2004-12-19 - Memories suppressed:

The plastic grocery bag tears, and she catches the 4L bag of milk in mid-fall. Hauls it up again. Props the butt of it against the curve of her hip, the crook her arm balancing it there. Like a child.

She continues walking. A bubble of memory surfaces from the depths.

How women carry a child easily, with a cocked hip. Distributing the weight against her own frame. Using her arm to keep the child planted, steady.

How men have trouble doing this; a child's legs sliding off a more slender hip. How men tend to splay a hand neatly beneath a child's bum instead. True, men generally have stronger arms, but it is more awkward this way. The weight of the child balanced in a curved palm.

Joseph's curved palm. Beneath Lana's diapered bum. Balanced.

Of course, that was before. Before everything.

A bubble of guilt rises now, nudging aside the memory bubble. Where do these bubbles come from, she wonders. Bubbling to my surface.

They said there was nothing she could have done. It was an accident. But still. A mother is not so easily reassured.

She quickens her pace. An ulp of regret escapes, involuntary. The milk still poised on her hip.