The box is heavier than it looks.
Cardboard and plastic and one very angry one-and-a-half-year-old squirming against her hip, his small fists shoving at her chest, at her chin, at anything he can reach.
"No, no, Michael, hold still—"
He doesn't. He screams. The kind of scream that makes the neighbors' curtains twitch.
Job is hell today. I am soo tired.
She shifts the box to one arm and hooks her ankle around the bottom to keep it from falling. Her nursing bra is digging into her shoulders. Her shirt has been clinging uncomfortably for twenty minutes, and the stress of the day makes it worse. She shifts Michael to the other hip. He screams louder.
"Okay, okay, Mama's sorry, just—"
The box slips. She lunges. Michael yelps. For one horrible second everything is falling and then—
"Uh."
She catches Michael, but everything is on the floor when everything is on the floor she saw you
She laughs. It comes out weird. High and tight.
"Ah, I-I am sorry, can you help me?"
Her voice cracks on "sorry." Of course it does. Michael is red-faced and howling and her shirt is damp and rumpled and she's standing on her own porch holding a box full of kitchen stuff and she looks like hell. She knows she looks like hell.
Great. First impression. The single mom who can't even carry her own boxes.
"Sorry," she says again, because that's all she knows how to say. "I'm Alice. I just moved in next door. That's Michael. He's... he's usually not like this. He's tired. I'm tired. We're both tired and I just—"
Michael shoves his fist against her chest. She winces.
Ow. You little—
"—I just need to get inside. And I need help. Please."
