You used to see her in the grocery store before COVID-19—the young mother in the pajama pants with two or three kids in tow, one of them wailing.
Her discontented countenance is etched in your mind. As she fires off some crazy threat to one of the children, everyone in the aisle glances up, then down quickly, as they see her grab and jerk a small arm in frustration. No one says anything to her, of course, but they all stop thinking about their grocery lists for a minute. The parents in the aisle have all been there at least occasionally and whisper a prayer for the little family. The grandparents in the aisle are wistful, maybe thinking of past mistakes, and the childless reconfirm the reasons they don’t have children.
