The baby wiggled in her arms, fighting his hands out of the blankets swaddled around him. She tried to shift him, and he gave a dissatisfied whine. The nurse stuffed pamphlets into the side pocket of the second-hand diaper bag Emma had on her shoulder. "There's this. Information about bottles, getting on a sleep cycle, oh and this might be helpful." The lady held up one obnoxiously cheerful-looking booklet printed in white and blue. "A program for new single moms. Might want to read up on that one."
Emma didn't miss the disapproving crispness in her voice.
"Um, thanks." She steered herself and her…son…for the wheelchair poised at the doorway. In any another situation, she would've come back at this lady with a sharp 'what the hell do you know?' but right now she didn't have the energy.
The baby was wiggling against her like he wanted to escape, to be given to anyone else. Anyone but the lady…the girl…who'd just left prison and would put him to bed tonight in an antique bassinet she'd found for ten bucks at a thrift shop. He should've gone to someone else, to a mom who knew what the hell she was doing. To someone who had a big house and a good job, and didn't have such weak judgment.
The ride outside was smooth and silent, and it reminded her all too much of a similar journey she'd taken from the prison only a few months ago. It couldn't be irony that she'd be released and only have time secure a squalid one-bedroom before being thrust into another sort of prison, but it sure as hell felt like it.
Henry finally calmed down, and settled his head against her breast, eyes closed and the little blue cap on his head puckering at the top as it threatened to slip off. She tugged it down, and smoothed a finger over the bit of dark fringe poking out.
This wasn't the right thing to do. The right thing would've been to stay with what she and her case manager had decided weeks before she'd been released. But all of her belief that she could put another baby into the system without guilt vanished when she heard his first cries. She couldn't do it. Not when she saw him. Not when they put him on her chest even though she'd asked them not to. Not when they showed her his little ink footprints and asked her to name him.
But she couldn't blame anyone but herself now, and since when had she known herself to make good decisions?
The wheels bumped over the metal jamb of the sliding front doors, jostling the baby.
When she didn't get up at first, the nurse sighed impatiently behind her.
"Thanks," she said again, rising hesitantly. "Um…so we'll…" She hitched the diaper bag higher up on her shoulder and pointed to Henry. But the nurse was already steering the empty wheel chair inside like she was participating in a Formula One.
"Shit," she huffed under her breath, and looked down at the baby. "Sorry."
Her car, already loaded with a car seat, wasn't waiting far. The center seat was the safest place for the car seat, she remembered her case manager had said when she handed over the keys to the donated and ancient rust red car. She dropped the bag on the concrete, and fumbled with strapping him in. When she moved his arm to tuck it under the webbing of the seatbelt, it felt like any sort of bend would break him.
"God, you're so little." She scooted onto the back passenger seat, looking him over. His tiny fingers were curled at his cheeks, and though his eyes were closed he was cooing softly. She drew a hand over his head again, and dared to pull off the little blue cap to reveal the thick strands of dark hair that were his father's.
"I'm really scared," she admitted. To herself more than to him. His little head was so soft. His little ears were no bigger than the pad of her thumb. "I don't…" She felt her throat tighten. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing…"
His little head bumped against her hand when he wriggled again, and for whatever reason she decided to take it as encouragement.
"I'm really…" Before she could catch it, a tear dripped onto the white fleece blanket that was cuddled around him. "I'm really sorry…" she said to him, almost voicelessly.
Henry's fingers found her thumb and squeezed tight. It only made her vision blur.
"I'm really sorry."