The coffee shop baby

The door to the warm cafe opens again, allowing the cold air in and the sauna like conditions out.  I look up briefly, unable to resist but my heart sinks when I realise that it is not her that's coming in, it's just the man from the flower shop down the road.
I stir my coffee again and then take a sip of the thin watery liquid, wanting to string it out to maximise my time here in the warmth without having to purchase another drink.

It's noisy today as it always is on a Tuesday morning at this time. Mothers coffee day, I call it. The place is crammed with mothers each with a small child under the age of one in a pushchair. I imagine that they all had their babies around the same time, maybe met in the maternity ward and promised to stay in touch and support each other through the long nights of no sleep and days of stress.
The lucky ones.
None of them look as though they feel they are lucky. They all look tired, drawn, stressed. Their babies keeping them up all night screaming probably. Still I say they are the lucky ones.

The door opens again, making the little bell above the door tinkle, and once more, I look up hopefully. This time, my prayers are answered and she comes in. Today, she is carrying her little one in her arms and he is wide awake. His startling blue eyes look all around, taking everything in, trying to learn as much about the big wide world as he can even at this young age. He is wearing dark blue baby jeans and his mother takes off his coat once she sits down. I can see his jumper is baby blue with a red tractor on it and on his feet are tiny white baby shoes. I guess him to be about four months old.
He is the same age as my baby would have been.

I look at him and smile, taking in my weekly dose of him, like a drug that I cannot break free of.
His mother smiles over at me, recognising me as she sits with the other mums.  I am worried for a moment that my continual child-free presence here on a Tuesday morning might freak her out.  I don't want her to think that I am stalking her or that I am a danger to her child. I just want to look at her darling baby boy and watch him as he changes over the weeks as I can't do with my own son.
My own dear baby Alexander who died a month before he was due to be born, still inside me. No reason, no explanation. Just another unexplained tragedy and one that I will never, ever come to terms with.

Which is why I allow him to live through the baby in the coffee shop.