Rest Stop Stories by Amanda McCormack

Author:Amanda McCormack [Amanda McCormack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Enfield Arts
Published: 2023-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Spring Before the Baby

Springtime is a season of renewal. Of rebirth. And birth itself. She can’t help thinking that as she walks down the streets of Boston, the fragrant blossoms on the trees around her drifting through the warm air.

Her season of birth will be September. That’s when the baby will be born.

She slows down a little as she approaches the crosswalk. Maybe this walk was a bad idea. She’s early in her second trimester, but her body has been hard at work creating tiny limbs and another beating heart. She’s exhausted and the workday was long. Maybe she should have gotten on the train at her usual stop instead of walking all the way down to the next station.

But the blossoms. The carefully cultivated lilac bushes outside a brownstone’s entrance and the crab apple trees in the park as she passes by. Their sweet fragrances and colorful blooms push her forward.

Next year she’ll show the baby all of this.

She doesn’t feel him kicking yet. She knows he’s in there, his movements fast, furious, and too small for her to feel. And she knows that the time is coming when she’ll feel those little limbs so clearly. When she’ll feel a kick in her side as she sits at her work computer. When she’ll excitedly slide her partner’s hand over her abdomen so that he can feel this new life as well.

That will probably happen in the spring. Even if the birth season for their own little family won’t be until these flowers are long gone, the leaves that replaced them beginning to wilt as this new life arrives.

She can see it so clearly in her mind’s eye. She’ll be pushing the stroller, that beautiful purple one her mother has already purchased. The baby will be older by next spring, no longer a fuzzy newborn but a curious little thing with eyes that shine as they see a purple flower peeking into his stroller.

By that point I’ll be eight months into this, she realizes. Eight months into parenthood. Her body will be hers again, after sharing it for so long. She has a twinge of jealousy when she thinks of the animals giving birth right now. They got to hibernate all winter. She’s still going to work full-time and then getting on the train home.

A man nods a brusque hello to her as he steps out of her way on the sidewalk. She nods back, a hand automatically moving to her abdomen. Her swollen feet are starting to ache, even in the comfortable sneakers she switched into after her shift.

Not far now to the next stop. Her back is sore, pain radiating from the small of her back down into her legs. But the air is warm, the trees are blossoming, and there’s a dull murmur of other people chatting and enjoying their time in the sun.

Soon, baby, she promises. Soon you’ll be out here too and you can feel the sunshine on your skin. You can taste ice cream, just a little.

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