Blackberry Winter

“Cold out,” I said dropping two bucks on the counter with a sugar-free Red Bull in the other hand.

“Came out of nowhere,” Becky said counting change.

I waved my hand and she dropped the coins into a recycled peanut butter jar with a picture of some kids rubber-banded onto it. The sound of Christmas bells as they bounced around joining the others. “What’s the opposite of an Indian Summer?” I asked her popping open the can.

“No clue.” She mumbled thumbing a magazine.

“Come on, when it’s hot out of nowhere, you know? It’s supposed to be cold, but it’s not. Right, and now it should be warm. It should be, but it’s not. What’s that called?”

She sighed and looked at me over her thick red frames that absolutely did not house prescription lenses, “Should you be saying Indian?”

I laughed, “Probably not. Indigenous Peoples’ Summer maybe?” She looked at me like I clubbed baby seals for a living. I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know what you call it.” She just sighed again and turned another page of her magazine. “Anyway, thanks for the pick-me-up.” I raised the silver can in her direction.

Becky, without looking up, instinctually recited, “Thank you for your donation, sir. You helped a child get their smile back.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

“Literally,” her eyes remained fixed.

I walked towards the back of the supermarket to return to my quarters. I passed a shopper and her son in the miscellaneous aisle where we stock anything from greeting cards to cap guns. The boy bounced a rubber ball and caught it. I winked at him smiling and complimented his adolescent athleticism, “Nice snag,” and kept walking. I heard his mother scold him a little and the sound of a shopping cart’s wheels begin rolling in the opposite direction.

Mom had texted me that morning that she might need to pick up some groceries. She always did this when she knew she’d be coming to the store. She knew it was my job to watch the cameras and she thought it was fun to know that I saw her while she was shopping. So once I got back to my station I made sure to keep checking the entrance so as not to miss hers.

She’d always do something funny to make me laugh. Like in an empty aisle she’d stick her hand way down in the back of her jeans mocking a lady I once caught in the same act. Or one time in produce she put a zucchini between two oranges with the zucchini sticking straight up towards heaven and I about spat Coke all over the monitors.

It was nice watching her shop. Very different from days of yore when she’d get mad at me for riding on the front of the buggy and all I wanted was to go back home. Now that I worked here, seeing her was a happy distraction from the usual monotony of surveying the premises. I think it’s nice for her because she knows I’m watching and it makes her feel a little extra safe.

She had texted me so I knew she’d be coming in for whatever it was she was eating now. Mom’s one of those “trend-eaters” I call them. You know, kale and almond milk, the like. When she found out about spaghetti squash it was the only conversation you could have with her for months. So when I saw her on the security camera I wasn’t shocked. It was who came in the store about forty seconds after her that hit me like a truck.

I hadn’t thought about him for ten years easy, maybe more. But I recognized him right when I saw him, even with his hood pulled up. Survival runs deep and just like a dog forever recoils at men with beards after being hit by one, my whole body tensed up in an instant.

A shiver ran down my spine and I sat straight up, my eyes super-glued to his image on the black and white screen. I watched him walk towards the bakery department and wait for someone to help him. In the back of my mind I knew my mom was performing some hi-jinx in another aisle and that she’d text me about it later. Did you see that poor woman who kept tripping over herself in aisle three? But I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t avert from him just standing there. Him doing nothing was all I could watch, just him in his grey hoodie doing nothing at the bakery counter. It was my whole existence.

I didn’t notice until I heard liquid hit the floor, but my leg had been bouncing up and down. Awake with a tremor, tapping to a rhythm I couldn’t hear. I had spilled some of the Red Bull on the floor. For a millionth of a second I was grateful for it being sugar-free, easier to clean up later. I sat it down on the counter.

Roberta came to help him, delivering him a cake. Those monitors are old so it’s hard sometimes to make people out, even harder to read what a cake might say. Could have been for a daughter or a co-worker, hell, it may have been for his own mother. I didn’t know. But he took the cake and in doing so his hood fell down to his shoulders revealing his face.

An electric shock struck me in the chest. Seeing his face brought back the memory of what had happened. Seeing his face brought back in an instant what he had done to me so long ago. I could feel my palms becoming damp.

I saw him make his way for the checkout line and it was at this point I realized I had been neglecting my duties. I made a visual sweep of every aisle starting from the left to the right. Ten, clear. Nine, good. Eight, clear. Seven, clear. Six, okay. Five, four, three, clear, two, yep, one, good. All aisles were either clear or seemed like a run-of-the-mill grocery excursion. I clocked my mother in the magazine section. I had noticed before now that she always liked to look at them, but had yet to my knowledge bought a single one.

I returned my attention to him, like he had ever lost it. He was now in the checkout line. There he stood plain as day holding a box with a cake in it for someone. No idea who. No idea what the occasion. I wanted so badly for him to do something wrong. I wanted him to mess up. Take a stick of gum, put your hands in your pockets for too long. Something. Anything, so I could record him and catch him in the act. But he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. Just standing waiting to check out. He didn’t do anything wrong. Not this day.

Then a bolt of lightning coursed through my entire body as my mother got in line right behind him. She could have chosen any other line, but she chose this one like he had some gravitational tractor beam pulling her in. She chose his line. She chose him.

It was his turn and he set the cake down on the belt. Becky scanned the barcode on the box and I watched as he reached in his back pocket for his wallet. His body stiffened as his hand left the pocket and continued to search more of his person. Then his head fell and I could sense his dismay through the screen. I could feel the smallest warm wave of retribution in my stomach. He didn’t have his wallet. He’d have to leave and come back to pay for the cake. I’d have to see him again, sure, but just the knowledge of knowing his schedule was ruined put a smile on my face so slight Mona Lisa would have missed it.

But that warm feeling was immediately frozen as my mother started talking with Becky. It’s obvious to me judging by the waving of her hands that my mother, in her infinite grace, had agreed to buy this cake for him.

Then time stood still as he hugged my mother and she hugged him back. My tongue lost all taste and I couldn’t hear anything. My entire universe was a black and white pixelated image of my mother hugging this man. Hugging him. I watched on as he helped her put her groceries on the belt. I watched as every item was scanned, paid for and bagged. My stomach was cement and my brain was fire, my heart beating on the outside of my chest as my mother scanned her card.

He picked up the box and continued to stand there talking with my mother. I started to choke on my tongue falling down my throat dry as a bundle of socks. I watched him try to help her with her groceries and I saw her wave him off. I couldn’t blink. Then he nodded his head and walked out of the store smiling.

I watched him walk away.

I watched him walk out of the store with a cake my mother bought for him.

I watched him walk away like nothing ever happened.

Just like nothing ever happened.

And then I watched as my sweet mother picked up her grocery bags and turned to the security camera smiling. She blew me a kiss.

Just like nothing had ever happened.