The Pharmacy

http://polaroid41.com/the-pharmacy/

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019 - 2:50pm.

I was on my way to meet a friend on the other side of the river when I spotted a pharmacy. It wasn’t ‘my’ pharmacy...but I had a prescription I needed to fill, and I was a little early, so I went in. Since it wasn’t my usual pharmacy I had to jump through a few administrative hoops giving my address, social security card, supplemental insurance card, etc, etc. During these formalities, a smiley young woman came up to the counter next to me. She was greeted warmly, clearly a regular.

After weeks of blistering sun, we’d just received an unexpected downpour. Everyone in the street looked a bit stunned, dripping wet, awkwardly slipping about in their flip-flops, shivering in their summer dresses. It was as if we’d all collectively forgotten the meteorological phenomenon called rain. But the woman next to me at the pharmacy was wearing a bright yellow raincoat, as if to say she’s ready for anything. Her long hair was damp and a bit curly, her cheeks were flushed. She was radiant.

A young man appeared at her side. He slid up close to her and the young woman confided to the pharmacist, ‘He’s the papa.’ The pharmacist’s face cracked open with delight. ‘Ahhh! So this is him!’ she exclaimed as if she’d been waiting a long time for this moment. I glanced at the man as he blushed a bit, smiled and nodded his head. He didn’t say anything but with his proud and bashful smile he admitted, ‘Yep! I’m the papa.’ He looked like all the luck in the world had fallen into his lap and that he was just as surprised as any of us.

Together, they emanated a kind of dumbstruck happiness.

I wondered if the baby had already been born? If so, where was he? Papa and mama were at the pharmacy...maybe grandma’s here, visiting her first grandson? “You two go on, don’t worry! Go to the pharmacy, do your errands, I’ll stay here with the baby. Go on now!” And in a third floor apartment just down the street the new grandma was enjoying a half an hour alone to hold her grandson very close, breathe his newborn baby smell and remember when she became a mother 30 years ago, singing him songs she hadn’t sung in years (she never sings in front of anyone, but this was different).

Or maybe the baby hadn’t been born yet? Perhaps the yellow raincoat was concealing her round belly. Or maybe it wasn’t even a baby yet but just the whisper of a baby. A promise. Something longed for and loved and almost real. Maybe she was at the pharmacy to pick up her very first packet of prenatal vitamins or to get a substitute for one of her usual medications that’s not recommended during pregnancy. Maybe she’d spent months coming to the pharmacy to pick up hormone shots or pregnancy tests that insisted time and again on revealing only one blue line instead of two. Month after month of disappointment until finally, miraculously: two lines.

...

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