Logan
brought the storage bin inside his apartment, and then he carefully
picked up the baby. The way it was dressed, he guessed it was a girl.
She was wrapped in a faded pink blanket, and wore white sleepers with
a pink bonnet. He looked inside the bin, moving the blankets for any
clue as to where the sleeping baby could have come from. At the very
bottom, Logan found a package of diapers, a change of clothes, and a
piece of yellow paper with a short message typed on it.
'McKenzie
Alexandria. September 10, 2020. Please do not put her in a foster
home or an orphanage. I know you are the best person to take care of
her.'
There was no clue where she could have come from, or why.
"I can't even compare handwriting, to see if you belong to
anyone I know, but you're five months old, anyway." Logan said
to the baby. She was starting to stir, so he took her into his
bedroom. He took off her bonnet and noticed what hair she had was
sandy blond. She looked warm so he unwrapped her from the blanket,
and then he noticed the smell.
"Well, Miss McKenzie, I guess
it's time to change your diaper, but where?" He quickly looked
around the room, but didn't see anything but his nightstand. The only
thing he could think of was his Exercise table, so he took her there,
grabbing the diapers, a roll of toilet paper and her change of
clothes on his way by.
Logan set McKenzie on the table, and then
sat on it himself. Then he stopped.
"I don't know how to
change a diaper. Well, it can't be that hard. Great, now you're
talking to yourself!"
He took the baby's pajamas off, and she
slept on. 'Good' Logan thought. He looked at the diaper, seeing how
it fit; to be sure he got the new one on right, and then pulled the
tabs.
"Gross!" The smell that rolled out of the diaper
almost made Logan retch. He quickly folded it up, rolled it in toilet
paper, and threw it towards a garbage can that sat in the corner,
just making it in.
'Thank God for basketball.' He thought, trying
to clean the baby as best he could. He then put a new diaper on, it
looked a little crooked, but it would have to do. The new clothes
were another story. McKenzie started to wake up just as Logan tried
to dress her, and she started squirming. He couldn't get the clothes
on, so after ten minutes, he gave up and wrapped her in a towel that
had been on the table.
They got off the table, Logan trying to
balance the baby and clean up the mess at the same time. She started
to go back to sleep as Logan remembered his forgotten dinner, so he
took her to his bedroom again and laid her in the centre on his large
bed, hoping she wouldn't move that much should she wake up again,
then he went in search of his dinner. Which he soon discovered sat on
the table, stone cold.
Looking at the clock, Logan discovered it
had been over an hour since he had first found McKenzie. He picked up
the plate and took it to the microwave, just as he was taking the now
warmed dinner out; he heard a shriek from his bedroom. It continued
like an old day air raid siren. The plate of food crashed to the
floor as Logan turned and rushed down the hall to his bedroom.
McKenzie was crying, loudly. He picked her up and tried to calm her,
but it didn't work. She continued crying, he knew she had a clean
diaper, maybe she was cold. So Logan wrapped her in the towel, and a
blanket. Still she cried.
"Now what?" Logan asked no
one in particular. He tried to think of who could help. No one in the
building, maybe Mrs. Moreno, but he didn't want to bother her.
"Original Cindy!" He yelled.
Making his way to the phone
with McKenzie screaming all the way, he thought of Max's friend. He
hadn't seen her in almost six months. She blamed him for Max's
disappearance.
"Hopefully she'll help." Logan said as he
dialed the number...
To be continued...
