To The Doctor: A Daughter. Marion Lennox

the need for constant injections. Or a cure. Soon…

      ‘Nate, he’ll be fine,’ the nurse said, watching his face and obviously puzzled by his reaction. ‘Kids take to diabetes really easily—much more so than adults. My nephew’s diabetic and he lectures me about good and bad foods all the time.’

      ‘Yes. I know.’

      Still she was watching him with curiosity. There was a lot going on here that Jane didn’t understand.

      But she did understand one thing.

      ‘Your daughter needs feeding.’ There was a vague whimpering from behind the partition. Mia was stirring and her whimpering was threatening to build to a full-throated roar. But not yet. She was simply letting them know it was time.

      ‘Do you want to feed her?’

      ‘No, I—’

      ‘I’ll prepare the formula,’ she told him, disregarding his refusal as if he hadn’t made it. ‘You change her nappy.’

      ‘Me…?’

      ‘You have to start some time—Daddy.’ And she grinned and headed to the kitchen before he could say another word.

      His daughter.

      Mia was his daughter.

      Somehow Nate changed her nappy—a thing he would have thought impossible. There was nothing to it, he thought as he adjusted the tapes. He lifted her from the change table feeling smug.

      Her nappy fell to the floor.

      Whoops.

      ‘OK, young lady, let’s try again.’

      The second attempt was no better than the first but he had the sense not to pick her up straight off. He wrapped her up in her bunny rug before lifting her and when he picked her up he carried her horizontally back to his chair.

      Miraculously the nappy stayed put. Great. Well done, he thought, and his chest expanded a notch or two with paternal pride. Nothing to this parenting caper…