Intrusive Thoughts

The industrial fluorescent lights are bright, reducing my shadow to a morphing Rorschach test as I walk. It is quiet, which is usual for late evening on a weekday, but the building has an ephemeral feel tonight. The grocery store is large - over 15 aisles - but the darkness outside gives the impression that the building is being swallowed. The walls are the contours of an immense maw tightening inch by inch. 

The wind of the storm outside competes with the Beatle’s “Let It Be” playing over the intercom. Drifts of snow press up against the windows, miniature mountains signalling a drive home no less harrowing than scaling K2. I adjust my grip on the plastic handle of the small metal basket - it's digging into my palm. I don’t like snowstorms. What was I here to buy? Why did I need a basket? As I turn the corner, all thoughts of groceries disappear. In the middle of the aisle, unmoving, is a scuffed and well-used baby car seat. The back of it is to me. I freeze, the handle of the basket slipping slightly in my grasp; I have to squeeze to prevent from dropping it.

What is a carrier doing here? Did someone abandon it? Why would they? Was it defective? Had they set it down because their cart was full and had forgotten it? My eyes narrow. Was there a bomb in it? Other asinine thoughts come to my mind as I glance behind me. Nothing. The store is quiet except for the faint music. I crane my ears, waiting for the slapping tumult of frantic parental feet. Nothing. 

I approach the carrier as one would a coiled rattlesnake. I can’t leave a baby alone if there was one in the car seat. It is likely something innocuous - a harried mother of three perhaps set down the car seat to chase a toddler. But I hadn’t heard any children in the store. I crane my ears - other than Sarah Maclachlan faintly singing “Angel”, I can hear nothing; no admonishments from parents, no voices even.  

I circle the car seat warily, expecting, hoping, it is empty.  

A baby lies inside, asleep. It's maybe a month old - it looks like it weighed less than ten pounds, as it barely fills the carrier. I stare down at it. The little thing isn’t moving. 

I lean closer, scanning for a rising chest, for a hand twitch. My own breath has stopped, my lungs compressed against my ribs by the staccato beating of my heart. Then, I see it, the little tummy moving up and down ever so slightly. The baby is fine. I exhale. The piercing fear subsides but doesn’t really leave - it burrows down deep, hiding somewhere between my liver and my intestines. The worry over our children is a cancer that is triggered by their birth and metastasizes as they grow; a disease nourished by love. 

I stare down at the infant, who makes the small smile babies do when they are around those who strive only to protect them, who would walk through fire to keep them safe. 

It could also be gas. 

I marvel at the faint hairs on the baby’s head, the plump cheeks, the small hands clasped over their little chest and the seemingly oversized buckle of the car seat. 

“Hey little guy,” I say, somehow knowing they’re a boy. The baby does not respond as I kneel in front of his carrier, set down the grocery basket, and look in at him closer. He has my nose and thick upper lip. He’s gorgeous and plump and doesn’t resist when I undo the straps from his carrier and pick him up. 

I bring him towards me, running my fingers gently over his faint curls. 

I coo at him as he reshuffles his little legs and then settles into my arms, eyes not even bothering to open to check who has liberated him from his carrying case. I hum a common nursery rhyme as I lean forward and inhale the faint, warm scent of a newborn. There is nothing like the freshness of a baby’s skin, the perfume of innocence. 

The lights flicker as the electricity in the grocery store struggles against the storm. I take a deep breath but tell myself that there’s always backup generators in these buildings. Besides, the thought of driving in the storm is what makes my chest muscles clench.  

I leave the car seat where I found it. I know I should feel like a spirit carting off a changeling child, but this little boy is meant to be with me. He has to stay with me. He

“Ma’am?” a voice. I whirl to find a cashier, two security guards, and a wide-eyed woman staring at me. 

“Yes?” I clutch the baby whom I’ve named Liam, to my chest. He snuggles closer, which is somehow far worse than if he were to cry. 

“Please,” the woman says. I look at her, at the anguish on her face and understand her concern. Do I ever. Still, I clutch the baby tighter. 

“Ma’am, you can’t keep doing this,” one of the security guards says, his expression both grim and exasperated. The other security guard is young, barely into his twenties, and he’s casting furtive glances at his partner.  

“I’m not doing anything wrong!” I protest. I blink - the store is bustling, sunlight beaming in the full-length windows. People are walking by with their carts and baskets, some blatantly staring at the scene, others pretending not to. 

“She does this all the time,” the younger one says to the woman. “She’s always snatching people’s babies.” 

I stare at him. No, this baby is mine. He looks like me. I recognize the smell of his hair, the weight and pliability of his thigh in my hand. 

“Please,” the woman repeats, reaching towards me tentatively. 

I take a step back. 

“Ma’am, we’re going to have to call the police this time,” the older guard says. I shake my head. I know they’re going to get Liam from me at some point, but I want a few more seconds.

“Look,” the guard sighs, “we know you lost yours, but doing this … it can’t help.”

“I just need … I just need a few more minutes with him.” 

“Did that help?” the doctor asks me. 

I pull off the VR headset, blinking hard, my gaze focusing on her.

She’s sitting in her chair, swivelling it slightly. She always does this when she’s interested in what I’m going to say and not going through the motions of therapy while doubtlessly thinking of something else. She came so highly recommended with her new form of bereavement therapy.

“No,” I say, “It’s as hard as ever.” 

Doctor Brown sighs. “Look, it’s not meant to be easy. It’s meant to help you let go. You’re supposed to give Liam back to the other mother. It’s a way to help you give him up in your mind.” 

“I don’t want to give him up! He’s my baby. My child. What kind of a mother gives up her child!” 

Doctor Brown raises her eyebrow. 

“I can’t give him up,” I repeat, softer this time. Petulant.  

“Have you started small, as I suggested? Boxing up his clothes? Putting away the bottles and the toys?” 

“Not really,” I say, “I need those things.”

“You don’t. You need to accept that Liam has passed. You need to accept that he won’t be coming back.” 

Rage blooms inside me like a drop of blood in a bowl of water. Rage at the drunk driver who took my month-old baby from me during that snowstorm. Rage at the man who put my husband in the hospital for two weeks, forcing me to wait to bury my child until he recovered. Rage at this woman ordering me to get rid of Liam’s things. The rage drops off into grief when I imagine boxing up his bottles, his blankets, the 3-month sleepers he never got to wear. I sink into the couch and bury my head in my hands, as I did when the police showed up at my house those months ago. The pain of his loss is a serpent that lives deep inside me. It’s eating my organs, threatening to chew through my stomach, to expand my c-section scar. I only wish it would. 

A car seat is sitting on the ground in the middle of the pasta aisle. A car seat. With a baby in it. All alone. I’m staring down at it. As I do so, footsteps break into my thoughts. A young man about my age turns the corner, a box of diapers under his right arm, his other balancing a 12-pack of toilet paper and a box of spaghetti. 

“Shh, don’t tell my wife I left Ainsley here on her own,” he winks. The toilet paper is the next aisle over. 

I say nothing as he sets the spaghetti box gently onto the infant’s legs, then balances the toilet paper on top of the diapers so he can carry the car seat with one hand. He swings it gently as he walks.

After he leaves, I drop my hand to my stomach. I’ve only recently started to feel the kicks, or at least I think they are kicks. It’s as if I have a bag of microwave popcorn inside of me wrapped in a layer of blankets; I can only sense the slightest bounce. 

I know I’m wrong to worry so much about my potential child, to create scenarios in my head of my own grief, to bolster intrusive thoughts with a sense of realism. Maybe when I am a parent I’ll be able to put aside these debilitating fears. But how can I not worry, constantly, about car crashes, abductors, disease? There is so much fear born from what should be hope.