Baby Strolling

Baby Strolling

by E. W. Shannon

Ona walked out of Stuyvesant Square Park, crossed Rutherford, and headed west on Sixteenth Street. At seven in the morning the damp fall air of late October 2020 sent a chill into her bare knuckles wrapped around the stroller's handle. This time of the morning had always been her favorite, the time when the sky goes from black, to purple, to dark blue in a matter of minutes. Most people never saw it; either sleeping or too busy staring at a screen to be concerned about something as mundane as the Earth travelling at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, while spinning and rocking back and forth on its axis. Ona was convinced 'Mother Earth' was a correct gendering, as only a woman could do so much at once so early in the day.

Every morning since she brought Annie home, they had made the same trek together. First to Union Square Park, then to Stuyvesant Square Park, and finally a slow stroll through Gramercy Park to see Edwin. The only thing that ever changed was the time, which she adjusted to keep the light that she loved. At Irving Place, Ona turned the stroller right and headed north. The sounds of the waking city were already starting to drown out the familiar rhythm of her steps and the stroller's wheels. She thought about how much had changed since this time last year.

Last October she was a month from her delivery date and filled with so much joy she was sure Annie was having to fight for space. Last year lipstick mattered and smiling happened with lips instead of eyes. Last year she didn't realize how much she read lips instead of listened to people. Last year she didn't get those looks from Jim when she came through the door pushing the two-thousand-dollar Fendi stroller. Last year they slept together. Last year was better.

She passed a storefront on the right and paused for a moment. It had been a small Italian restaurant with an old-world look to it. The owners had faux painted the walls to look like sixteenth century plaster and hung red and white checked curtains on polished brass rails in the window. They should have been celebrating their one-year anniversary, but the new businesses closed first. Hard enough to build up a clientele during the best of times, and these weren't those. Ona remembered walking past a year ago and the owner smiling at her through the window as he painted the name of the establishment in antique gold paint. It took him three days and looked beautiful. It took the landlord less than a minute to scrape it off and another minute to cover the window with black film. To Ona it exemplified the blackness trying to invade her life since last October, but she wouldn't have it. She looked up at the changing sky, took a deep cleansing breath, and kept walking.

At the south gate to Grammercy Park, Ona fumbled with her keys, but eventually managed to open it, and backed her way into the park with the stroller. Even at the beginning of fall, when most of the colors came from changing leaves, she still loved the little island of quiet. Being a private park, it was easy to keep six feet away from people, especially at such an early hour. She stopped and sat on a bench facing Edwin in his Hamlet costume and peeked in at Annie, safely shielded from COVID by a Burberry pashmina draped over the front of the stroller. She smiled at her quiet wide-eyed child and lowered the cover again.

The lights in the park went out, dropping her into a world where the colors of nature became different saturations of grey and the colors of man, like the yellow taxi passing the wrought iron fence, stuck out as if they weren't supposed to be there. Ona crossed her arms and legs and stared at Edwin looming over her. "It won't be so bad Annie, you'll see. Daddy said he'd make sure nothing happened to you while I was away. And it won't be that long, just two weeks. Maybe he can bring you up to visit me. The leaves up there are probably beautiful colors already. And don't worry, I made him promise to take you out for walks. I know how you like to get out in the morning; less people breathing around you and all. Of course, Daddy doesn't like to go on walks without a purpose; so, you'll probably see lots of the grocery store, the farmer's market, and that funny little liquor store he loves so much these days."

An elderly woman took a seat on the next bench, moved her mask below her chin, and sipped coffee from a blue paper cup bought at a nearby Korean market. Ona continued, "I wouldn't normally leave you, and I promise it won't happen again, but your father is insistent I get help. He thinks it's probably some post-partum depression or some such mumbo-jumbo. I don't feel depressed. Especially on our walks. They're the best part of my days."

The woman got up, repositioned her mask, and approached Ona and Annie. "Hi. I'm sorry to eavesdrop. I just wanted to let you know I think you are very brave for getting help. I had post-partem depression, but back in those days you just muddled through until it passed. Even with my husband being a psychiatrist, there wasn't much he could do."

Ona felt embarrassed somebody else knew her little secret. It was all she could do to meet the woman's gaze. "Well, um, thank you. It's nothing, I'm sure. My husband is a worrier."

"How old is your baby?"

"Eleven months."

"Can I see her?"

Before Ona could answer, the woman lifted a corner of the pashmina and revealed Ona's big secret. Gasping and stumbling on the gravel beneath her feet, the woman retreated, her eyes as wide as Annie's staring at her. She found her composure again and stared at Ona with the beginnings of tears. "I'm so sorry. I...I..." With no words to continue her thought she swallowed the lump in her throat and found the nearest gate to exit the park.

Ona let out a profound sigh and took the cover completely off the stroller. "Silly old woman," Ona said to Annie, "doesn't she know you're supposed to keep six feet apart?"

The sunlight lifted over Brooklyn, sending rays of light onto Manhattan. A window, tilted at just the right angle on a building bordering the north side of the park, reflected a bright beam of sunlight onto the stroller. The light bounced off the brushed stainless-steel urn sitting in the place of a child, blinding Ona for a moment, as if the universe was trying to wake her up to the reality she wasn't facing. Stuck to the top of the urn sat a doll's head staring blankly at a woman losing her grip. She paused for a moment and stared at the urn. Gingerly, with a mother's gentleness, Ona reached in, carefully took the doll head off the urn, placed it in her pocket, and recovered the stroller.

She got up and started towards the gate on the north side. "Say 'goodbye' to Edwin. You won't get to see him for a couple of weeks." Passing the pedestal of the statue, Ona noticed some dirt still loose from where the gardeners had planted daffodil bulbs. She took the head out of her pocket, kissed it on the forehead, and pressed it into the damp soil, leaving the face staring up at passersby. "Maybe your father will change his mind when he sees I took that off. It didn't really look like you anyway. I mean really, a baby with dark pencil thin eyebrows and light lashes. Who ever heard of something so strange?"