My daughter’s crying snapped me out of it faster than the slap did.
She was still wearing the little plastic hospital bracelet and shaking so hard she could barely hold onto me. One of our trash bags had split open across the lawn. Baby clothes, formula cans, and the stuffed elephant somebody gave us at the hospital were sitting in wet grass.
My mother kept yelling about rent from the porch while the neighbors watched through their blinds.
I remember looking at my father waiting for him to act embarrassed. Instead he just said, “You have a kid now. Grow up.”
So I loaded what I could into the car and drove to the grocery store where I worked before maternity leave. I sat in the parking lot for almost an hour trying to figure out where we’d sleep.
Then my manager came outside herself.
My mother had already called the store telling people I was “unstable” and violent. I thought I was about to lose my job too.
Instead, my manager handed me a spare key.
Her son had moved out two months earlier. Small basement apartment. Nothing fancy, but clean. She told me I could stay there until I got back on my feet.
I lived in that basement almost a year.
My daughter took her first steps on those ugly linoleum floors.
And my parents still don’t understand why I never brought her back to visit them again.