Dear Bella,

I still miss you. I miss you so much, it keeps me awake.

I wake from my nightmares, a sweat-soaked mess. I never remember the details—all I remember is the smoke. The pain. That aching in my body that makes me wonder if I’ll ever be whole again.

But the days are a little less empty now. It’s hard to keep on hurting when someone needs you so much. When you have to give every part of yourself to another human being who depends on you to stay alive.

I feel out of my depth all the time. I put Piper down the other day, just for a moment while I went to the toilet, and she crawled away.

She was fine, just in the next room, but it scared the life outta me. I fucking hated that fear. I hated it more than I’ve hated anything in a real long time.

I have been getting some help, though. Some advice. A woman I—

A woman I couldn’t stop thinking about.

A woman I couldn’t mention in a letter to my wife.

I screwed the note up in a ball, tossing it in the trash as I went to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. Just another letter I’ll never be able to complete.

It was time to sweat out my anger again.

* * *

I didn’t see Everly for seven days. She said she had things to do, and I didn’t ask what. Perhaps my story reminded her of her own loss, of not being able to have children. Perhaps she had to work. Perhaps she just needed space.

Either way, I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t reach out. I just focused on spending time with Piper.

Slowly but surely, we were becoming a team. I looked forward to the time when she opened her eyes in the morning—the smile she greeted me with when I entered her room. When I picked her up, she didn’t cry—she smiled, and sometimes, she lifted her hands high above her head, ready for me to pull her into my embrace.

We were growing, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

But after one long week of radio silence, one long week of just the occasional hi from mothers at the park, I was craving adult interaction. I missed the easy camaraderie Everly and I had. I missed talking about Piper, what she was doing.

More than that.

I missed … sharing her. Having someone else comment on how cute she was when she laughed. How clever she was when she pointed to the door and said “siiiigh”, as if she were telling us she wanted to go outside.

And since Everly didn’t seem to be an option for us anymore, I took Piper on a road trip an hour up the coast, and we went to visit Mack.

“If it isn’t the baby daddy himself.” Mack’s arms opened wide as he took me into his embrace, pulling me tight to his chest. He slapped one hand on my back, then stepped away, crouching in front of the pram. “And his divine little lady. Nice to see you again, beautiful.” He reached forward and took her hand.

She cried.

A tiny part of me smiled. Looked like this was one woman Mack couldn’t win over.

“Hey, baby girl.” I shoved him out of the way, an easy smile on my face. “You’re all right. This is Uncle Mack. He won’t hurt you. Just don’t let him touch your face with those fingers, yeah? Who knows where they’ve been.”

“Get out of it.” He pushed me back, and I balanced myself with one hand on the pram. “Let’s go grab some lunch.”

“Done.” I stood and followed him as we walked down the promenade next to the water.

It was a gorgeous day—the sun was shining, and people were everywhere.

Babies were everywhere.

And I didn’t know if they’d always been around me, if they’d been out and about in the heart of the city all this time, but now it was like I saw them, and their mothers saw me—but they didn’t recognise me. They didn’t see the victim from that day.

Instead, they saw a father. Someone in a situation just like theirs. We nodded, silent mutual nods of understanding, respect, and I liked it. I liked that there didn’t seem to be any pity in their glances. That for once, they didn’t seem to be thinking poor Cameron but instead there’s the father of a pretty cute child. And I had to agree with them on that.

“Pub okay?” Mack broke me from my thoughts, nodding to the beer garden where we’d spent so many Sunday lunchtimes before.

I glanced at Piper. It was so noisy in there. Music pumped from speakers near the garden, and people squeezed past each other to get to the bar, the bathroom, other people.

“Sure,” I hedged, my eyes falling on a small restaurant a few doors down. A waitress hovered near the door, looking as if she could fall off her four-inch heels and onto the pavement at any minute. Aside from her, the place appeared empty. “Or maybe we should try that place. Looks good.”

“Looks like a ghost town.” Mack followed my gaze. “I’m sure there’s a reason no one’s in there, bro. Bad food.”

“Or maybe great food, and it’s new,” I said, since I couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. Or maybe I’d just never noticed.

“Whatever you want.” Mack gestured for me to walk first. “Lead the way.”

The waitress seated us, and from the look on her face when we walked in, we may have been her first customers of the week. She handed us some menus and left, and I pulled out a chair, pushing Piper’s pram up to the table.

“Are you gonna get a high chair for that?” Mack nodded toward her.

“Piper.” I frowned. “Her name is Piper.”

“I know, man. Take it easy.” Mack laughed.

Loosen up. He didn’t mean anything by it. “She doesn’t need a high chair. She’s prefers being in her pram, most of the time.”

The waitress came back and we ordered some drinks: a water for me and a beer for Mack. He raised his eyebrows, but didn’t comment on my drink choice, and when the waitress left us alone, he asked, “So how is it? Tell me everything about being a father.”

“Well …” I paused. “It’s …”

Hard.

Tiring.

Amazing.

It was goddamn amazing.

“It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” I surprised myself with the words. There was nothing but truth in them. “Honestly, man. It’s tough, but I … I really enjoy it.”

“Really?” As Mack widened his eyes, a beer was placed in front of him, and he took a thirsty sip. “Wow. That’s great. Are you going to try see her more often when Giselle’s out then?”

I baulked. When Giselle’s out.

It was something I knew was going to happen, but hadn’t wanted to face. Something that seemed like it would occur so far in the future, but as I mentally logged the date I realised that I was more than a third of the way through my days spent as a full-time dad, and I hated that it was time I’d never get back. I hated that I’d spent the first week woodenly going through the motions, trying so hard not to care for Piper when it was coming so naturally to me now.

And I wondered how in hell I was going to let her go when Giselle was released.

“I … I guess so, yeah,” I stammered out.

“How’s that gonna work?” Mack nodded to a woman in a skin-tight red dress as she walked past. She smiled appreciatively. “You head out west every second weekend and take the kid back to your apartment?”

“Well, I guess.” God, I’d have to do so much work to it. Glass coffee tables, push-open drawers and cabinets … it’d all have to go.

“Or d’you need me to talk to my olds about setting up a more permanent arrangement with their rental?” Mack slapped the table as he laughed. My water slipped over the lip of the glass. “Can you imagine? You living in a small town like that …” His laughter died as he shook his head at me. “You’re not laughing.”

“I … no. I’m not.” Why wasn’t I laughing? I loved the city. I loved living here, in an apartment, not a three-bedder with a lawn in the middle of suburbia. I loved going downstairs at ten o’clock at night and having a variety of places to go out, grab a drink, get a meal. I loved the noise of cars, of people, of life instead of the quiet and steady hum of the ocean or lonely, still silence.

Didn’t I?

“Let’s talk about something else.” I took Piper’s bottle from the dad bag and prepped it. “How’s work?”

“Good, bro. Real good,” Mack launched into a story about Davo taking on too much work, and all the overtime he’d had to do, and I stared at the little girl drinking away from her bottle, holding it high with both hands.

When Giselle’s back. Damnit, what would I do then?

Come down and see Piper whenever I could, obviously. And maybe I could sell the apartment. Get something else with a separate room for Piper, a space of her own. Sure, she wouldn’t mind what it looked like now, but when she was bigger, she’d probably want to decorate it with pink. Or blue. Who knew what she’d like? At the moment, her favourite toys were a stuffed unicorn and my sunglasses.

As if she knew what I was thinking, she pulled her bottle from her mouth and looked up at me, her eyes going straight to the glasses pushed on my head.

She smiled.

She goddamn smiled.

And it hit me, right in the chest. I smiled back, staring into those beautiful eyes, and she was still smiling, and I was still smiling, and damn, but it felt right. It felt good. It felt like everything coming together.

“Hello? Earth to Cameron?” Mack waved a hand in between Piper and me, and I pulled back, shaking my head.

“Sorry, man. What’s up?”

He narrowed his eyes, looking me up and down. “I could ask the same thing. You passed on the pub. The whole walk here, you’ve been making eyes at other babies as if you’re in some secret mummy club. And now I’ve told you about a huge restructure at work and you’re too busy makin’ eyes at your baby to care.”

“I’m sorry. What’s happening? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a few shift cuts, that’s all. But this isn’t about me. This is about you.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, looking me in the eyes. There were years of friendship in that gaze—years of being there for each other through thick and thin. “Are you okay?”

“I am.” I paused, looking at Piper again. Straight away, she pulled the bottle down and smiled. I smiled back. “I’m fine. Just … different. Things with me are different.”

And for the first time since this whole situation started, I was realising that different might not be such a bad thing after all.