Popular Mechanics: Rewritten from first person

  I looked outside the window as I was quickly shoving my belongings into my small duffle bag. I recognized it was starting to get dimmer inside, not to mention the strong tension that was arraying throughout the house. Even the dreary white slush beaming off the covered ground outside didn’t illuminate through the window. She was in the other room pacing back forth. I was glad I didn’t have to finally her yelling in my ear, questioning me; I was just sick and tired of the emotion, the mourning. I just had to get away, leave all the chaos of this prison I felt I was being held in. As soon as I got done gathering all I could, I reached for the door handle but she had heard me shuffling up, so insisted on barging in. She said, “I’m glad you’re leaving! You hear me?!” I just pretended that I didn’t hear her. Her voice was piercing to my ear drums. I had a picture of the baby in my hand. I tried to push my way through past her but she stopped me and jerked it away. She darted into the living room with it. I said, “Bring that back now!” She had started to cry, trying to compose herself, screaming, “Just get out!” I began to walk towards the baby and she sprinted to pick it up. I told her, “I’m taking the baby.”

“Are you crazy?” she proceeded.

I stared at her with anger, but I tried to keep myself content. I said, “no…but I want the baby. I will send someone to get his things.”

The baby began to cry as she tried to scream over him saying, “You’re not taking this baby, for God’s sake!”

Without a thought, I reached over towards her to take it out of her arm. She said, “Let go of the baby, get away now!”

I wanted that baby, she wouldn’t get to have him, and I just wouldn’t allow it. The baby was red-faced and screaming. As I was pulling to get him out of her arms, we both knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the stove. I pushed and pinned her into a corner so I could get him away from her, to break her grip. I held onto the baby and tried so hard to get a good hold of him. I screamed, “Let go of him!”

She shouted at me, “don’t you’re hurting him!”

But I knew I wasn’t. I had to have this baby, one way or another. I finally got her fingers pried off of him, but just as soon as I got him into my arms she grabbed his wrist and pulled back. I insisted that she would absolutely not have this baby. It was coming with me.

As soon as she made the tug on his wrist, as I was fighting back, feeling the baby slipping, in that moment, in this manner, she and I both knew what was before our eyes; what had just happened. The issue was decided.