Scared Eyes.

I saw a little girl Nonie's age today, left in her daddy's BMW wagon while he ran into a CVS for milk.

I was walking out of work and I saw her little head in her car seat and noticed her eyes looking quite scared. Did she think I was going to steal her?

I walked past her car and smiled the warmest, sweetest, motherest smile I could muster and through my curved mouth I wanted her to see that I was telling her that she would be okay.

Then, I waited (by my car) while her dad scurried from CVS (which has no windows so he definitely couldn't see her while he was in there) with a gallon of milk. He hopped in the car and he handed her a lollipop.

She was scared. She was clearly scared while he had left her. And was relieved that he was now back.

Before he got in the car, he made eye contact with me and by the look in his eye, I knew, that he knew, that he had done a bad, bad thing.

I should've said something to him.

I should've said nothing to him.

I should've said something to him.

What I wanted to do was ask for his wife's phone number. Because if she had just witnessed the fact that her baby was left in the car in a vast parking lot all by herself while her husband ran in for milk - she'd have killed him when he got home.

But maybe he'd just lost his wife in a car accident.

Or maybe his wife had just left him for another man.

Or maybe the mother was curled up beneath the back seat hiding from daddy - in a fun and friendly parking lot game - and the baby wasn't left by herself after all - and I'd be the foolish bystander passing judgement on things I know very little about.

Maybe.

But probably not.

So that is why I waited by my car until her daddy returned to her.

***

Why does the world test me everywhere I look and every time I turn around?

Would this milk-in-one-hand Dad have responded to me: "I know my baby"

Just as I'd shouted from the hilltops in my post below?

Who knows.

***

All I do know is that I can still see her scared eyes in my head as I type.