Rush hour morning traffic on a weekday with the freeway resembling a parking lot. On the passenger seat of a car: a work bag, a lunch bag with a sandwich and half a chocolate cookie (cravings carried over from pregnancy), a bag containing a breast pump, a hands-free pumping bra that doesn’t quite fit but does its job, breast milk storage bags and a photo of a baby who must spend the day away from its mother, just six weeks after entering this world.
In the driver’s seat, the sleepy-eyed mother, her nipples sore and leaking milk, sits in traffic ahead of a long workday, knowing that even a newborn puppy isn’t separated from its mother before eight weeks. She digs her nails into the rubber covering the steering wheel and lets it all out with a scream, imagining her cry against inadequate maternity leave in the USA rippling down the lines of cars, joining other postpartum voices across state borders, entering every lawmaker’s office and corporate headquarters in the nation, only to land on deaf ears.
Trying to shake off her despair, she takes a deep breath. Regaining her composure, she sneaks an awkward look around to check if anyone saw her outburst. The woman in the car to her right is leaning to one side, swiping at her cell phone mounted on the dashboard. The man in the car to her left, who perhaps witnessed her muted outrage behind rolled-up windows, glances away, avoiding eye contact, and looks steadfastly ahead. She sighs, takes a sip of decaffeinated coffee from her travel mug, and inches forward in traffic that’s still crawling at a snail’s pace in the direction of an exit that’s not in sight yet.
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