Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall

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      Harry wasn’t on the ten-o’clock news, but he was on the satellite news at midnight.

      He must have scarcely landed, and he was flying by helicopter to the epicenter of the earthquake, jammed in amongst aid workers.

      ‘This is the only way to get here,’ he was saying, shouting over the noise of the aircraft, ‘because the roads are rubble. They’ve only just cleared them after the last quake, and now the people of this devastated region are facing destruction and ruin yet again. Down below us everything is flattened, as far as the eye can see. Trees are down, rivers have altered course yet again and every village is showing more signs of destruction. I’m going back to the small community I stayed in last time, to see just how much damage has been done, but early reports aren’t good. This is Harry Kavenagh, reporting to you from somewhere over Indonesia.’

      The report went to cover other areas, showing more pictures of the damage, but Emily had seen enough. She’d seen him, in his element, back where he belonged.

      Being him.

      Her eyes pricked with tears, and she blinked hard and turned off the television with an angry stab at the remote.

      Dan flicked her a glance, opened his mouth and shut it again. ‘Tea?’ he said eventually, and she nodded.

      ‘Thanks.’

      But she couldn’t drink it. She just felt sick, because she’d lost him, and they were on opposite sides of the world.

      ‘I’m going to feed Kizzy and get to bed,’ she said, and went to the fridge. One last bottle after this. She contemplated Buttercup, but frankly she was too tired. She’d do it later, when she’d fed Kizzy.

      But she didn’t. She was exhausted, struggling to stay awake long enough to feed and change her, and then when she fell into bed she slept so soundly she didn’t wake for hours.

      Kizzy was starting to cry, and Dan and her children were still asleep, so she crept downstairs, got the bottle out of the fridge and put it in the microwave to heat. She flicked on the television, and there Harry was again, on the early breakfast news, describing the damage sustained by the little town.

      She heard the microwave ping and, still watching the screen through the open doors, she went into the kitchen and took out the bottle, but as she turned back, her watch caught on the door and the bottle spun out of her hand and shattered on the floor.

      She stared at it blankly. How could it shatter? They were unbreakable—unless it had already been cracked? She didn’t know. All she knew was that the fridge was empty and Kizzy was crying in earnest now.

      Forgetting the television, she turned to the steriliser and realised, to her dismay, that she hadn’t put Buttercup’s bits and pieces in there. They were lying in the sink, rinsed but not nearly sterile enough to use.

      And Kizzy was crying, and her nipples were prickling, and the utter futility of it struck her like a brick.

      What on earth was she doing? Why on earth express the milk, decant it from the pump into a bottle, then give it to Kizzy?

      Especially if she was going to lose her so very, very soon.

      With a sigh of gentle resignation, she went back into the sitting room, picked the baby up and sat down with her.

      ‘Look, Kizzy,’ she said softly, lifting her nightshirt out of the way. ‘Daddy’s on the telly.’

      And while she watched him, hanging on his every word, his tiny daughter snuggled into her, latched on and fed, contented at last.