Another Life

45

(Eighteen Months Later)

As we walked around the isles of back to school supplies I was being stopped every few seconds when Macie would walk in front of the cart to get to the shelves. Eventually I had laughed, picked her up and put her in the cart to keep her out of the way because I didn't want to run her over. I told her not to stand up when I was pushing and she listened, only getting to her feet when the cart was stationary.

I stopped it halfway down the third isle and looked at the almost empty shelves. Kids were going back to school this week and clearly parents had been more prepared than me. I pointed at the limited choice of lunchboxes.

"Which one do you want, Mae?" I ask.

She peers over the side of the cart and then gets to her feet, making sure not to stand on the packets of pens, pencils and other things I had quickly grabbed. She then looks at me and throws her head back slightly. "I already have a lunchbox." She replies.

I nod and continue to look over the stack. "Yeah but you're starting kindergarten this week, you get a new lunchbox for that." I tell her.

Her eyes widen and she snaps her head in the direction, practically buzzing as she checks out the choice. It's not a beat later that she jumps and points in the direction of the one with the familiar red-headed doll on the front. "I want Jessie!" She shouts excitedly.

I lean forward and grab the lunchbox, throwing it into the cart. Macie then sits back down anticipating it to start moving again and grabs the lunchbox, pulling it into her lap. I don't move though and continue to look at the shelf.

Macie looks over her shoulder. "Mommy, what are you doing?" She asks.

I knit my eyebrows together. "What lunchbox do you think your brother would like?" I question.

Mae gets up on her knees and smiles. "Alfie isn't  going kindergarden too, silly."

I chuckle at her words and hold off on reminding her it wasn't 'garden'. "I know, but he's starting at your old preschool this week too, he needs a lunchbox."

Macie looks at the shelves again for a moment before sinking. "Alfie needs a Buzz one or a Woody one so we matching but there aren't any Buzz or Woody ones." She sighs.

I point to the one a few down from me. "What about the one with the 'Octonauts' on? He likes them."

She seems to still be sulking about the fact they wouldn't be able to have a matching lunchboxes but she nods. To be honest I was amazed there was still the one with Jessie on for her, I wasn't surprised there wasn't one with Woody or Buzz. I grabbed the lunchbox and put it beside her and that's when she looked up at me.

"Are we going home yet?" She asks.

I shake my head and start pushing the cart out of this isle. "No just yet, Mae, we've got a few more things to get."

Macie knits her eyebrows together. "Will Daddy be home when we get home?"

I scan the next set of shelves and find we had already gone down this one. "I'm not sure, it depends how bad the traffic is."

Mae looks down to her feet. "I hope he is, I want to show him my new lunchbox. And Alfie needs to see his new lunchbox."

Jay and Will had gone to Solider Field for a game this morning and they had brought Alfie with them for his first football game. Jay had been prepping Alfie all week and he even managed to find a jersey small enough so they would go sporting the gear. Alfie had been talking about it for ages and while he was still a little too young to understand what would be going on or what he would be watching he had left earlier babbling about how excited he was. It also meant that I'd be able to take Macie school shopping today without chasing Alfie around the store.