Honestly, I was already thinking she was probably right.
Then the smallest baby lifted one tiny hand.
Her fingers searched blindly through the air before wrapping around my index finger.
The grip was warm, strong, and impossibly firm for a six-month-old.
I froze.
I couldn’t move.
“That’s June,” Mrs. Hunter said softly. “Patricia made sure we’d know how to tell them apart. Said the smallest one would always be June.”
“June,” I repeated.
The name felt strange in my mouth.
June kept holding on.
She didn’t know I had no money.
She didn’t know I’d never changed a diaper.
She didn’t know her father had abandoned her.
She only knew that someone was there.
“I’ll call social services in the morning,” Mrs. Hunter said gently. “There are good families, Noah. Ready people.”
I opened my mouth to agree.
I truly meant to.
Instead, I looked down at June.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got you.”
Mrs. Hunter went silent.
The porch light flickered once more.
I carried the babies inside one at a time.
Somewhere between the second trip and the third, something changed.
I stopped being Uncle Noah.
I became something I didn’t yet have a word for.
I became Uncle Noah, then Dad, by accident.
