Oh, Joy

        I should be home right now. Not in this STUPID supermarket. How does a 35 year old woman run out of pads, anyway? More importantly, why do I still feel the need to buy…SOMETHING- ANYTHING- else…so the teenage boy at the register doesn’t think I just came in for pads? Major face palm. At least there’s no one else around tonight to witness my ridiculous embarrassment. Well, of course there isn’t. It’s January in upstate New York and there’s a weather advisory for the actual blizzard happening outside right this minute. I mean, I’m not about to rip up old rags, or whatever women had to do back…then. Pads are a necessity. Or so I told my hubby, who had serious doubts about me going out in this. He knows how I white knuckle it every time I have to drive in snow, especially at night. I’ve lived in this little farm town, where plow trucks are few and far between, my entire life- you’d think I’d be used to it by now. Of course, as great as he is, and despite the fact we’ve been married for fifteen years, he’s not exactly the type to offer to go out and buy the goods for me. He’d have to hide them under a cart full. Bigger face palm.

               Lord, it’s dead tonight. It’s not even 8 o’clock and I haven’t seen a single other customer. Life in a small town, I guess. I need a treat. Cool Ranch Doritos and maybe a Snickers. Maybe a Coke from the cooler, too. I suddenly feel a huge wave of sadness rush over me and I stop in my tracks, right there in the snack aisle. Tears well up. Oh no, it’s not that I’m 35 and still “treat” myself like a kid would. It’s not (quite) that I’m using Doritos as compensation for getting my STUPID period. (I can’t just say “my period.” I’m physically incapable. It’s always- ALWAYS- my STUPID period). It’s really the fact that I’m here at all, on this godforsaken errand. Was it a Freudian slip of sorts, not being stocked up? Was I hoping too hard that it wouldn’t come this time? We’ve been trying so long. And the doctors say there’s nothing *wrong* with either of us. But after five YEARS of trying? And I mean TRYING, not just NOT preventing. And don’t get me started on the other options. The hubster has always said adoption would be a “last resort.” And IVF? Do you even know how expensive IVF is? Thousands upon thousands, ok? For a chance it might not even work.

               I’m going nuts. I swear I just heard a baby cry. So dumb. There cannot be anyone else in here. Ok, self, wipe the tears. Keep walking. You can do hard things. I head toward the freezer section because, dang it, Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese sounds good. I’m really getting fat, aren’t I? Hubs doesn’t seem to mind the extra curves. That’s it! I’m curvy. Not fat.

Whoops! I almost missed the Feminine Hygiene aisle. This place is so freaking empty. It’s really starting to creep me out. My cart wheel keeps creaking and I swear it’s the only sound in the place.

               “WE’RE CLOSING…” I jump out of my skin as the loudspeaker crackles on… “IN FIVE MINUTES. THANK YOU.” Take a breath, babe. Ok, what the HECK. I definitely hear a baby now. There must be another shopper in here after all. I gotta get my Stouffer’s and LEAVE. I can’t wait to be snug at home, eating my junk and watching Seinfeld. I turn down the freezer aisle and stop in my tracks again. There’s a bundle in the middle of the aisle and it’s moving. A dingy blue blanket wrapped around…something. Please don’t be a rat. Or a snake. Be a puppy. Please be a puppy. My logic skills obviously aren’t working too well, you know? Like, why would there be a rat or a snake- or a puppy- or ANYTHING ALIVE- wrapped in a blanket in the middle of the frozen foods aisle at eight at night during a blizzard with no other customers and

GASP. “Oh my GAWD”- it’s a baby. “Um?” It’s a baby. It’s a baby. A little louder- “Uhhhh?” I bend and pull the blanket away from a grubby little face. It’s a very little baby. I peek into the blanket. Dingy fleece football pajamas. A boy then. I start to look around, confused, feeling a bit strangled and desperate. I start to think some pretty crazy stuff. Should I even pick him up? I don’t want the mother to come around the corner and think I’m stealing him. He’s IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR. Pick him up! Ok, I pick him up. He seems to stare at me for a second, then starts wailing. What…is…I just… Lord, I don’t even know how to hold a baby. Where is his mother? Oh my God, did she just…NO. People don’t do that, people don’t just leave their babies in the middle of grocery stores. Not in 2020. There’s no way. Wouldn’t she know there would be cameras? Isn’t this ILLEGAL? I look around again. No one, of course. We have to call the police. I start talking to him, bouncing him a little. “It’s ok buddy. Where’s your Mama?” I start to head up to the cashier and for a second, just a split second, mind you, I have a totally psycho, The Light Between Oceans moment of,

“I could take him.”

               “Maybe there aren’t cameras.”

               “After all, someone’s going to have to take him.”

               Then I come back to my senses and run up to the cashier and breathless say all in a rush, “This baby! He was in the aisle! Was there another customer in here? We have to call the police!” The 17 year old kid is a bit dumbfounded, so I dial 911 on my cell and explain. They say they’ll be right over. Small town life. But there is a blizzard, and they do take a few minutes. I hold him and I rock him and I tell him everything’s going to be ok, even though I’m secretly thinking that these are not very auspicious beginnings. But I don’t want to tell him that, of course. While I’m waiting I call up the hubs and give him the rundown so he knows I didn’t veer off the road in the storm and he says, “Babe?” Long pause. “Are you ok?” And I say, “No” through a very tight throat and I say, “Love you. Bye.” And then the police show up and I give a report and they take him away.

I don’t know where.

And after I watch out the plate glass windows until I can’t see them anymore (it doesn’t take long because…blizzard…) I come out of my stupor and I ask the kid if I can still buy my STUPID groceries and he says, “Ya. Sure.”

So I do. Shrug. We don’t say anything else. I white knuckle it home because it’s still blizzarding, and I heat up my Stouffer’s and watch my Seinfeld all wrapped up in a blanket on the couch. And I’m warm and I’m safe and even though Seinfeld never, ever gets old, I am very, very sad.

               A month later, and I’m at work. A call comes in, a local number. “Ma’am, it’s about the baby you found.”

               “Oh?” Calm down! My voice is twice its normal pitch. “Yes, officer?” That’s better.

               “Well, I thought you’d like an update, Ma’am.”

               “Oh! Of course!” Too excited! Relax. Deep breath.

               “Of course I’m not at liberty to say much, but the parents were found. Parental rights have been terminated. The baby is in foster care and is on the fast track to adoption.”

               “As in, um, someone is already adopting him?”

               “Him? The baby is actually a girl, Ma’am.”

               “Oh!” I smile. “I noticed she was wearing football pajamas and just assumed-“

               “Ah. Well. The parents were very poor. Probably using whatever they could find. Anyhow, no, she’s not being adopted yet. I just meant that the judge has expedited some of the paperwork. To speed things along. Under the circumstances.”

               My heart skipped a beat or two. “I see.”

               “Yes. She’s apparently perfectly healthy and, I’ve heard, a sweet baby.”

               Was he hinting? Could he tell, that night, how sad I’d been? How much it hurt to let go of that tiny bundle?

               “Well, thank you. I appreciate the call. I…really appreciate it.”

               “You’re welcome Ma’am.” There was definitely a smile in his voice.

               “Oh, Officer? One more thing. Does she have a name?”

               “Uh, yes, let me see, it was on the birth certificate as…Joy. Have a nice day.” Click.

               Joy. Yes. Joy. If there’s one thing hubby and I need around the house it’s a little Joy. Now to convince him. Oh, I have my ways. She’s going to love Seinfeld. And Stouffer’s. Definitely.