“I’m driving myself…except”—newly worried eyes darted to the window—“I can’t. My car is still back at the drugstore.”
He held his tongue about the likelihood it had been towed by now, because someone who drove a circa 2005 Subaru Outback would probably land right back in the hospital if she knew she had a hefty tow and impound bill in her immediate future.
“That’s okay.” Alyssa patted her leg. “Maybe you can call a fam”—she glanced around the empty room and adjusted on the fly—“a friend to drive you home?” Her pointed gaze landed on him.
“I can drive you home,” he volunteered. Sort of.
Madison hugged Joy to her, as if this was a test, and if she failed, she’d lose her daughter. “You don’t have to. I can call…someone.” Her eyes wandered to the room phone sitting on the bedside table.
Right. She could call the tooth fairy, or Santa Claus, or worse, the loser who had planted a baby in her belly and then fucked up so badly she’d refrained from uttering his name even once while labor pains tore through her. That motherfucker wasn’t getting back in the picture on his watch. “I insist.”
“Wonderful.” Alyssa brought her hands together and beamed. “Now, you do have an infant car seat that meets federal and state safety standards in your vehicle, correct?”
Fuck. He looked at Madison.
“It’s in my car.”
“I can go get it.” He held out his hand for her keys. Might as well solve the car question sooner rather than later.
Madison retrieved her keys from the bedside table and then handed them over. He absently noted her nail beds showed good color, while listening as she rattled off the car’s location—a Dome Drugstore parking lot at the corner of… He held back a wince as she rattled off an intersection in a crappy area of town. What was she doing shopping there?
“Okay,” he said and got to his feet. “Y’all finish up on the paperwork and whatnot. I’ll be back in”—he mentally judged the distance to her car’s last known location and then tacked on some contingency time if he needed to stop somewhere and buy a car seat—“forty minutes.”
“Perfect.” Alyssa gave him a thumbs-up, and he hit the road. Surface streets took him to the janky Dome Drugstore, and a cruise through the small parking lot confirmed her car was gone. He pulled out his phone and keyed in the telephone number on the sign warning shoppers of the strictly enforced two-hour parking limit. Hopefully her car had been towed and not stolen, but she’d have to call the tow yard and sort it out, because he didn’t know her license plate number.
Siri got him to the nearest Target. He grabbed a red cart and headed to the baby section as fast as the wonky wheels would permit. Then he made a left turn into…holy shitsville. Two aisles of car seats confronted him. All he wanted to do was get the damn seat, put it in the cart, and get the hell out. But nooooo, it couldn’t be that easy. He had to narrow it down by size, weight, and whether it should be compatible with X type of carrier, or Y type of stroller, or a fuckton of other accessories. He turned to a woman standing nearby with one kid in the front of the cart, one strapped to her chest, and what appeared to be one on the way, but he knew better than to speculate on that out loud.
“One-month old. Which do I choose?”
“What’s the theme?”
“Huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, we’ll take it down a level. Boy or girl?”
“Girl.”
“Aw. Congratulations. Well, you’ve come to the right person, because I have some experience”—she patted the kid in the cart, and then the one in the strap-on—“and this is the best, in my opinion.” She tapped an elaborately decorated fingernail to a box displaying a cushiony-looking car seat.
“Awesome. Thanks so…” He blinked, squeezed his eyes shut, and blinked again as the three hundred and forty-nine dollar price swam in front of his eyes. “…much.”
“It looks like a lot, but trust me, it’s going to save you chiropractic visits in the long run.”
He pulled one of the big boxes from the shelf, deposited it in his cart, and then rubbed a spot near his temple, where his own personal version of a labor pain started to throb. “Got it. I appreciate the help.”
“No worries.” She hefted her distended belly. “What else do you need?”
He started to say “nothing” but then thought about Madison with nothing to wear except yesterday’s clothes, which had spent time on a dirty drugstore floor.
“Uh, maybe something comfortable for a new mom to wear?”
“Follow me.”
What happened next would remain a blur in his mind if he stayed lucky. Clothes, and stuff, and then more stuff, went into his cart, from sections of Target he’d never dreamed of visiting. He handed over his credit card at checkout without so much as a wince.
He was numb, and he had to get back.
His Target tour guide supervised him while he installed the car seat, and then he raced back to the hospital.