Page 6 of The Secret

“She doesn’t want it.”

“She will, just hold it there.”

I tried again, but nothing happened. “What if she needs it warm? Should we warm it? How do we do that?”

He read the label on another bottle, his voice rising in agitation. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say. Why doesn’t it say?”

Barclay started whining.

Rafe came back, removed the bottle from my hand, calmly adjusted the teat then turned it upside down, shaking it until the milk appeared.

“Now try.” He passed it back to me.

Her lips clamped down and we were surrounded by crushing silence, the type of silence you could only hear after a car alarm stops from incessantly ringing - or when a baby finally stops crying.

Rafe, Penn, and I let out simultaneous sighs.

“Penn, can you get Laurie over? We need someone tonight, and better to keep this as quiet as possible for now, especially as we need an official medical sign-off on the birth certificate.”

“Yeah, probably.” Penn’s youngest sister, Laurie, was a pediatrician. He reached for his phone, dialing a number then handed the phone to Rafe, who walked out again.

Penn and I watched as this tiny baby ate like her life depended on it, and I realized I had no idea when she last ate. I had no idea about anything. I was completely clueless.

And then she opened her eyes… Eyes the exact same shade of green as my sister, Wolfie’s. Which were the exact same shade as my mother’s. And her mother’s. The paternity test would be a formality. This little girl was mine.

My daughter.

Forty-eight hours ago I’d been at my sister’s house for Sunday lunch, watching my two year old niece, Florence, smear pudding all over her face. And my niece is cute. But she’s cute when she’s clean and not covered in chocolate pudding.

Forty-eight hours ago I’d saidNope. I’m not ready for kids. No thanks.

Forty-eight hours ago I was perfectly happy sewing my metaphorical wild oats.

But apparently, one of my wild oats had stuck.

My legs started to buckle under me and I sank to the floor, propped against the side of the counter.

Rafe returned and the two of them sat down next to me.

“Fuck. What the fuck am I going to do?”

“Laurie’s coming over to take your DNA. We’ll get the results back in twenty four hours, so let’s just wait until we hear back before we panic.”

“No, she’s mine. She looks just like Wolf did.”

They peered down at her.

“Her eyes are the same color. What am I going to do? How am I going to look after a kid? Raise a daughter? I have no fucking clue! Jesus Christ, we were only supposed to be playing basketball.”

I watched her still suckling at the bottle and the enormity of how massively my life had changed in a matter of seconds punched me hard in the face. The pressure and anxiety reached boiling point in my gut and pushed up through my chest, into my throat until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Penn put his arm around me as I sobbed on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, you’re not going to do this on your own.”

Rafe stood up. “I’m ordering us burgers before Laurie arrives, then I’m going to shower and will be borrowing some clean sweats.”

I peered up at him. “You guys are staying?”

We might not live under the same roof anymore, but we all treated each of our places like we all lived there, all with keys and instructions to the doormen they were allowed entry without a pass. There normally wouldn’t be any question about them staying, but given a screaming baby had just been thrown into the equation, I was half expecting them to cut and run.

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