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‘I’ll go,’ Josh said ‘I needed to get some bread and milk anyway I’ll pick up nappies, some clothes and some formula milk’

The panicky look was back on Aain while you’re gone?’

‘Pick her up and cuddle her If all else fails, sing to her,’ Josh said ‘That usually works’

‘That sounds like experience talking’

‘I’uiltily aware that he hadn’t seen much of his nieces and nephew since his divorce His fah to take, but then he’d become very aware thathis o down the tubes—and he really couldn’t handle that It had been easier to use work as an excuse to avoid the at the hospital over Christmas: it meant he didn’t have to spend the holiday with his family and face that peculiar mixture of pity and contempt

‘Any songs in particular?’ Amy asked

‘Anything,’ he said ‘The baby won’t care if you’re not word-perfect; she just wants a bit of comfort I’ll see you in a few minutes’ He scribbled his mobile phone number on one of the spare pieces of paper from their makeshift ‘crime scene’ barrier ‘Here’s my number’

‘Thanks I’ll text you in a ive you some money for the baby stuff’

‘We’ll sort it out between us later,’ he said ‘Is there anything you need from the supermarket?’

‘Thanks, but I did allyesterday,’ she said

If Josh had done that, too, instead of feeling that he was too tired tothrough the lobby when Amy had found the baby, and he wouldn’t have been involved with any of this Though he instantly disht as mean It wasn’t the baby’s fault that she’d been abandoned, and it wasn’t the baby’s fault that caring for a baby, even for a few minutes, made it feel as if someone had ripped the top off his scars

‘See you in a bit,’ he said, relieved to escape

A baby

A newborn

Eighteen o, this hat she’d wanted most in the world She and Michael had tried for a baby for a year without success, and they’d been at the point of desperation when they’d walked into the doctor’s office after her scan