The Back Seat Will Never Be the Same

Today my neighbors brought home a baby girl. Beloved and I paused from where we were doing our annual battle with a garden fountain when we saw them pull up and park in front of the big green house that has held so many people over the years. This is the first couple we’ve seen really make it a home, and now, with the sound of newborn squalls eminating from the vehicle, a home where a family intends to stay awhile.

The husband crossed behind the car to the backseat on the driver’s side and opened the door. I could see the familiar rise of a rear-facing carseat. My breath unexpectedly caught in my throat. I remember vividly what my newborn looked like in her little carrying case. It was grey and white and she was pink and crying, her little toothless mouth open in fury and shock over being ejected so mercilessly out into a raw April world.

Maybe it’s because this little girl was born so close to my own baby’s due date. Maybe it’s because we just made the final tuition payment on Lily’s first year of college. Maybe it’s because I missed her so bad last night that I slept with a crocheted hippo my sister created identical versions of for her and for me. But when I saw my neighbor reach into the backseat to bring his newborn daughter home for the very first time, I felt my eyes prick again with unexpected tears. They have come so many times over the past year — through the graduation parties and ceremonies, the shopping and packing and leaving and visiting and leaving and phone calls and facetimes and snaps and texts and the missing — oh, so much missing.

He reached into the vehicle and lifted out the carseat full of little pink baby, glancing over us, his face a mix of uncertainty and pride. “Congratulations!” I called.

He smiled, looking down at the baby, then looking into the backseat for anything he’d forgotten.

I remember spending twelve years obsessed with leaving something in the backseat before she joined me in the passenger. The first drives in parking lots with her in the driver’s seat. Waiting six hours to get her license the day things opened back up in 2020. Staring from my home office at the little redheaded avatar speeding along I-35 on FindMy when she came or went to and from campus. Watching her tail lights disappearing down the hill after Easter, knowing the next time she comes home she’ll be here for the whole summer. And then, in July, I’ll put her on an airplane with her college friends to go to Spain without me — to have her own adventures.

He glanced back at us and waved.

“Welcome to the rest of your life, dude.” I said, gesturing to the backseat.

He laughed.

And we turned back to our yard, to the fountain, to today.