Jo stared at the celery for a full fifteen seconds, trying to remember if she had to buy the organic kind to avoid her family growing tails. A whiny voice behind her started it’s “MoooOOOOOOOMMMMM” siren, and she closed her eyes for a beat before responding. What she wouldn’t give to shop alone. To have no kids complaining, begging, orbiting her like planets. She didn’t want to be anyone’s sun today. She was so tired. Tired of them. Tired of this. This…what? This routine? This role? This life? She just wanted to be left alone.

On cue, the guilty spoiled milk feeling rose to the top of her stomach. Fine, yes. She knew it. She was a dick. Good moms don’t think these things. She didn’t deserve them. Pasting a smile on her face — they shouldn’t see her scowling ALL the time — she turned to shine some of her attention on her girls. They weren’t by her cart, though. That whine hadn’t belonged to hers at all, but to a little boy, already sitting on the floor deep in tantrum, his weary mom kneeling next to him, bribing him with grapes.

Jo’s own girls were not there. Her cart was, but they weren’t. The Paw Patrol backpack full of crap from home wasn’t in the cart, either.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said, under her breath. Her mantra.

She stood on her toes to peer around the produce section. God, why did they do this? They knew they were in a hurry to get to Charlotte’s guitar lesson. Grinding her teeth, she yanked the cart around and headed toward the seafood section.

By the time Jo jogged her empty cart through the entire store and returned to the produce section, an icy feeling was crawling up the back of her skull. Someone had taken them. Someone was hurting them. She’d done this. Jo rushed on a beige-vested employee stocking parsley, her voice pinched as she explained. The woman’s pleasant customer service face dropped and she reached for her headset. Management. Protocol. Overhead announcements, “Good morning, shoppers. If you’ve seen…“

The cramped office behind the customer service desk smelled like cereal and tape. A skinny kid barely out of his teens introduced himself as Mike, the store manager. Neck acne on Mike’s Adam’s apple bounced while he chewed gum and typed on a keyboard. He pointed to the little monitor on a shelf above the metal desk, at a grainy, wide view of the produce section. Jo leaned past him, straining to see a little girl-stealing villain, but all she could see was herself, alone in front of the vegetables, standing there for an eternity, her empty cart behind her. Rewind, rewind! Mike noted, helpfully, that there was no tape to rewind, he was toggling between digital recordings from the different cameras. Thanks, Mike. Jo walking slowly, pushing her empty cart into the produce section. Alone. Rewind, rewind! Jo entering the store. No girls. No backpack. Just Jo. Rewind, rewind. There was nothing else to show.

It was just Jo. Alone. There was no villain. Just her. What did this mean? What had she done? Was she losing her mind? Had she somehow wished her kids away? Was she a witch?

Mike cleared his throat, not quite looking at her. He said they could call the police to check it out, but reminded her that, uh, it was a, crime to call the police in a false emergency, or whatever. She sat numb, not taking her eyes off the monitor. Waiting for it to change. For it to make sense. An overhead announcement about canned beans crackled loudly and and she stood, knocking over the folding chair. She stammered an apology, an excuse, some words meant to make sense, but nothing did. She backed out of the office and bolted from the store. A fully-grown person wouldn’t have let her go, but this kid seemed glad to be rid of the crazy lady.

……………..

The house at the address on the license was a condo. The key on the keychain in the purse worked. It was very white inside. White floors, white carpet in the living room. White walls. Expensive-looking, clean furniture. Some of that was even white. It was so quiet. She took off her shoes and shuffled around, feeling like she shouldn’t make too much noise for fear of being caught…by whom? There was no evidence that anyone else lived there. Just…her. She picked up a picture of her parents on a bookshelf. In the kitchen there was food she liked. So many vegetables. No fruit snacks. There were bills on the counter in her name. Just her name. Her head throbbed.

Finding the bedroom, Jo saw a high, huge bed with a fluffy white duvet. It seemed inappropriate to get in it with her sweaty, soiled clothes, so she slid them off and looked down on herself. Her body. It was hers, but not. The breasts were smaller, higher. The waist was…there was no c-section scar, no shelf above it. She collapsed into the bed, wrapping her arms around herself. She closed her eyes, but they flew open when she remembered that Charlotte was late for her guitar lesson.

— — — — — — -///// — — — — — — —

This is part of a short story I wrote this week that I may or may not insert into my novel somehow. It’s an evolution of a dream I’ve had. One moment suddenly finding it all gone; the motherhood, the marriage. Not in a death way, just in a never was, in a ‘the last twenty years have all been a hallucination’ sort of way. It’s easy to imagine why I have this fantasy. I crave being alone, and so seldom am, especially now. I have this fantasy when I’m feeling crowded in on, when I’ve lost my footing, when the need of those around me has choked off my air. So I wrote out how it would happen- the panic, the sense of lunacy and disbelief, of regret, and then curiosity, maybe even excitement, relief. In the end, I think the goal would be assimilating the alone place with the crowded place.

And, look, I know this might come off as crass and cruel. Do I lack gratitude? Probably. I understand that people would give up their kingdoms to be able to have their own children. I was people. I begged, bargained, wrecked myself in my wanting for pregnancies. I had a sense I could never be whole, that I couldn’t woman fully if I didn’t mother. Social structure has since taught me that because I mother I have to person less. There are limitations when you have to keep other people alive, fed, fucking content.

I don’t actually wish to wake up and find out I never mom’d, and I certainly don’t want to un-mom now that I mom (dear God), but holy hell the fantasy is fresh.

How would I advise women I know who are on the fence about having kids? Would I encourage my daughter? The dream will shatter you, my dear. Are you willing to hand out pieces of yourself? The exhaustion is deep, the hunger is brazen. The wistfulness, real.