“Yeah, but…” I began, and then broke it off when Liv started running away from me. “Shit, she’s getting away. Last time I had to pay for five containers of ice cream because she’d stuck her face in them to make snow angels.” I didn’t get to hear what he replied with because she suddenly changed course and ran down an aisle that was two down from where I was. “Damn it, I’ve got to go.”
Hanging up, I threw my phone in my purse and waddled toward where I’d last seen her - at the aisle with a display of the biggest boxes of tampons I’d ever seen in my life at the end of it. How much of a slap in the face was that?
Steering around the corner, I saw my daughter first, and then I saw my sister standing hunched over. Things happened in the blink of an eye as Liv squealed as she ran up to her aunt. Tabby looked up and saw both of us and then held her hand out to Liv to tell her to stop for some reason. As soon as she did it, her face scrunched up, and she hunched over again, just as Liv went skidding across the tile floor, landing on her back in a puddle of water, immediately moving her legs and arms like she was making snow angels. I blamed a cartoon where a kid lived in the desert and had come up with puddles and ice cream as his way to make them, all of which Liv had obviously absorbed. Concerned with what had made the puddle, I walked up behind Liv and dealt with her first. “Get up now, please. We don’t know where the water came from, it could be someone’s tinkle.” Please, God, don’t let it be pee.
“Aunt Tabby went sissy,” Liv pointed at her aunt, just as Dave walked up behind her, looking concerned for his wife but still winking at the two of us.
“Well, fireball, you just can’t do anything normally can you,” he chuckled, lifting her up and walking toward the exit. Seeing the fluid dripping from her feet, I realized Liv was partly correct when she’d said it was her aunt’s pee, because my sister was in labor. Abandoning the empty cart, I followed behind them, grimacing at the state of my daughter as she skipped in front of me. “You gonna give me a baby in a couple of hours?” Dave asked as I grabbed a packet of wipes to clean Liv with, passing a five-dollar bill to the manager of the store who was watching it all in horror.
“Keep the change,” I muttered. “Oh, and you’re gonna need a cleanup in aisle three,” I winced, feeling terrible for whoever got the job.
As Dave put her inside her car, it became clear to anyone near them that she would not be giving birth in a couple of hours. She had a couple minutes max before her spawn made its way out of her cooter, which meant she was pushing in the car park, and in her nice new car.
“She just couldn’t do it normally, could she?” Ellis’s voice rumbled in my ear making me scream and jump. “Daddy!” Liv yelled, holding her hands up in the air to be picked up.
As he bent down to do just that, I passed him the wipes and shook my head. “You might not want to do that. This,” I pointed at her wet back, “came from Tabby’s vagina, and your daughter made snow angels in it.”
Gagging, he took the wipes and looked at a loss where he was meant to start. “Dude, gross.”
“There are some clean clothes in the bag in my car, but you’ve got to find your own way to Mexico,” I told him distractedly, seeing Dave put Tabby into position with her legs wide open. “Is he really going to catch his own kid?”
Just then, the Townsends walked through the crowd of spectators gathering around, and with their backs to the crime scene, started pushing them further away from the birth of my niece or nephew. “You might want to go and help them,” my husband suggested, nudging me toward them. “I’ve got a bag with some of her clothes in it in my truck, too, so I’ll clean her up and bring her back.”
“Might wanna burn them,” I mumbled, stumbling over to the side of the car that didn’t have Tabby’s vagina on display from it. I opened the door and leaned in just in time to hear her yell, “This is not a beautiful experience.”
“Shut up and push,” I snorted, laughing when she jumped and glared at me. Yup, I might be the size of an elephant, but it was good to know I was still as sneaky as a Facebook ninja cat.