First of all, why didn't the men's bathrooms have changing stations? Was the world against dad's changing diapers in a public bathroom? Or was the world just against Luke at this second? He stood there, knelt down in front of the baby carrier, trying everything to get Ruby to stop crying, but nothing was working. People kept passing by him, sending sympathetic looks, but no one stopped. Go figure.
Second, he'd never changed a diaper in his life. The entire month that Ruby had been alive so far, his mom had always been there for that. But an emergency trip to the closest grocery store had brought him to this situation.
"Come on, Ruby, please stop crying." Luke shifted awkwardly, feeling the harsh gaze of a woman passing behind him. She'd muttered something about 'irresponsible kids causing trouble.'
He was out of any other options, so he called his mom and sat down in defeat.
"Luke, it's four o'clock in the morning."
"I know." Luke tugged at his hair, distressed. "Ruby won't stop crying and I think she needs a diaper change and I'm at the grocery store and they don't have changing stations in the men's bathroom and I've never changed a diaper before and she's a girl and--"
"Okay, first, you need to breathe." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "If you really feel like you can't do it, I can drive--"
"No, it's fine .Can you just talk me through it?" Luke felt guilty about even the thought of his mom having to get up so early in the morning to help him again. She'd been doing it for the past month now, and she'd given him a pretty big lecture about him having to step up and start doing things on his own. She probably meant this.
"Of course. Just let me know when you're ready." With no other option, Luke set Ruby on the bathroom counter in the men's room. Luckily, no one else was there. Ruby also stopped crying, although she did whimper once or twice.
Luke kept the phone pressed against his ear with his shoulder while his mom went step by step. "It smells so bad." He groaned, leaning back as far as he could. "What did you feed her?"
"Welcome to the world of parenting, Luke." His mom laughed. "Do you have a new diaper near you?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, put that under her and take off the old one."
Luke froze, hand outstretched to grab the new diaper. "Mom."
"What?"
He had no idea why his voice had dropped down to a whisper. He was still alone. "She's a girl"
"I'm aware of that." She sounded exhausted. Luke felt a pang of guilt go through him.
"Okay, but, like, a girl. As in, not a boy. As in, totally different," he struggled to think of a word that didn't make him want to curl into a ball and stay like that forever. "Parts"
There was a beat of silence and then, "Luke, you of all people should know what her 'parts' look like. It comes with being a parent."
He swore the burning on his face should set off the fire alarm. "But--"
"You know what girl 'parts' look like."
"Mom! Stop, please just stop."
"You made that baby somehow."
Luke was ducking down, almost in complete fetal position by this point. "This isn't happening. We're not actually talking about this."
"Now that you're completely mortified, it's time to change her diaper." His mom sounded a lot more awake now. And very proud of herself. As if embarrassing her son over the phone was award-worthy (It was.)
"How is this happening right now?" He muttered, standing up again and peeling away the tags on each side of the diaper.
"Oh you know exactly how this happened."
"I'm hanging up!"