Chapter 174 : renewed by a child

 About ten minutes later Emmet came out the café with Mia and we got on with our shopping trip. It was at Mia’s request I got the job of pushing her around the city Centre and slowly and carefully with my hands gripped on tight to the pink handles of the buggy Esmee and Emmet led me back into the hustle and bustle of the main high street where everyone was running about trying to get everything done yesterday. I would of liked to have known what the rush was; why they didn’t feel like they could walk just that little bit slower or allow their child just one more minute to look in awe in the toy shop window, surely life was there to be enjoyed otherwise why where people so intent on living it?

 “So then where do you want to go first then birthday girl?” Esmee asked cheerfully knocking into my shoulder playfully as we come to a stop in front of a number of different shops.

 “Esmee!” I growled quietly at her through my teeth. “I have told Emmet once my birthday is not something I want to celebrate.” I moaned at her, Esmee was of course about to argue with me when Mia cut her off twisting herself round in her buggy to look at us, “Joose please,”  Mia asked smiling up at her mother and myself with a toothy grin stretched across her face.

 “It’s in the hood,” Esmee pointed as I searched the buggy with my eyes trying to work out in what hole it could be hidden, it appeared that Esmee was the kind of person that kept the kitchen sink attached somewhere to the buggy.

 “Here you go honey.” I said smiling at the little girl looking up at me as I handed her the juice out of the hood of the buggy.

 “Ta,” she said grabbing the Sippy cup by the handles and pushing it into her mouth before relaxing back into the buggy again her cheeks sucking in in the most adorable way as she drank the juice.

 “Oh isn’t she just the most adorable.” An elderly lady said to me smiling making me jump slightly before crouching down in front of the buggy and smoothing the side of Mia’s leg which made Mia act shy hiding her face behind her hands. I giggled and so did the lady as she got back up to her feet.

 “Is she yours? How Old is she?” The lady asked still chuckling to herself, the innocence of a child turning the world into smiles and giggles and melting the hearts of everyone. Once I had been like this too, in a buggy, small with wispy locks of black hair and a toothy grin, once I had made the world smile like this even if I had never made my mother’s heart sing. I could not remember the exact time and date when I had become flawed, when I fell from grace. Maybe it was a decade ago when Joe had ripped up my insides and stained the sheets red or maybe it was before then. Maybe I had never been pure; a child born evil.

 “Two,” I answered shaking off my feeling and smiling as the woman gave Mi one last smile before walking away leaving me full of a mothers pride that didn’t really belong to me but swelled inside me anyway. I longed for the toddler in the chair in front of me to be mine more then I longed for anything else in the world, it was like everything could be solved, all could be forgiven and forgotten, I could become good again, renewed, if I had a baby of my own.