How Could They Have Abandoned Him

How could they have abandoned him?

“Come with me.”

At the intersection where I waited for Greg, I carefully adjusted my hold on the infant who still couldn’t quite manage his own head, patting him gently as I whispered it again.

The child in my arms was warm. He smelled of soft, clean baby.

“Come with me. Come with me.”

I kept repeating the same words, soothing him, until his breathing evened out and he drifted off.

“Come with me. Come with me.”

I murmured it like a lullaby until he was fully asleep—and only then did it strike me that those might have been the words I had wanted to hear from someone, my whole life long.

Cradling the sleeping baby in one arm, I peered into the shopping bag the blue-eyed sister had handed me. Inside were the child’s birth registration papers and a few baby supplies.

I looked at the name stamped on the birth certificate.

Unless someone already knew their own name the way I did, the custom was to take a saint’s given name and the orphanage’s name for a surname.

It seemed the baby had been abandoned without even a name.

Luka.

It was a pretty name. I would have to call it often.

When I lifted my head, Greg’s car was approaching in the distance.

Greg had only expected me to be gone a little while. When I showed up with a newborn in my arms, his mouth fell slightly open.

“Did you mess up or something?”

“Just drive.”

On the way home I explained everything from the beginning, and Greg looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“You should have shut it down hard! Are you even in your right mind?”

“I was scared of the revolver and the shotgun. But that sounds bad, so let’s just say it’s my deep faith.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

I deliberately answered at cross-purposes.

“They say there’s government subsidy money too. Probably only enough for diapers and formula, but still—it’s something.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re supposed to take responsibility for eighteen years? You’re handing over the best years of your life to that kid, you idiot!”

The best years. Now? Did he mean my youth?

Whatever “good days” meant, I corrected him on the facts.

“It’s not adoption—it’s foster care. Not eighteen years. I look after him until parents show up who want to adopt him properly.”

“Jun, do you even know how to take care of a baby?”

“No.”

The sister had said I’d done well with the children, but those kids had all been old enough to run around.

I faced the seriousness of the problem, such as it was, and closed the papers.

“You’re kidding me…!”

Greg exhaled a long sigh, as if he had run out of words for how absurd this was.

But really—where was I even supposed to start? I looked into the shopping bag again.

A few spare diapers, one can of formula, two bottles.

Were the diapers enough for a day? Did you just mix formula with plain water? Did babies eat three times a day too?

…I could look it up.

Ding-dong!

In the middle of all that chaos I thought a text had come in and checked my phone, but the screen only showed an app push notification.

I didn’t have any apps that sent push alerts.

When I tapped it open, it turned out to be the company’s beta-test shopping app—the one I’d downloaded a few days earlier.

I pressed the notification half by accident, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a popup appeared.

“…?”

I had no idea what this was supposed to mean. It was too strange for simple spam—an app downloaded from the company, with the orphanage’s name built into it—and that only made it more confusing.

But that wasn’t what mattered right now.

I closed the app, put my phone on silent, and looked over at Greg.

“Do you know anyone who has kids?”

“Do I—? Wait! Maria!”

Maria? As in the Virgin Mary?

I managed not to commit the crime of saying that idiotic thought out loud.

“Right. Maria said she has two. I overheard her chatting with the other women about how Christmas expenses were going to be brutal. And come to think of it—Cassandra’s a single mom too!”

“Ah, Cassandra’s a bit…”

Thinking of how her eyelashes seemed to get longer by the day, I trailed off without meaning to.

“Yeah, even I think Cassandra is… how do I put it. Kind of off the map from common sense. Anyway, you can just ask Maria everything. Are you close with her?”

“Just enough to exchange Christmas greetings…”

Maria was a woman in her early forties, and her work was different from mine, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Greg’s, and Cassandra’s. Aside from existing in the same office, we barely had any points of contact.

But this was no time to be picky about cold water or hot. The truth was, the moment this soundly sleeping baby woke up, I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

“Send her a text. If you open the company-wide email directory, her number should come up.”

Even though I’d sent a sudden message saying I’d taken in a foster child and needed help, Maria cheerfully told me to come by whenever I had time.

We went straight to her house.

“Oh my goodness. A newborn.”

Maria carefully took the baby into her arms and spoke quietly. She must have had a hundred questions, but she didn’t ask any of them—she only seemed to be checking how the infant was doing.

“They say he’s a little over a month old. His name is Luka. He’s a boy.”

“I see. Poor little thing. So small, and so pretty.”

Maria answered in a soft voice. Before long her two sons had drawn up beside her, unable to look away from Luka.

I asked a question just to shift the mood.

“Both of your kids are adorable. How old are they?”

“Seven and five. They seem fascinated by the baby.”

Maria smiled and glanced back at her children. Their cheeks were rosy as ripe apples; they looked bright and healthy.

Along with that, I noticed the warm atmosphere of the house, the furniture that still held the affection of the people who lived with it.

Maria gave me a crash course in everything I needed to know about caring for a baby, and when he woke up midway through she showed me how to feed him milk and how to change a diaper.

We had barged in without any manners and stayed a couple of hours. When we finally left, she even packed up a baby carrier her own children had used as infants.

“Like this—and like this… He seems able to hold his head a little, but keep supporting it the whole time.”

I looked thoroughly awkward wearing the carrier, but it was clearly much safer for the baby, so I was grateful.

Maria said she would organize the useful points and email them later, then added one more piece of advice.

“If your circumstances allow it, take leave until you’re used to caring for him. With parental leave, if you’re lucky, you can take up to twelve weeks.”

“If your circumstances allow it,” of course, meant money. In the States, parental leave was unpaid.

…Would three months without a paycheck be all right?

It finally sank in that I had truly brought a child home without thinking it through. I would have to take time off work ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as well.

And yet, strangely, I felt no regret. We had only been together a few hours, but the baby’s warmth had been that gentle.

“Thank you for everything, Maria.”

I thanked her again and headed home.

Come to think of it, Maria had told me to buy diapers at the supermarket ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first thing. She said I would need four or five spare bottles as well.

At the end of a very long day, I finally made it home. Following her advice, we had stopped at the mart on the way back for diapers, wet wipes, spare bottles, and more, so the bags were heavy.

I promised Greg I would treat him to something truly extravagant later and thanked him over and over.

He shook his head, wished me genuine luck, and left.

Baby in my arms, I backed through the lobby door. I almost took the stairs as usual—then, for the first time since moving in, I rode the elevator.

Click.

I wrestled the door open, crossed the apartment, laid the sleeping child on the sofa, and buried my face in the cushion beside him to catch my breath.

Exhaustion rolled over me. For a moment, nothing at all went through my mind.

“….”

What on earth had happened today?

Watching the baby sleep with his soft, even breaths, I was suddenly struck by how completely different the atmosphere of this place was from Maria’s home.

A living room with nothing but a single sofa bed. One oversized dining table that didn’t match the space. A dark, empty interior.

“Oh no.”

I scrambled up and turned on the heater. When I lived alone I had never paid attention to the temperature inside.

It had nothing to do with warmth, but I flipped on every light in the place as well. It was still dim.

As of yesterday none of this had bothered me. All at once the apartment felt unbearably shabby.

“….”

I stood there clenching and unclenching my fist for a moment, then hung my coat over a chair.

I gathered the papers and baby supplies tumbling around in the shopping bag and set them neatly in a corner of the table. The sudden increase in stuff made everything feel off-kilter.

Filing away the mart receipt, I opened the banking app on my phone.

Five hundred fifty-six dollars left in the account. My biweekly take-home was nine hundred after taxes, and there were still four days until the next paycheck.

I pulled over a sheet of paper and roughly sketched out a household budget.

Lunch ran about eight dollars a day. Transit was five. The phone bill due this week was a hundred twelve.

Once the miscellaneous small expenses were accounted for, I was looking at roughly thirteen hundred by the weekend.

Then, at the end of the month, seven hundred in rent plus assorted odds and ends would leave me living on around five hundred for the two weeks until the next check.

Weekly living costs hovered near a hundred fifty, so under normal circumstances that would have been fine.

“Ah. I should have saved some money.”

The words slipped out on a sigh. In the years since joining the company I hadn’t exactly lived wastefully—but I hadn’t done any real financial planning either.

I had no idea how much extra a child would cost, but a hundred dollars of spare cash a week was nowhere near enough.

If I took parental leave, even that would be out of reach.

Even with the government foster-family subsidy, Maria had said it would probably be around five hundred dollars.

“….”

I rolled the pen between my fingers, decided my brain had stopped working, and told myself I should just sleep. I washed up quickly, changed, and lay down beside the baby.

Alone, the sofa bed had been fine. With an infant next to me, it was narrow.

Should I buy a crib? Or a bed big enough that we could both sleep comfortably?

I didn’t even know how long the baby would be with me. Buying furniture felt strange.

But even if it was only for a few months, I wanted to give him a good environment.

He wouldn’t remember any of it, but still…

“….”

Watching his small body rise and fall with those soft, even breaths, something tight rose in my chest. The tiny baby was incredibly warm. He was beautiful. How could anyone have abandoned a child like this?

Even temporary care would be an economic burden, and my body was going to be exhausted—that much was obvious.

But he was this lovable. How could they have abandoned him?

Life was already so hard for abandoned children.

Would this one find a good family?

Until then, I would have to do this well.

Thinking one thing and another, I dozed off without noticing.