The woman—me, I am the woman— maneuvers the stroller out the front door. It’s red and very expensive, the price of a decent used car. She—I—didn’t have the energy to argue; yes, we will buy the red and very expensive stroller. The white heat of the day is a surprise. Is it summer? How long has it been summer while she’s been in this bedroom, in her bed, all endless day in her bed?
There’s a park several blocks from here, not a place she’d usually go. It’s full of the racket of pre-school kids, playground equipment, sand from the sandboxes everywhere, even on the benches. But here she is.
Someone says, “Your baby. It’s crying.” And now she hears it, the baby, who is not an it, but a she. It is a she. It doesn’t seem like it would take too much strength or too much energy to pick up a baby, what is she? Ten pounds? Ten at the most. But the woman’s arms hang there, weighted unweighted. The baby cries, cries and cries, and the others at the park look at her, the woman, the woman who is me. Do something, she knows they are saying, be a mother and do something. It might be the hardest thing she’s done all day, reaching in to that expensive red stroller, reminding herself to take care of its head, her head. At home the father does most of this, the figuring out what it needs, the baby. Is it wet? Hungry? Tired? Bored? The father seems able to tell the difference between these cries, what each one means. How? It’s all just crying—ear-splitting, unbearable noise.
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