The day I loved my Baby.

The day I loved my Baby.

Wednesday 23^rd July was a scorching hot day. As I sat on the bus with Baby next to me, I looked out of the window and saw dirty snotty-nosed babies in battered pushchairs older than the girls pushing them. I looked at Baby, she smiled a toothless smile and scrunched her nose the way that she does. The bus was full of women with pot bellies round as perfect peaches, ready to deliver a new life. Some were red with the heat and exhaustion of the day, others were solemn faced and perturbed, perhaps with the anxiety of becoming mothers. My pregnancy came and went as fast as the sun rose and set on a short winter’s day. One minute I was hurling abuse at my boyfriend for using a year old condom, and the next; a brown slimy baby was at my side. She had dark dark hair and dark dark eyes. Eyes so dark, you could see your reflection in the deep chocolate irises. Even at a few hours old, all Baby did was smile at me. A strange knowing smile, I was never quite sure what to make of it. But I got used to it eventually.

I was half a mile up the road with two full shopping bags when I realized “I LEFT BABY ON THE BUS!!!!” I bent over myself and was sick. I had left my poor defenceless smiley baby on the bus and walked half a mile before realizing that I had left her. I took a few deep breaths and ran like the wind back to the bus stop I had got off at. My fingers fumbled manically as I tried to reach the police, my boyfriend, anyone who I thought could tell me just what the hell to do. As I approached the bus stop, I spotted an elderly lady in a fox fur stole and she had my Baby in her hands!!! I rushed with relief towards them and the lady smiled and handed her over to me. “You should be more careful my dear.” I nodded in shame and hurled Baby over my shoulder and walked off in disgrace.

Baby had the hiccups, I swirled her around, I said “BOO!” loudly several times, even turned her upside down and patted her on her back. This just made her giggle even more and made her hiccups worse. I sat down on a low wall in front of a posh gated house, just to catch my breath and let the sun dance on Baby’s face. She sighed and made noises like she was ready to go to sleep. I asked her “Are you ready to carry on?” Baby scrunched her nose and smiled. On we went. It felt like it was just Baby and I on a neverending red carpet. People who passed us looked on in admiration at Baby and I. Baby’s hair curled with perspiration and she looked in amazement at the fast cars that sped past us. When we walked under a tree with low branches and leaves, her small hands grabbed at the leaves. She was exhilarated.

Baby liked rap music. I blamed my boyfriend. When I was pregnant with Baby, he was forever playing Public Enemy and Dr Dre’s The Chronic album. Whenever she heard rap music, Baby would nod her head in time to the beat and wave her hands at a Dre bar. My rap was awful, but I would “spit a few bars” to entertain Baby.  I quietly muttered: Still not loving po’lice uh huh, still rocking my khakis with a cuff and a crease, still got love for the streets.” Baby laughed like a horse and threw her head back. Two builders working on a house watched my daughter and I laugh in the sun that day to Dr Dre. Baby, ever the showgirl, waved a small wave at the builders. One of them cocked his head at her and blew her kiss. He mouthed “She’s lovely babe,” to me. I nodded in agreement.

As the sun went down, Baby and I neared our final destination, her eyes opened and closed in half sleep, she was reaching out for the last rays of the sun with her fist clenching and unclenching. Before I opened the gate, I saw down on a lovely old wooden bench. Clearly it had been dedicated in memory of a loving son or father or grandfather or uncle. Or maybe even just a good friend. The name had eroded after many years of people catching their breath on the bench, young lovers kissing, women catching up with friends, a young mother with her sleeping baby.

I closed my eyes and opened them, Baby’s gravestone had an ever so small coating of dust from the heat of the day I supposed. I wiped the dust away with my palms and ran my fingers over the engravement. Baby was gone. I walked this walk every day with my Baby. One year old and neither I or her father had decided on a name so we just stuck to Baby. He had long gone now. To have children with someone else, children who grew up to love rap as much as he did. Baby loved rap from the day she had been conceived to the day her lungs breathed out her last breaths. That was the day when I realized that I had fallen in love with my Baby.