They stopped on the third floor and Amanda pushed the door open. She hadn’t locked it when she’d come downstairs to let him in. The room was compact. There was a small washroom in the corner. The door was wide open and he could see a toilet and sink. No shower. Outside the toilet was a small plastic tub that he assumed was a baby bath.
An unmade double bed sat in one corner; posters of Preload, Avenged Sevenfold, and others adorned the wall. On the floor, by the rusted radiator, was a tiny bassinet, the source of the crying. The social worker had warned him about the screaming. A side effect of neonatal abstinence syndrome. He wondered briefly what the other tenants thought about the new arrival. He needed to get them out of this dump and into a better home immediately.
Dred dropped the bag and walked over to see his little girl. His heart tripped. For a moment he thought about running. Running far away from her, from the responsibility, and from the chance it was very likely his chest was about to split wide open.
A little red face screamed angrily at him, a contrast from the knitted pink hat she wore and the cream blanket she was wrapped up in. “So you’re Petal?” he asked, offering her his pinkie finger. Petal gripped it tightly, her little fist shaking furiously as the cries continued. He reached under her and gently collected her, blanket and all. The little hat on her head fell forward over her eyes, angering her more. Without missing a beat he fixed it.
In his arms, she started to settle, the shrill screaming turned to hiccupping sobs. Brown eyes flecked with gold that matched his own widened to look at him.
Dred started to hum to her, and the crying stopped. This was his child. His child. A piece of his heart, a part of his soul. What the fuck did he know about kids? He wanted her to have everything he didn’t. Wanted her to have opportunities he’d never been given. She deserved better than this shitty apartment, she deserved better than a life on the road with him. She deserved a family that would love her and cherish her. But the idea of her not being with him burned through him like an inferno, leaving him in ashes.
Petal pulled his little finger to her mouth and sucked on it gently. She had the tiniest nails on her fingers and little tufts of dark brown hair poked out from under the pink hat. Despite her blonde mom, Petal was all him, and the thought of it made him feel like a giant.
Amanda sidled up next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “We created a miracle, Theo.”
He hated Theo. His mom had called him Theo. His first social worker had called him Theo right before she dropped him off at the foster home where he was beaten up nightly by two older boys.
But Amanda was right about one thing, Petal was a miracle. And he could do the right thing.
“We need to talk about what’s best for her,” Dred said as he moved away from Amanda. She was in his space and didn’t belong there. He regretted the decision to come to her house. The social worker had offered to set up a private meeting, but he’d been so desperate to see Petal he’d been unable to wait. With a sudden pang of longing to take Petal home with him, he sat down in the only chair in the apartment. Petal fought sleep, but slowly and surely, her eyes drooped closed.
“What do you mean?” Amanda asked.
“I’m not sure you or I are the right people to take care of her.” He said the words, but his heart dropped in his chest, a solid fall that stopped it beating as it shattered into a million pieces. And like Humpty fucking Dumpty, it couldn’t be put back together again. Now he’d held her, he couldn’t imagine her in anybody’s arms but his own.
Amanda grabbed a cigarette and lighter from the table and walked to the window. She lifted it open and lit the cigarette like his mom used to.
“You want me to give her up?” she asked, exhaling smoke as she spoke.
“I don’t know what the right thing here is, but I want her to have a better childhood than I had. Better than this.” He looked around the room. “Don’t you?”
Amanda laughed. “Of course I do.” The crackle of burning tobacco broke the silence as she took another draw on the cigarette.
“I’m not sure why it’s funny.”
“I’m going to keep Petal, and she is going to have better than this. Why do you think I picked you?”
What the fuck is going on? “Not sure I follow.”
“You’re a wealthy guy, you can afford us. And I wanted that so badly it was worth making sure it happened.”
“What do you mean, ‘making sure it happened’?”
“You need me to draw you a diagram, Theo?”
He stood with Petal in his arms. “It seems I need one. What the fuck, Amanda?”
“When you went to the washroom, I put the pin of my brooch through the condom you put on the side table. Juvenile, maybe. But the end is the same. I’m not giving up your daughter. And if you want me to look after her, then you’d better open that check book of yours.”