Hands in pockets, I strode through the sliding double doors, head down, merely nodding at the greeter as she mumbled a forced “Welcome to Shop-Mart.” I grabbed a cart with one hand, not breaking stride as I did so.
I headed confidently for the freezer, section, mapping out a quick route in my head from there to the cereal aisle, chip isle, beer isle, and then to the checkout. I moved down around the large white refrigerators, feeling the cold they threw at me stiffen the vinyl of my jacket. I was on autopilot, so focused on contemplating exactly what to watch on TIVO when I got home, that I didn’t even notice the cart in front of me. I rammed into it with a mighty crash that echoed embarrassingly through the fluorescent tundra.
“Excuse me! I’m so sorry, I wasn’t even watching,” the words tumbled out of my mouth in a flush of apology.
“I should have paid more attention, I–”
The suddenness of my realization startled me, forcing my sentence into an abrupt halt.
I stared, open mouth, as I watched recognition, like the dawn of the sun, spread across her face.
“Curtis!” she exclaimed.
“E-Emily!” I said in reply, stuttering slightly as the name stuck in the back of my throat.
She threw open her arms in a welcoming embrace, and I walked into it without hesitation. The round, hard bulge that pressed into my abdomen made the hug distanced, and as I looked down at the round, smooth bulge of her belly I felt a thought open in my mind like a sore, but forced it away.
“How are you?” she exclaimed.
“I’m...I’m good.” I managed to force out, a blush creeping over my face as my eyes flickered to the cart full of frozen meals.
Good if you considered 32, divorced, alone, and unable to cook “good.” I wondered if she’d notice, and tried to shift myself in front of my cart.
“I...I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, genuinely surprised.
“We just moved back, to be closer to my family.”
My face must have given away my curiosity at the word “we”, for she continued.
“My husband and I,” she explained.
A baby in the cart next to her babbled, and she added, “And Jackson.”
She smiled at the infant, wiping drool from his face with her sleeve.
“Jackson?”
“My son.”
She beamed at the phrase, patting down the thin down of baby hair that coated his head.
Finally, my brain recovered its function.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Where are my manners?” I apologized. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m great,” she smiled widely. “Just great.” I knew she was telling the truth.
“What have you been up to?” I asked, in place of the barrage of questions I wished to ask her.
“Well, I got married,” she laughed at the obviousness of her statement, flashing the ring.
“How long ago?” I asked, the unspoken part of that question burning through my eyes.
“About six years ago,” she smiled. “His name’s Bryan,” she supplied, knowing my next question.
I mentally calculated the time. Only a year. Wow. That took a long time.
“What does he do?” I asked, absentmindedly going through the list of common, polite, conversational questions.
“He’s an engineer. Computers,” she fussed once more with the baby’s hair.
“Wow. Technical,” I said lamely, fingering the name badge from the bank where I worked, feeling insignificant.
“It is,” she smiled, eyes laughing familiarly, “I don’t understand a word he says sometimes.”
I nodded, pretending to analyze the rows of brightly colored packaged foods, feeling the embarrassing lag in the conversation grow between us like a mist.
“So, what about you?” she asked politely, attempting to jumpstart the conversation. At least she wanted to talk to me. It took a moment to realize what she was asking me, and then another to formulate the least mortifying answer.
“Uh, well. I was married....”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I-“ she looked embarrassed. That was rare for her. At least, it had been rare. Maybe she had changed? I hastily added on to relieve her embarrassment, feeling a wave of protectiveness surge through me.
‘Not your problem..’ My rationality chastised me, but I ignored it.
“No, don’t be. It didn’t last long. We weren’t right for each other.”
That was an understatement. “We got married for the wrong reasons.”
That was an untrue statement.
I had gotten married for the wrong reasons. She had married for all the right ones – love, devotion, etc, etc. I had gotten married because she was nice. Because she didn’t annoy me too much. Because her body was warm at night and she cooked well and my parents liked her. Poor Julie. She didn’t deserve that. She saw through it after about a year. I didn’t blame her for leaving.
“Oh,” was all Emily said.
Once again, the conversation between us lagged. I had exhausted my list of polite questions. I stared at her face, probably rudely, analyzing every detail. She was just as I had remembered her. Thick, shiny blonde hair. Dazzling smile. Blue eyes that seemed to radiate warmth in spite their cold color. Time had not yet taken its toll.
I cringed as I caught my own reflection in the glass of the freezer door beside me.
I saw a man with thinning, gray hair. Lines around his dull, colorless eyes. Tight lips. Ashen skin. No wonder it had taken her so long to remember me.
“Any kids?” she asked politely.
“Oh, no. No kids. It didn’t last long enough.”
She nodded, but I hardly noticed.
I was too busy, staring at her rounded body, large with the unborn child with in her, letting a thought that I would suffer from for years develop in my head. My resistance and discipline exhausted, I allowed the image I had shoved back for years fill my head like a sore, opening and oozing.
The image of her, round as is she is, but not with his child. With mine. The baby in the cart next to her not with brown hair, but blonde. Narrower eyes. Higher cheeks. The image held me in a reverie, forcing my mind to chase out every fantasy, every dream, long since buried in the back of my mind.
Her, in a long white dress, striding slowly towards me.
Her, wrapped in my arms, glowing with contentment, our bodies twisted around each other pleasantly.
Her, holding my hand, smiling knowingly as we watched as a boy, a startling mixture of us, dressed in a tux, nervously lead a girl out the door.
Her, hunched over and gray, kissing the thin delicate skin of my aged hand.
“So,” she broke my reverie, which had developed into an uncomfortable silence without my notice. “Anyone new?”
“Oh. Ah. No. Not at the moment.” I added the last part for her benefit.
‘Not since you.’ I thought.
“I can see that,” she laughed, gesturing towards my cart.
I felt my cheeks flush as I looked at the cart, filled with a two weeks supply of frozen meals.
“Still not cooking for yourself?” she laughed, shaking her head, like a mother laughing lovingly at a small boy.
“Uh, no.” I responded, flashing a genuine smile this time. This lack of cooking ability had been somewhat of a joke between us. I remembered how often she used to tease me about it.
‘You could burn water’ I could still hear her say.
“Some things never change,” she grinned.
“No, some never do,” I agreed.
I thought of the ring, resting in its box, devoid of purpose, rendered useless before I could even ask, on the top shelf of the closet. Of her picture, which I kept long past when I should have thrown it out, under old Visa statements and electric bills in a desk drawer. Of a love letter, read so often the words had faded beyond recognition in the creases. No. Some things never change.
The baby in the cart squealed unhappily.
“Well, I probably should get going,” she said, digging through her purse to find a pacifier, inserting it into the open “O” of the infant’s mouth without looking.
“Jackson’s getting hungry. And my husband’s probably waiting. I have to make him dinner too.” She smiled.
I ached at the word husband, felt my insides cracking.
“Yeah, I gotta go too. Stuff to do.” I said lamely, wondering if watching six consecutive episodes of “The Office” counted as stuff.
“Ok, well, it was nice seeing you,” she said politely. She flashed that large, genuine smile that used to melt my insides, eyes glinting.
I felt my stomach begin to dissolve, my heart splintering, my lungs collapsing inward like a wet clay pot.
“Nice to see you, too.”
I struggled to not let my voice betray my emotions.
She turned the cart around, walking away in the opposite direction, heading toward the checkout.
I watched her walk away for the second time, and felt my heart break along that old familiar fracture. I thought I had patched it back together, but again it broke, perhaps even more easily this time, crumbling along the diseased and dried edges.
She walked down the aisle, turned the corner, and I felt myself losing her for the second time. A small part inside of me broke, crumbled, and fell to its knees, unable to stand.
That is what it feels like to break.
I clenched my jaw, picked up another frozen meal, and turned towards the cereal aisle, forcing myself to choose between Cheerios and Mini Wheats.