Blizzard Blues

I walked down the aisle purposely avoiding the Baby Section. A month ago, Jake couldn’t get me out of there. We were so excited from the moment the pregnancy kit turned red. He planned to renovate our computer room into a baby room, painting it duck-egg blue. I browsed EBay and Amazon for baby clothes, strollers, nappies…even soft fuzzy toys. He would be our first. Jake had already decided that he would be the perfect dad, the one who’d take his son Jamie (yep, he’d decided on the name) fishing and hunting…all the manly stuff. Personally I didn’t mind either way. I was just happy that Jake was happy. We had an appointment at the clinic last week Tuesday. Jake said he couldn’t make it because he had an important meeting with a big supplier. So I went alone.

The gynaecologist was male but he came highly recommended by my best friend Betty, who’s had her three sons delivered by Dr. Blake. So as I laid back and let him push the scanner around my belly, I was relaxed….right up to the moment he said, ‘Oh.’ - a little word meaning so much. I looked at him and saw his eyebrows scrunched up. He had a surgical mask on and my heart began to beat a little faster. My throat went dry. Then our eyes met and I knew that something was wrong.

Jake came home that evening and found me in a mess. Cradling me in his arms, he said, ‘You mean we have to try again?’ That made me laugh through my tears.

A week passed and friends busy with their lives moved on. Even Jake had to fly to Houston to oversee a project ‘just for a few days’ he said. Secretly I thought he was glad to be away from me. Although he never said a word, I sensed his disappointment that somehow I had failed us. My womb was no good. I couldn’t protect our child. There was no heart beat. I grieved alone and couldn’t sleep.

So that’s why I found myself in the 24-hour Walmart at 3 in the morning. I had run out of bread and milk. I wanted to just drive there and back but once in, I began pushing my trolley and piling junk food from aisle to aisle. For night shopping the lights were toned down, giving customers a sense of peace and calm. The rush of shoppers during office hours had long gone, replaced by night owls – people with insomnia, people with problems like myself that kept them awake and people after their night shifts. I stood in the Asian Section, staring at the vast selection of instant pot noodles. I couldn’t make up my mind what to get. I must have stood there for ages, trance-like when the overhead lights blinked a few times and went out. In the dark, I started and said a hesitant ‘hello’. Only my echo came back.

Then I heard it – small pitter-pattering at first on the roof of the vast warehouse. The crescendo increased to an ear-splitting roar and I looked out of the tall glass windows, watching the blizzard playing havoc. I left my trolley, deciding to leave while I still could. Worried for my safety – those windows could shatter or the roof panels rip apart, I headed towards the exit. In the dark, emergency lights had lit up – like the ones on planes – so I could just about follow them. There was no one else around – perhaps the staff had already evacuated. I shivered. ‘This is so eerie.’ And just as I thought that, it got worse. I heard a thin wail, like a tiny kitten as I passed the Baby Section. My heart was thumping louder now. I didn’t want to go down the row to investigate but something about that forlorn and lonely cry reached into the depths of my being. I responded. As I took each step closer to the mewing, my throat was so dry, I gagged. At the strollers and prams display, I looked down and saw a bundle wriggling on the floor. Just then the overhead lights came back on and I saw her face. She must have only a week old with blond wispy curls and scrunched up features. She was crying but like most newborns, they squeal in between silent gasps of air. There was no one else around and instinctively, I bent down to pick her up.

All my actions went into auto mode. I rocked and cooed, I whispered sweet consolations which I doubt she understood. But I knew that my tone was soothing and I soon had her looking up at me with her bright blue eyes. I smiled. This was what it felt to be a mum. At that moment, I’d fight a lion to protect her. I wanted so much to walk out of there with her in my arms. I’d forgotten about the blizzard and the creepy feeling of finding myself alone in the huge store had gone.

‘It’s you and me now babe,’ I chuckled.

Just as I walked out of the exit, I heard a voice behind me.

‘Are you going to pay for that ma’am?’

I turned and saw a security guard in a blue uniform, with a hand on his nightstick.

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him. He must have seen the confusion on my face and he repeated his question.

‘You need to pay for that before you leave ma’am.’

I looked down at my bundle of momentary joy. Her blue eyes looked back at me…unblinkingly.

I smiled awkwardly and walked back towards a cashier, thinking, ‘Where did these people pop out from?’

The lady was half asleep but she found the price tag and scanned it.

‘That will be fifty-nine ninety-nine ma’am.’

I gave her my American Express and she zapped it.

I drove home with Jaime in my front seat, chatting with her all the way.

‘Won’t daddy by surprised when he comes home tomorrow,’ I giggled.