Chapter 2 - WHY I WAS IN THE STREET
Six weeks earlier, Grandpa had handed me the keys to the Cadillac in the hospital parking garage.
I had just been discharged with Noah after a long labor that ended in an emergency delivery. I was swollen, shaking, and trying not to panic every time my son made a new sound.
Grandpa pressed the keys into my palm and said, “A mother with a newborn doesn’t need stress about transportation. This is yours.”
I cried so hard I could barely thank him.
My parents smiled for the photo.
Lauren had smiled too, but I knew that look. It was the same look she wore when someone else got engaged first, got promoted first, got noticed at all.
The Cadillac had been in my name from the beginning. Grandpa handled everything himself. Insurance. Title. Registration. He told me he wanted there to be no confusion later.
At the time, I thought he was being old-fashioned.
I didn’t realize he was being careful.
Three weeks after Noah came home, Lauren asked to “borrow” the Cadillac for one night.
Her own car had transmission issues, and she had a dinner with a man she was trying very hard to impress.
Mom said family helped family.
Dad said it was just one night.
I said no.
Then Mom cried.
Then Lauren accused me of acting superior because I had a baby and “suddenly thought the world owed me special treatment.”
Dad said I was overreacting.
And by the end of that evening, Lauren had the keys.
One night became four.
Then a week.
Then suddenly the Cadillac was “easier” for Lauren to use because she worked across town and I was “mostly home anyway.”
Mostly home.
As if being postpartum, sleep-starved, and caring for a newborn meant I had no need to go anywhere.
When I asked for the car back for Noah’s pediatric appointment, Mom drove me.
When I asked again for groceries, Dad said I could order delivery.
When I pointed out that the car belonged to me, Lauren laughed and said, “Grandpa bought it. It’s not like you earned it.”
That morning, I needed to pick up infant medication from the pharmacy and couldn’t wait for anyone to decide whether I deserved transportation.
So I bundled Noah against my chest, pulled the old bicycle out of the garage to help me carry the diaper bag and supplies, and started walking.
I never rode it.
I just pushed it.
Then the tire burst half a block from home.
And there I was, standing in the slush like my entire life had been reduced to one humiliating image.
My newborn.
May you like
My broken bicycle.
And my sister leaning beside my Cadillac.
