It’s icy, so, so icy.
Clara pushes the cart up their little Walmart’s pharmaceutical aisle with haggard steps but yanks the handle away every time Jason tries to grab it. He’s stopped wrestling for it by now.
“I’m fine. I can push it. I’m not the pregnant one here.”
For all his exasperation, Jason chortles out an incredulous laugh at the slip of her words, although it sounds like a weary cough more than anything. “Well, clearly, I’m not the pregnant one either.”
“Good for you,” Clara hums humorlessly. Jason keeps a distance of at least half a meter away from her, like usual, now, but she still feels him deflate by her side as the air around them grows constricting, colder. She inches the cart’s trajectory just another centimeter away from his path.
It’s crowded—Christmas weekend is a short of eight days away and Clara knows better than to wait another day to grab groceries for the week. There’s not many to feed. That was a certain promise, an olive branch. This year, the holidays were meant for just the two of them: Clara and Jason, Jason and Clara. She’s already canceled everything for it. There’s no backing out of it.
Clara pushes and pushes. There’s too much in the cart and the cluttered havoc is even worse in her skull. They were supposed to pop open a drink with a mutual friend or two and celebrate Clara’s promotion at her new law firm last Saturday—only to postpone after Jason’s kid siblings get into a (fortunately minor) biking collision and suddenly Mia and Stacey needed more hands to set up little Olivia’s future nursery and—they haven’t spent a day in the same room since. Not consciously, at least.
The infancy care section of the pharmaceutical aisles is located at the very back, high-AC corner of Walmart. There’s always something about standing in that aisle that causes Clara to feel her stomach cave in by a couple degrees. A little daunting. A bit too much for her.
They didn’t need to be here. But Clara took one look at her enervated friends, and another glance at the snow-trapped city streets and, well—
“Mia mentioned needing baby-safe detergent,” Clara confirms when Jason looks at her curiously when their cart comes to a halt. He nods at the clarification, and he’s about to search for the product before his eye is caught on the contents of their cart.
“The bows and ribbons are too cute,” Jason gushes softly to himself.
At this, Clara lets her mouth quirk into a small, self-satisfied smile. They had passed the children’s accessories section when Clara had the forethought to grab a couple of hair ornaments as a hopefully delightful surprise. She knows which he’s especially referring to, though, a twin-set of deep red and olive-colored fanny bows that complement Olivia’s name. It was an indulgence more than anything, a way to channel her love for dear friends and soon-to-be moms. Her time in her office means she doesn’t get to visit them as much as she’d want to, and to be the best godmother to Olivia is all she could try to do.
“I know. Olivia won’t be able to wear any of the ribbons for a while, but they’ll look good once she grows out her hair and all that.”
Something is imminent. Jason goes to flit through the aisles of detergent. “I need your eye for fashion. Everyone in our circle is having kids now and I’ll probably have to be getting them more than just toys and Legos once they’re older.”
“I had a girl-mom, you know. Of course, I’d dress them well,” Clara humors. “You’ll be in charge of baking their birthday cakes and fixing their chewed-up toys. Kids cling onto their toys until they’re all rags and fabric.”
“I’d know,” he chuckles. “Mom told you about Bobo, hasn’t she?” Clara remembers the stories of Bobo fondly. Less fondly, she also ignores how her stomach hollows at the mention of Jason’s mother. “The stuffed rabbit?” He continues, dropping the box of Downy’s baby detergent into their cart.
Clara snorts when Bobo is described as stuffed. “You mean eviscerated rabbit, right?” They let out a giggle together. “God, Bobo looked like he went through famine in the photos your mom sent me. I nearly cried for him.”
“I’d argue that Bobo was well-loved, thank you very much. I worked overtime as a single dad to him at the ripe age of four, give me more credit.”
“I think we’d have to ask Bobo for a testament to that.”
And the air is light, albeit fragile. And if this conversation goes somewhere Clara doesn’t want it to, then the next words that’ll come out of Jason’s mouth will be—
“Kids are a lot.”
“They are.”
“Our little nieces and nephews are going to be spoiled for the rest of their lives, though. They’ll be getting my birthday cakes and your presents.”
“Yes, nieces and nephews,” Clara echoes stiffly. It’s too stiff.
And this is her mistake. She hears something shatter in her eardrums. She let him dream too much again. They’re standing side by side but also parallel and miles away from each other, and he’s looking up with glazed eyes when he quietly implores, “Or, you know, our kid, maybe.”
“Then…” She registers her voice croaking like a broken record from her mouth. “Who would be the one to raise it?”
And the following silence that stretches makes Clara want to throw herself into a wall. To set herself into motion, to walk away, to be projected anywhere except where she is suspended right now. Because this moment in time begins to feel like the entirety of autumn collapsed into one day and it’s suddenly that October night and she’s waking up to seeing Jason defeatedly hunched over on the edge of their bed and she’s nearly vomiting from the guilt of forgetting their two-year anniversary. And a second hasn’t even elapsed before she finds herself back in late May and there is nothing in the world that could un-possess her from the tiny screen on Jason’s phone and the blackhole of text messages with thousands of cajoling demands for grandchildren from Mom.
Then, in the midst of it all, the soft rustle of wheels perturb their path. Jason’s eyes shoot up from the ground. Then parallel to them, again, as a mother and the child in her stroller push through opposite direction down the infancy care aisle. Clara makes the mistake of zeroing in on the baby formula in front of her, and another baby’s face is staring back at her from the packaging, but if she even glances away for a second then she’ll have to face the sight of Jason’s gaze traipse after that stroller and its mother.
The floor on the ground is flat—It should be. But from where she’s stilled, frozen in place, she thinks their cart is rolling away.
…
I think I can say with grave clarity that I will
never become a mother.
Though I think that no mountain in the world can trip
me over and that one day they will erode themselves
for me.
So when I die my first death one day, I’ll
never have the capacity to smile again. I’m scared one day
my children will eat me alive from my stomach and
throw me to the ground like
Titans.
And on my worst nights, I dream that I am holding a
tiny child who will never suckle my milk of affection
Because someday I will cease to be a hero
And with shame I will look at my own tiny child with
repulsion as if it were an extension of
myself (my failures). My flesh and blood instead of
my
flesh and
blood
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