The first few months are a bust, Jess is a wreck. He'll think back on it later and remember only how tired he was, how messy the apartment became, Willa crying, over and over, all night, until her voice goes hoarse, Willa, Willa, Willa. Nobody he knows in town comes to visit, and Luke doesn't know, so his downstairs neighbor starts picking up groceries for him. Mrs. Hartfield is her name, she's sixty-two years old and a widow and her kids don't talk to her anymore, and she tells him what formula to buy and offers to babysit.
"Look at this beautiful girl," she says to Jess, but she's really speaking to Willa, who looks up at both of them and seems really unimpressed. But she's not crying, and Jess holds his breath. "Keeping your daddy up all night. Just want everyone to know you're here, don't you?"
Jess has paid three different doctors to tell him the exact same unhelpful things in the last month, and this is the first time Willa has seemed relatively calm since the day he took her home. "Either that or she doesn't like me that much," he says, only halfway joking. He's been having nightmares.
"Pfft," says Hartfield, and scoops Willa up into her craggy, elderly arms. Willa scrunches up her face and Jess goes tense, but all that comes out is a tiny, pathetic sneeze, and then the kid falls quiet and, miraculously, allows herself to be cuddled. "There we go. You're gonna be trouble. I can tell. Where's she been sleeping?"
It takes Jess a second to realize the question is directed at him. "Crib," he says dumbly, swaying a little on his feet. He blinks around at the apartment, seeing it for the first time. "There's a crib, uh, I have a crib."
"Try keeping her in bed with you tonight, see how that goes," Hartfield says, bouncing gently. "She's anxious. Oh, look at you." She lays her cheek against the crown of Willa's head and keeps bouncing, humming softly under her breath. Jess watches, his throat aching, and feels like an idiot. "Just wanna be held."
"I hold her," Jess says, and hears it come out wrong, too defensive. He didn't mean that the way it sounded.
"You're anxious too," Hartfield replies, giving him a stink eye. Willa's tiny hand comes up to bounce off the old woman's cheek, and Jess hears her make a tiny little sound of contentment that he's only heard from her once or twice, on the rare occasion when he's managed to keep her calm and happy for more than a minute or two. "She can feel it! She can feel everything you feel, especially when you're holding her. You're her daddy, she knows. You gotta be calm for her."
Three months ago Jess was just a guy, and now he's a dad, and Hartfield wants him to be calm. "Right."
"Or, fake it, at least," Hartfield says, a touch more sympathetically. She bounces over, smiling crookedly. "Here, take her. I'll put the food away."
"You don't have to," Jess says, but his arms are already open, his eyes locked on Willa's. She is so rarely quiet like this, so rarely open, and happy to see him. It feels like a gift.
"I'll make some lunch. When was the last time you ate something that didn't come out of a plastic tray? Never mind," Hartfield says. "Sit down with her for a bit, she'll fall asleep, probably. Go on."
Jess sits, and Hartfield leaves. Willa reaches up and taps his chest with her fist.
"Thanks," Jess says, and Willa blinks. She's got his hair, his eyes. Her mother's skin, and her chin too, and sometimes Jess swears she grins at him the same way Mari used to, with just a corner of her mouth. There's a birthmark on her arm that looks like an almond. Jess touches it with the corner of his thumb, and she twitches away, her nose crinkling.
"Sorry," he says. Willa wiggles in his arms, and Jess feels his chest falling in on itself, a cave collapsing between his ribs. What is he doing? "I'm sorry," he says, thickly. What the fuck is he doing?
Willa makes a soft noise, and fist bumps his chest again. Jess swallows the panic and kisses her forehead. She socks him in the jaw.
"You're not one of those vegans, are you?" Hartfield asks, popping her head out.
"We're Italian," Jess tells her. Willa yells happily in agreement.
"Thank God," Hartfield says, and laughs.