her mother.

The woman through the wall banged on the plaster and shouted something I didn't catch.

My daughter drew in a huge, wet breath and screamed again.

At 2:40 I sat down on the edge of the bed with her against my chest and cried too.

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