He could see the other customers stop and look at him. The woman was still shouting
about a stolen baby from the baby section. His daughter was wailing.
They wouldn’t actually think that he was stealing the baby, would they? He tried to
imagine himself in their shoes. He didn’t think that he would automatically assume
the man was stealing the baby.
He got up to the registers but there were three Walmart employees waiting for him.
“Sir,” the shortest, heaviest employee said. He wasn’t wearing a vest so William
assumed he was a supervisor or manager.
“Hi,” William said. “Is there a problem?”
“We have a woman yelling across the store about a stolen baby. We see you rushing
to the front with a crying infant. I guess you can say that there is a problem,”
the possible manager told him.
Two more Walmart employees walked the hysterical woman up to the front.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s my baby. My baby.”
That bitch! William thought. She knew full well that she wasn’t the mother of his
child.
“Sir, can you step away from the cart?” the manager asked him while he slowly
approached.
“Um, no,” William responded. “This is my daughter. I am here buying diapers and I
need to get her home.”
“Sir.” The manager placed his hand on William’s chest, gently pushing him away from
the cart. “We’ll get this sorted out but Walmart is not going to let a child get
kidnapped here.”
“Well, then let me and my daughter go,” William told him.
“We need to prove that you are the baby’s parent or guardian first,” he told them.