Free Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Redfearn Page B

another baby. I can’t.
    My eyes fill with tears.
    My petrifaction makes me think about the stories I’ve read of victims of genocide marching to their deaths. I’ve always wondered why they didn’t make a run for it. They were going to die anyway. Why not at least try? But I understand. It’s because fear paralyzes. It replaces logical thought with a numbing inability to alter your destiny.
    With a deep breath, I walk into the store, buy a dose of Next Choice, a thirty-five-dollar solution to an otherwise lifelong mistake, and swallow it in the bathroom, a lifetime of regret averted…for the moment.
    When I pull into the garage ten minutes later, Gordon’s Cayenne is gone.
    At the door, I pause, take a deep breath, then with a smile pasted on my face, step into my home.
    The kitchen is empty. I dump the smile and my pumps in the shoe basket next to the door and slide the briefcase into the small cabinet designed for just such a purpose.
    “Hello,” I call.
    No answer.
    Through the sliding door, the yard is empty. The yellow swings on the cedar play set that rarely get used sway slightly in the breeze, and in the distance, the last light of day rides the golden hills in the canyon.
    I move to the notepad beside the phone where we leave our messages.
    J., Bank called. I took the kids, G.
    I stare, unsure how to interpret the words. Bank called —does this mean he knows I called about our accounts? I took the kids —to the market, to the park, to another country?
    I brace myself against the counter.
    A second later, the front door flies open.
    “Mommy, Mommy, I made something else for youwr bewrthday.”
    I catch the sweet bundle hurling toward me, squeeze her tight, and bury my nose into her little-girl smell—strawberries and the slightest remnant of baby.
    Addie squirms from my arms, darts to the refrigerator, and yanks open the door.
    A second later, she reappears balancing a plate loaded with brown disks in her outstretched hands.
    “Happy bewrthday again,” she says.
    I grab one of the strange-shaped, almost brown, almost black morsels and bravely take a giant bite. The taste is something akin to cardboard baked hard with cinnamon on top. “Mmmm, mmmm, delicious.”
    Behind Addie, Gordon and Drew enter the kitchen. Drew’s in his practice uniform and his brow is damp, and guilt wraps my gut like a tourniquet. Drew’s cherub face is even more sullen than usual. He’s probably been “practicing” since he got home from school. I was forty-five minutes late; that means forty-five more minutes of practice.
    Gordon has a new baseball training ritual that borders on child torture—Drew needs to make a hundred throws and catches in succession or they need to start over. A week ago, Drew threw for three hours and never achieved the goal. Finally when the light gave up, so did Gordon.
    Together, Gordon and I go upstairs to get changed for our dinner out with my parents.
    As I zip the back of my boots, I say, “You can’t keep riding Drew the way you do.”
    Gordon smooths his hair into place in front of the full-length mirror. “He’s fine.”
    “He’s not.” I don’t tell him about Drew’s bout with toad-sadism at Gina’s or the difficulties he’s having in school, too afraid of what his reaction might be.
    “He’s fine,” Gordon repeats, the tone leaving no room for debate.
    “Gordon, please? He’s only eight. You can’t expect him to catch and throw a ball a hundred times without dropping one.”
    “Don’t question how I raise my son.”
    Our son. “I’m not questioning your intentions, just your technique.”
    I’m being reckless and stupid, and perhaps this is deliberate. Suddenly I’m impatient for things to change, for things to either get better or worse, no longer willing to allow them to stay the same. Completely contrary to what I told myself I was going to do—be rational and deliberate, take control—I do the opposite, and like a car careening toward a cliff, instead of