The fluorescent, tube style lighting of the pediatric clinic staff pantry hummed a dull, monotonous, vibrating tune. It was a frequency that usually faded into the background of my twelve hour shifts, but today, it felt like a heavy power tool pressing directly into my skull.
I stood motionless by the cold, stainless steel sink. I stared blankly at the expiration date stamped in dark blue ink on a carton of two percent milk resting on the counter. The date read October twelfth. I read it three times, trying to anchor my mind to something tangible because the foundation of my entire reality was currently liquefying beneath my feet.
I was completely exhausted. My lower back throbbed with a familiar ache, and my feet were swollen from pacing the linoleum floors of the ward since six in the morning. In the child seat of the metal grocery cart I had pushed through the supermarket an hour prior, my five year old son, Toby, had been swinging his short legs, happily humming the theme song to a popular animated dog show.
We had been the absolute picture of ordinary suburban peace. The tired, hardworking mother and her innocent child running Tuesday afternoon errands.
And then, the universe violently ruptured.
Toby had stopped humming. He froze, his small body going rigid in the cart. He reached out with a slightly sticky hand and urgently tugged on the sleeve of my navy blue medical scrubs.
“Mommy, look!” Toby whispered, his voice pitching loud in the quiet bread aisle. He pointed a tiny finger directly toward the glass bakery display case twenty feet away. “That is the lady who comes to our house when you are at work! That is the lady who plays in your bedroom!”
