It’s not like it’s the first time she’s left him in the car, not like it was a hot day and she didn’t roll down the windows or anything. For one thing, if it’d been a hot day she would have rolled down the windows, left them open a crack at least, and then she’d be able to find a coat hanger or some other thin piece of metal and stick it inside the window to unlock the door, but wouldn’t you know it it’s only a mildly warm and not entirely humid day and if anything she’d have rolled the windows up so he wouldn’t catch a cold.

When she’d left him in the car in the past she’d made sure to lock the doors of course just in case some undesirable should happen to walk past and decide they want to steal a car, with or without a small child in the back seat, so for his safety and also just out of habit, even locked the doors when she was driving most times, not because she was an especially nervous or paranoid mother or person but just to be safe, just in case the door didn’t suddenly swing open sometime going around a curve and him flying out, not that she ever seriously considered that a possibility but even just the thought made her shudder so to put herself at ease she’d just go ahead and lock the doors.

He would unlock the doors. From where he sat in his car seat the length of his legs when he stretched them out just reached the door lock, which he would flick back and forth with his foot in the most maddening way, maddening because it frustrated her of course but also maddening because it wasn’t safe, because what if he flicked the door open when it was unlocked and went flying out the door going around a curve? “Don’t ever touch that,” she’d say, no exceptions because that was the only way to get him to mind, had she said something like, “Don’t do that right now,” or just “Please don’t touch that,” he would have gone ahead and done it again a few minutes later or maybe the next time they were in the car because that’s just the way he behaved, or should I say misbehaved, and even as it was she still had to remind him several times over, “Please don’t ever touch that,” and “The door lock and handle are both hands and feet off,” and “If I have to tell you one more time, and you know what I’m talking about now, about the door lock and the handle, both of them, if I have to tell you one more time not to touch them with your hands or your feet, and especially your feet when the soles of your shoes are so dirty and scuff the interior that we really try to keep clean because even if and maybe because we don’t have very much money and so very many things, it’s important to treat the things we do have with care, and that includes above all you, and when you unlock the door with your foot it isn’t very safe nor very safe for my nerves, which is why if I have to tell you one more time well then I just don’t know what, maybe no bedtime stories for a week and straight to bed after dinner, so help me,” she said, had to say several times before it finally stuck.

So this is where they are. She’s just closed the door. She’s just closed the door and there they are, with all the doors closed, locked, and she reaches to put the keys that are in her hand in her purse only to discover that there are no keys in her hand. She doesn’t say anything, pats the pockets of her pants, jacket, looks through her purse as if maybe they snuck in there on their own, doesn’t want to look in the last place she thinks they could be but finally does, walks around to the other side of the car, street side, and peers in the passenger side window to see them hanging from the last place she remembers having them, the ignition, and then says, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” because when she’s especially angry or frustrated and he isn’t necessarily within earshot her vocabulary tends to the vulgar and monosyllabic.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she says, fuck now because how many times has she told herself to get one of those magnetic key holders and a spare key made in case she locked the keys in the car like right now, even bought a key holder once but couldn’t find a place underneath the car that was easily accessible and magnetized, also never got a spare key made, and fuck also because she’s outside and he’s inside, locked inside, and sure he’s not crying now, actually looking at her with a very studious expression right now, furrowed brow and narrow eyes, but soon he’ll realize that she’s outside and he’s locked inside and she can’t get to him and then he’ll have to go to the bathroom, he’ll be hungry, scared just because she’s scared, because he’s still too young to know the difference between drama and tragedy, because right now he’s emotionally monotone, like happy! Angry! Hungry! Sleepy! Sad! And right now he’s really like nothing more than a sponge, and so is she, and right now the situation is king and it’s situations just like this where if you’re not careful everything can just fall apart, could start to wonder where his father is in all this, how he’d have a key, a spare key or key of his own, and all she’d have to do is just make a call and he’d come and unlock the door, and after he’d say something like “It’s a good thing I answered the phone,” or “God knows what you would have done if I hadn’t answered the phone,” and she wouldn’t even think about it, about this, about what she has to do now.

She leans forward and raps on the back passenger window to get his attention, which she already has, had since she first got out of the car, says, “Sweetheart! Baby? Remember that thing I told you never ever to do? Do you remember? With your foot? On the button?” and makes a flicking back-and-forth motion with her finger, to which he nods back, hears her, muffled as she is through the thick glass. “Well remember,” she continues, “how I asked you never to do it, and told you that if you did it one more time there’d be no more bedtime stories for a week and you’d be sent directly to bed after dinner and also I don’t even know what else?” and he nods again she says, “You remember?” and he nods again.

“Well I want you to do just that right now,” she says. “Can you do that for me?”

He smiles broadly, and then he starts to giggle, and then he starts laughing outright. He shakes his head no.

“Baby,” she says. “This isn’t a trick, okay? Sweetheart? Will you please just do this for Mommy? Please? Just unlock the door right now please and you won’t get in any trouble at all,” she says, and he’s still shaking his head no so she says, “I tell you what, let’s play a little game, alright? Let’s pretend for the next couple minutes that we can do whatever we want, anything our hearts desire and no one’s going to get punished, okay? Like whatever I’ve ever told you not to do right now you can do it, just for the next couple minutes until I say stop, like if you wanted to kick at the door latch for example, you could do that, just for example, and you know what? I can do whatever I want right now too! How about that? Like right now you know what I want to do? Right now I want to give you a great big hug, which I’m going to do as soon as you unlock the door so if you’ll just unlock the door right now I can give you a hug and do what I want to do! Can you do that for me? Can you help me do what I want to do?”

He shakes his head again, not giggling anymore, a car passes and honks since she’s standing just this side of the middle of the road and she raps on the door again and he looks at her for a minute and then sticks his finger in his nose, like a toe in a pool testing the water at first and then with greater vigor, pulls it out and wipes it across the inside of the window, and now she thinks she might never get in there because he’s stubborn, stubborn like she’s stubborn, a Taurus, been this way before when they’ve been playing and then all of a sudden she’ll see his laugh lock up, his jaw set, and there’s really nothing to be done until he decides he’s won, which could take anywhere from ten minutes to all day long, but she doesn’t have all day long and then, then wonders does he? Would he have all day long? The windows are all rolled up and even though he’s smaller, smaller lungs that she imagines require smaller inhalations of oxygen, it’s a limited supply and a small car, hatchback, thinks he might have five or so hours of oxygen before he’s so weak he doesn’t even have the strength to unlock the door and wishes now she had sprung for the sedan, a little larger, at least another hour of oxygen and so another hour to decide what to do.

There’s the problem of leaving him, of leaving to find a telephone, a gas station, call a locksmith, a towing company, of what might happen to him while she’s gone and how long and what might have come of him when she returns, and it’s a big problem and one she doesn’t want to look at but the longer she doesn’t look at it the worse the problem becomes until all she has left, all he has left, is her ability to coax him into unlocking the door with his foot which is a gamble at best because he’s stubborn of course, stubborn just like she is, and oh Jesus now there are people walking by, people walking by staring at her standing in the middle of the street rapping on the window at her baby, her child, her baby boy, and she wants to scream at them, “What the fuck are you looking at?” and “Please, could you please call Triple A because I’ve locked my keys inside with my baby,” but then another car passes, loud, a truck, blows her hair all around, and it scares him a little maybe and maybe it’s his foot slips or maybe there’s just not so many things he can do that he’s always wanted to do but was always told not to do while strapped in a car seat in the back of the car, because he kicks the door latch, unlocks the door and his mother says, “Oh fucking thank God,” and opens the door, scrambles inside over him and the car seat to the other seat next to him and slams the door shut and locks it, locks the door, locks the fucking door.