I see Linda when I push my grocery cart around the corner and into the next aisle. Her bulky blue sweater has flecks of gray, as does her dark brown hair. She’s browsing the yogurt. No, not browsing. She is stuck, staring, not seeing anything. Frozen in place, off somewhere—floating in emptiness, holding on as if in vertigo. Trying to do the things life requires but getting stuck along the way. I have been there, too, and I don’t know how to greet this fellow traveler.
I don’t know if I even want to.
After my son died, I could sense the discomfort when acquaintances ran into me somewhere. I looked like she does. The string that connected me to others was pulled tight, straining. They could sense the tautness, sense that my connection to them, to this world, was close to snapping. I could feel them trying to get away, pulling against the string like it was a leash. Talking to me would remind them that bad things can happen to people you know, that bad things can happen to you.
I stare too long and she catches me looking at her.
“Hi,” I say as I push my cart up next to hers. She tries a smile and says hi back.
I say, “I hated when people asked me how I was doing. But, how are you doing?”
My hand is on the cart’s handle and she rests hers on top of mine. The coldness of it surprises me. She looks down and says, it’s almost been a year.
“That’s when people think you are all better,” I say.
She tells me his birthday is coming up, the first without him. She tells me she has made him a cake every year since he was born. She looks past me and says that she hates shopping because she doesn’t want to have to talk to people.
I say, “One time I left behind a cart full of groceries because I saw someone I knew.”
I remember people asking how I was doing, but not really wanting to know. And people offered invitations to vague future get togethers. Get togethers that never materialized because neither of us wanted them. Here I am on the other side now, offering her the same meaningless words. I guess I do really want to know how she’s doing. But I also want to be away from her, to slide by without being seen.
She takes her hand off mine. Some people try to squeeze around us, and I realize we are blocking the aisle. Yet still we stand there, quiet.
Finally, I say, “We’d better get out of the way.”
She smiles and pushes her cart and we move forward slowly.
She tells me how she never expected everyone to remind her of him. People that don’t look like him might walk like him, she says, or stand like him, she says, or shrug, you know? Just shrug their shoulders in the way he used to. I don’t know what to do with that, she says. She turns to look directly at my face. I just nod.
I put my hand on top of hers for a moment then pull it back.
I used to see my son everywhere. It’s better now, more sporadic. Sometimes I feel guilty I’m not reminded of him always. It used to be any man with a ponytail would call him to mind. A skinny hippie kid picking out some oat milk would make me break down. One grocery store had an employee who looked exactly like Drew from a distance. I had to start shopping somewhere else. I remember once, for a brief second, I thought Drew was waiting for me at the end of an aisle. I forgot he was dead. When I remembered he was, all I could do was hold tight to the cart and turn toward a corner. I faced the corner and tried not to cry. I tried to be quiet. And I wished, as I had so many times before, that I could cut the cord that kept me here.
We say goodbye and go our different directions. As I’m walking away I say over my shoulder that we should get coffee sometime. That I’m here if she needs me.
I continue my shopping, mindful of her, careful to be in a different aisle than she is, careful to stay away, careful to stay at a distance as I watch her drift through the store.
When my kids were little, I used to put Drew in charge of his younger brother. To keep them busy I’d send them off hunting different items. I’d say, you two are in charge of finding a jar of strawberry jam. And they would take off on a search through the store, eventually returning with it, ready for a new target. Drew knew what I was doing and was a smiling accomplice. I’m happy remembering this. And I’m happy that I can remember good things, and they can just be good, happy things—I don’t have to be scared of remembering anymore.
I watch Linda push her cart out the door and to her car. She pops her trunk, puts a bag in, and stands there for a long moment like she forgot what she was doing. I feel her loss in me. I can almost see the thin cord that connects her to the world. It’s pulled as far as it can go, straining to keep her here. I realize my tether has grown stronger. The frays have started to heal themselves, and I no longer feel a pull away from the world, but a force pulling me back into it. I’m holding tight to that string, pulling myself hand over hand back to safety.
I hope this happens for her, but I know it might not. There is so much out there waiting for us, hiding just out of sight, ready to clip those threads that keep us attached to one another. And I wish I could be there helping her mend her connection. But I don’t think I can because I know too well how fragile mine still is.
