I know her

I knew her. I didn’t actually know her, know her, but the little girl who must have been about 5 or 6 was very familiar to me. She looked at me with curious eyes, I must have seemed strange even for a stranger, staring so intently into her open face. My heart hammered from the combination of sudden adrenaline and the caffeine I had just consumed. I wanted so badly to go over to the father standing there with a toddler in the Wal-Mart shopping cart and another older girl walking alongside. The one I was looking at was strapped in the seat, the cool new shopping carts that also have 2 seats with seatbelts for the older kids that get tired. She wanted to walk too but her father told her not now. Her wide eyes with dark circles, pixie nose, the teeth with braces that no other child would have that young and full, full lips I knew. She didn’t look like her siblings. Her face was just a little different, but special in the way I knew and my heart recognized.

How do you ask a parent though if their child has a genetic disorder? You can’t. I stared from the deli meat section and she stared back. They walked away and I hated myself for being a coward, but I didn’t have a choice. My own little elf laughed up at me with his pixie nose and I turned and strolled away.