It felt surreal.
Which was kind of crazy. It was the most commonplace of activities, shopping in a grocery store. Pushing her cart up and down the aisles. Pausing to look at all the fresh produce. Checking out a head of cauliflower. Looking for bananas that were still green. Glancing at the dozens of different boxed cereals. Sugary and delicious and bad for you, or full of fiber and yucky and good for you. About a hundred different kinds of coffee. Had she ever noticed before today how many brands there were? Maybe this was why an activity so mundane suddenly felt strange and unfamiliar. It was as though she were doing it for the first time.
Or at least the first time in ages.
She had grocery-shopped a thousand times—and that was in no way an exaggeration. A thousand, easily. Say you went out for provisions twice a week. That was more than a hundred times a year. And given that she was in her mid-thirties,
and had been doing her own shopping since moving out of her parents’ home at age twenty, well, there you go. Do the math.
That’s a lot of trips to the local Stop & Shop or Whole Foods or Walmart.
But today was different because she really didn’t know what to buy. Did it even matter what she tossed into the cart? She’d entered the store without a list. The basics seemed like a safe way to go. Milk, eggs, fruit. A six-pack of beer. She wondered if a list would have been a good idea. It would have helped her pick up things Andrew liked.
Maybe what made this trip feel so strange was that she didn’t want to be spotted. Didn’t want to run into anyone who knew her. Not at this point. So she kept her head down as she went up and down the aisles. Tried to withdraw into herself. She was thinking that the next time she went out for groceries, she’d pick a place she didn’t usually frequent…
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