Tessie D

I went to the grocery store the other day with the baby. The sun was blazing hot at noon, the heat blaring down on us through the truck’s windshield, like ants burning up under a magnifying glass’s reflection. The cold air stopped working a long time ago, and we’d never fixed it. Instead, we rolled all the windows down and relied on, as Daddy called it, “nature’s air conditioning.” The sweat trickled behind my ear and dribbled down the small of my back, soaking my shirt. Baby’s cheeks were flushed, but she napped the entire way to town. I always put her car seat in the center of the truck bed since it’s a single cab and doesn’t have a back seat. She’s much too big for her car seat, and I know I should try and find a bigger, better seat, but they’re so expensive. I don’t have the money. Most everything I make goes to diapers and food. I bought the one she’s in now at a garage sale for $3.00, but I’m not sure really how safe it is. The seat belt goes across the top and it doesn’t have any sort of base to click into like the fancy ones I’ve seen at the store do. But, technically, it works, and they let me bring her home from the hospital in it. I say a little prayer everytime we go somewhere that I don’t have an accident. If we did, I guess she’d be at least bouncing around the truck in a plastic shell. 

I turned onto the paved road and the wind was whipping so hard through the truck’s cab that I couldn’t hear anything. I rolled up the window half way and turned up the radio. For a moment, with the sun shining and the music blaring on the radio, I was happy again. Lighter, like a boulder that I didn’t know was there had been sittting on top of me and had been lifted for a moment. I looked down at my baby and she was smiling back at me. My sweet baby.  The feeling stayed with me all the way into town. I didn’t feel like my old self. It wasn’t that at all, like I was transported back in time. I was still me, but I felt suddenly older, like the adult I actually was, not the sad teenager stumbling through the dark like I’d been for the past year. Suddenly, I felt hope. 

We drove into town and along main street, past weathered limestone buildings that had begun to crumble under the weight of their disrepair and past the jewerly store, florist shop, and soda bottling plant. We pulled into the grocery store parking lot, and I pulled the truck up to the front. I pulled the key back toward me, the music stopped suddenly in mid song.

“Ready, Spaghetti?” I asked looking down at my sweet baby. I hadn’t been out of the house, except to go to work, in weeks. Since the baby, I’ve hated going out in public. The last couple times I’d been grocery shopping, people gave me a hard time. You don’t want to pull out the food stamps card too early so that nobody sees it until the last minute. But, if you’re using WIC, you have to hand the cashier the paper tickets before they ring it up. And, you have to put everything on the conveor belt in the right order or they get mad. The whole thing takes so long, and someone will always walk up after me, right in the middle of it all. They’ll sigh. and then start muttering under their breath. Or, sometimes it’s the cashier ringing up the groceries. They aren’t supposed to say anything, but once they see you’re using food stamps, they start commenting on what you got:

God dammit, this gonna take forever now.

Why do you people think it’s okay to buy a whole watermelon with food stamps?

Must be nice to buy the namebrand juice.

I don’t think anyone using my tax dollars to buy groceries should be able to get ‘nothin but rice, beans, and milk. Why you need all this cereal? I ain’t got cereal at my house but you can get it for free.

I took a deep breath and unbuckled the baby from the car seat and stepped out of the truck. I reached back into the cab and lifted her out and into my arms. Freed from the confines of her seat, she stretched and yawned. I closed the heavy truck door, and it slammed loudly. We approached the front of the building, the automatic doors opened, and a rush of cold air greeted us. 

Inside, the aisles were mostly empty with just a few other women were shopping, but since it was the middle of the day and school started a few weeks ago, the store was otherwise empty and quiet. On a card table near the front, someone had set up a card table with cut outs of brown leaves and red applies with a handwritten sign, “Fall Back into School!” Only a few boxes of pencils, three wooden rulers, and a stack of green folders remained. Somehow, summer was over, and I’d missed it.

I grabbed a shopping cart, and we set off toward the dairy aisle. As I approached the cases, I saw Mrs. Carpenter, my third grade teacher pulling a carton of eggs off the shelf. She looked up and seemed to recognize me immediately. A smile spread across her face and her eyes lit up. 

“Why, hello there, Tess!” 

Without thinking, I returned her smile. I usually worried when I ran into someone from high school in town—immediately panicing, trying to read their face for recognition or disappointment. I understand now why we read The Scarlett Letter in high school. It’s a morality tale. A warning.

Bracing myself for the snide comments when they registered that I’d had a baby since the last time they saw me: Oh, wow. I thought you were a good girl. 

But, I thought you were smart.

Or, their mothers saying something: I never thought you, of all people, would get yourself pregnant.

You’d just better thank God you’re not my daughter or we’d be havin’ words.

You’re not gonna have a baby shower, right? We don’t want anyone thinking that this is something to celebrate or be happy about.

Sometimes, it was my own mother: Stay here at the house. I’m still too ashamed to be seen with you in public. 

I steeled myself against whatever Mrs. Carpenter was going to say. But, if she was surprised or disappointed, she didn’t show it. Instead, she looked down at my sweet baby sitting in the basket and smiled broadly. 

“Good afternoon, sweet girl! Aren’t you a precious little thing?”

My girl, with her wide eyes, looked up at Mrs. Carpenter and laughed. 

Mrs. Carpenter straightened up and returned her gaze back to me.

“Well, she is an absolute doll! I bet she has you just wrapped around her little finger. Those dark curls and bright blue eyes! I think she might be the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. You must be so proud of her.”

I was sure that Mrs. Carpenter says that about every baby she sees–and that she genuinely believes it.

I went on and finished my grocery shopping. While standing in line at the checkout counter, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the front windows. I recognized myself in the reflection, something I hadn’t been able to do for a while. It’s an odd sensation, looking into a mirror and feeling like you’re in a movie. You’re not seeing your reflection, but an imposter standing behind the mirror mimicking you. I hadn’t seen myself for months, just the imposter. But today, I saw a version of myself in the reflection. She looked older and plainer, but I could recognize her staring back.