Page 3 of I Found You
She just cried more. It was the saddest little cry I had ever heard. It was like she knew she was screwed being here with me instead of with a fully capable adult. I poured a small amount of milk into the bottle and screwed the lid back on. Was it supposed to be warm? Didn’t people have to put milk in the microwave, or was that just on TV? I didn’t know jack shit about babies. I tried to google the answer, but it was like every search result said something different.
I tried to warm it up with my hand for a minute, but I figured cold milk was better than nothing, and this kid was clearly hungry. I popped the bottle in her mouth and watched as she circled around the nipple, trying to find it before she latched on. She didn’t seem to mind the cow’s milk, so I guessed it was good enough for now.
Her big dark blue eyes were staring up at me, wide-awake, even though the sun was still struggling to make an appearance. Glancing at the clock on my microwave, it showed it was 4:45 a.m. I must have got home last night at 1:30 a.m. or so, so that was maybe three hours of sleep. I sat down on one of the kitchen island stools and sighed. What the fuck was I supposed to do now?
She still had her wet diaper on, and I was still in my piss-soaked shirt, so when she seemed like she was done with her bottle, I took her into the bathroom with me. I stripped her out of her wet clothes and diaper and tried to put her down in the bathroom sink so I could clean myself up and do my business. She didn’t look very comfortable, and I didn’t like the way her neck was bent, so I moved her to the empty bathtub and laid her down in there.
Knowing she wasn’t about to get up and walk away, and there was no water anywhere near her, I left her there while I went in search of my phone. I grabbed it from the kitchen counter, my clammy hands almost making me drop it. Back in the bathroom, I looked at the little girl and called for backup.
“Fuck, Wy, don’t tell me you’re just getting home now,” Wesley answered. I could hear the humor in his voice, although most people would think he was being gruff. He liked to work out every morning around five o’clock, so I figured he would be awake. And if not, I would only be waking him up a little sooner than he would have gotten up anyway.
“Umm. No, I made it home a few hours ago. I, ugh, have a problem though. I need you to come to my house,” I said. He must have heard the strain in my voice. When he responded, he had lost all of his previous humor.
“What the fuck, Wy? It sounds like you need me to help you bury a body or something. What’s going on?”
“No. But I do need you here. It’s not really something that will make sense over the phone. You kind of have to see it.”
“Give me ten. I’ll be right there. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Too late for that.
* **
The knock on my front door sounded more like pounding, but I wasn’t sure if that was just because every noise was still making my head pound. I put Baby Girl back down in the bathtub. We hadn’t left the bathroom since I brought her in here to clean us up, but I’d picked her up and laid her across my lap while we waited for backup. I unlocked the front door and swung it open.
“Okay, I’m here. What happened last night? And you look like shit,” Wes started as he strolled past me into my living room. For someone who’d left the bar about five hours ago, he was way too awake and coherent. My muddled brain was still processing everything that had happened and trying to piece together how I got into this mess.
I walked to the bathroom. “Follow me.”
“Hey, birthday boy, if you need help in there, I’m sure you can find someone who is more than willing to assist,” he half joked with a skeptical raised eyebrow while he walked behind me anyway.
“Fuck off. Just tell me what I am supposed to do with this,” I said, pointing to the baby in the bathtub.
Wes looked over my shoulder and took an immediate step backward, like he was afraid of the little thing.
“What the fuck is that?” he hissed.
“She’s a fucking baby. What did you think she was?”
“Why do you have a baby though? Where did you find it? And why is—” He took a half step forward to look at her. “—it naked?”
I recounted what I could recall from last night. The noise I heard, looking through the brush, trying to find anyone else who might have been around. And apparently, walking home with a baby in my arms.
“And she’s not an it, she’s a she,” I said, picking her up and holding her against my chest. I liked having her there. It was like having a weighted blanket. “She needs diapers and milk and clothes,” I told him. “Where do I get those things? Do you think the convenience store would have them?”
“What. Are. You. Talking. About?” Wes whisper-hissed. “You are talking like you think you can keep her. You can’t keep her. She’s not a fucking stray animal. You have to call the cops and report this.” Wes was rubbing his hands down his face, clearly not liking me involving him in this.
“Oh, shit. You think I should have done that when I found her?” He didn’t need to answer me. His face said that I was a real dumb fuck. He didn’t always get my sarcasm, but I loved him like a brother anyway. And luckily for me, I had other brothers. Biological ones, and one of them was a cop.
“Here, hold her so I can call Luke,” I sighed.
“No way. Don’t hand her off to me. This has nothing to do with me. You brought home a stray baby, you hold her. Or just put her back in the bathtub,” Wes panicked.
“Dude, she likes to be held. She gets a little fussy when I put her down.”
“She’s naked. She’s probably going to pee on me.” He frowned.
“Yeah, probably,” I answered, not really worried about Wes getting pissed on.Welcome to the club, man.I handed Baby Girl off to him and took a deep breath. I felt like I had been doing a lot of deep breathing in the past four hours. Time to make the call.
