Part 3 — Elena and Mateo
I returned to the grocery store.
The woman was still there.
She looked surprised when my car stopped beside her.
I lowered the window.
“Hi.”
Her expression became cautious.
“Hi.”
“I saw you earlier.”
She nodded but said nothing.
“I brought some baby things.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“I don’t have money.”
“I don’t want money.”
I got out and opened my trunk.
She approached slowly with the baby still against her chest.
When she saw what I’d brought, she froze.
Bags filled the trunk.
The boxed stroller barely fit behind them.
She stared at everything, then looked at me.
“I can’t take all this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I mean… this is too much.”
“Please.”
Something in my voice must have reached her.
She stopped arguing.
“My name is Kate,” I said.
“I’m Elena.”
Her baby stirred.
I looked at him.
“What’s his name?”
“Mateo.”
She smiled when she said it, and that smile told me everything I needed to know about how deeply she loved him.
“He’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then Elena glanced into the trunk again.
“Why are you doing this?”
I knew the question would come.
I still wasn’t prepared for it.
“My son was supposed to use these.”
Her face changed immediately.
I looked down at the pavement.
“His name was Noah.”
Elena didn’t interrupt.
“He didn’t get to come home from the hospital.”
The words hurt.
But saying them to a stranger felt strangely easier than saying them to people who knew me.
Maybe because she didn’t have memories of pregnant Kate.
She didn’t know the nursery plans or the baby shower or how Thomas used to talk to my stomach every evening.
She only knew the woman standing in front of her.
“I’ve kept all of this in his room,” I continued. “I thought I needed it there.”
My voice trembled.
“But today I saw you holding Mateo, and I realized these things could either stay in a room collecting dust or they could help a child.”
Elena covered her mouth.
“I’m so sorry.”
I nodded.
She looked toward Mateo.
Then back at me.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
That surprised her.
I gave a small, broken laugh.
“I’m not sure about anything anymore.”
A tear rolled down my cheek.
“But I know I want you to have them.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
She carefully lowered Mateo’s carrier beside her and then covered her face with both hands.
Her shoulders began trembling.
She didn’t make a sound.
I understood that kind of crying.
Eventually, she lowered her hands.
“I keep promising him I’ll make things better,” she said. “Every night. I tell him this isn’t forever.”
“You don’t need everything figured out tonight.”
She looked at me.
“You’re here. You’re holding him. You’re trying. That matters.”
She wiped her cheek.
“Why did you choose me?”
“I don’t think I did.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I just needed somewhere for all this love to go.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Then Elena reached for my hand.
Her fingers closed around mine.
It was such a simple gesture.
But for the first time since Noah died, I didn’t feel like someone was looking at me as though I might shatter.
Elena simply stood there with me.
Two mothers.
Two completely different lives.
Both trying to make it through one more day.
We unloaded everything together.
She ran her fingertips across each little blanket as though it were precious.
When I pulled out the stroller, Elena laughed and cried at the same time.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve been carrying Mateo everywhere because I couldn’t afford one.”
“Then Noah’s stroller finally has somewhere to go.”
She looked at me carefully.
“I’ll tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“About Noah.”
My breath caught.
Elena placed her hand on the stroller box.
“When Mateo is old enough, I’ll tell him another little boy gave him his first stroller.”
I turned away for a second because I couldn’t speak.
Finally, I whispered, “I’d like that.”
I drove home with an empty car.
For weeks, emptiness had frightened me.
But that evening, it felt different.
I cooked dinner.
Real dinner.
I sat at the kitchen table and ate the whole plate.
Later, I turned on the television and actually watched part of a show.
And sometime after midnight, curled beneath a blanket on the couch, I fell asleep.
For the first time since Noah died, I slept until morning.
I didn’t know that while I slept, something extraordinary was happening outside my house.
For illustrative purposes only
