Rachel Goes Grocery Shopping
I needed to go to the store. Clay and I were watching Wheel of Fortune. I’d have gone earlier but I wasn’t feeling well, then his machine acted up and he was so disturbed by that—though he pretended otherwise—I sat with him and we watched TV. The hours just got away.
“It’s getting late,” I said.
“It’s early yet, the store don’t close till midnight.”
“And I don’t want to be out at midnight.”
“Well I’m just saying let’s finish the show, hun.”
It was a quarter to eight. It was true Giant Eagle didn’t close until midnight, but Big Lots closed at nine. I could buy the normal brands without Clay realizing, spending a few minutes in the parking lot peeling the orange price stickers off of everything and loading it into reusable Giant Eagle bags. Clay’s injury money was getting thin. I’d missed the last two payments on his Part B coverage. My Capecitabine tablets were cutting into our bills.
Neither of us guessed the final puzzle. We’ve been watching Wheel the last twenty years and I think ten times we’ve guessed it. Maybe less. I got up from the couch and spun some.
“Hun, you alright?” Clay held out a hand to right me.
“Just got up too fast,” I said. “Are you going to be okay for a bit?”
“Sure,” he said. “I was thinking of getting a bath, or maybe a jog.”
Always with the jokes. “I won’t be long.”
“And if you get any scratchers, don’t bring back losers again, just get winners this time.”
I could have made a cutting remark, but didn’t. That was the sort of thing I’d expect Mara to say, then Ben would get mad and Persephone, well, we hadn’t seen her in some time.
I had no idea how to tell them, but going down the aisles at Big Lots, I thought about it. Mara would take it well, though that may have been first-child pride blinding me. You’re always convinced they’ll be the strongest. But Mara was alone. Her husband left years ago and Amaro was in college. Breaking it to her when she already didn’t have anyone else seemed cruel.
I picked up some Progresso soup, Dinty Moore stew, and Mrs. T’s pierogies. Ocean Spray cranberry juice and a half gallon of Turner’s tea.
Ben would try to wrap his head around it, but he’d end up pushing it out of his mind. It wasn’t his fault, he avoided anything negative just like he avoided vegetables as a kid. He had his own family, it’d be difficult for him to focus on anything but Trista and the girls right now, especially after getting laid off.
I walked past a display of diabetic socks and picked up a pack for Clay. If he needed to get dressed by himself, those would be easier for him.
Persephone would take the news horribly. Even as a girl she couldn’t handle any kind of conflict, which confused me because she was born after Clay needed the ventilator. She never had a stress-free life, so in a way I thought she could hold up better. But certainly not with the pills and whatever awful stuff she was doing now.
I bought some multivitamins, iron and magnesium supplements. The doctor said it was best to regain any lost nutrients through food, but I hadn’t been hungry.
Near the register I saw food stamps as a payment option. I wondered how easily we could apply. I remember when they were actual stamps, but it was a card now. Clay would never hear of it. I’d mentioned it before, but there is nothing more fragile in the world than a man’s pride. To him, paying for the groceries was a matter of duty, especially when he said he couldn’t come to the store with me. Of course, he could come; when Clay needed to be in the iron lung he couldn’t go outside, but this new machine he’d been using the past few years— oh what the heck did they call it? Sounded like bi-fancy carcass ventilation? I read that manual so many times you think I’d know it. Biphasic cuirass ventilation. It was portable! Battery operated. He’d just need to put it in a buggy and wheel it around. I’m sure it wouldn’t be wise to go out every day with it, but somewhere close to home, just once in a while. So while Clay said it killed him to not go out, having a stranger look at him was worse. The bright side was I could get our groceries cheaper and, lately, pick up my medicine without him knowing.
As I was placing my things on the counter, I began to have a coughing fit. They didn’t happen often but were happening more. The cashier placed his hand on the counter and leaned in towards me. “Ma’am,” he said.
I tried to say I’m alright between coughs but couldn’t get it out.
“Ma’am,” he said again. “We’re closing.”
In the lot, peeling the price stickers off everything, I shivered. It was getting chilly out. I thought of when I was a girl. You wouldn’t think persimmons would grow so well in Ohio, but we used to have a tree out back. I remember the first time I had one. Eve picked it right off the branch and told me to take a bite. The irony of that hadn’t occurred to me yet. I was too young to know what persimmons were; I thought they were tomatoes and I hated tomatoes. Eve promised they weren’t—she said they were sweet! I’d love them—but she had an evil smile. I didn’t know any better and took a big bite. It was chilly out that day too, but not cold enough for the first frost. My mouth puckered and dried out before I could spit the damn thing up. I threw the fruit at Eve and tried to wipe my tongue with my hands. She doubled over, laughing and laughing. She wasn’t much of a sister much of the time, but I loved her. Later that day she caught a cold bad enough she almost had to go to the hospital. We couldn’t afford that then. And I guess I can’t afford it now; I hurried up and put the groceries in the Giant Eagle bags, closed the trunk, and went home.
“I thought you were shopping for the week,” Clay said, helping me unpack. “This will last us a month.”
“I had a lot of coupons,” I lied.
Clay nodded. “You missed it, on the news they said someone fell off the roof of a nightclub downtown.”
“Mhmm.” I waited. I knew something was coming.
“Yeah, I guess the guy died,” he shrugged, putting cans of soup in the pantry.
I didn’t understand, maybe he was serious? “Jesus, how’d it happen? Who was he?”
“They’re not sure,” Clay smirked. “But since he died they knew he wasn’t a bouncer.”
“That’s your worst one yet.” I tried not to laugh because it felt like it’d turn into a cough, but I couldn’t help myself and it did. Clay looked worried but said nothing.
We went to bed early. It hurt the most when I would lie down, but I didn’t get much sleep anyhow. Half my night was spent making sure Clay didn’t roll on his side or else the ventilator might mess up, the shell could slip off his chest and he’d lose his breath. Mostly he did well; he’d spent so much time on his back in the iron lung that it wasn’t difficult for him. He’d mope, of course. Say things like, “I get out of that damn sardine can and I still can’t lay on my side!” I’d tell him if it didn’t make a difference then he should just go back into the lung, which was in our garage next to the grill. In the last few months I’ve wondered if he would bellyache so much if he knew. He’d try not to, but then that wouldn’t be the man I married. He was always a big baby, even before his accident. No reason to change that.
“Hey where’s the scratchers?”
“They’re on the kitchen counter,” I said.
“Go grab ‘em before you come to bed!” He sounded like a little kid on Christmas Eve.
“We’ll scratch them in the morning.” I got under the covers.
“Okay,” he sighed, “but you only got winners, right?”
I shut off the lights and kissed his forehead. “I tried.”
Eric Boyd’s work has been published in Joyland, The Massachusetts Review, and The Rose Books Reader, among others. He is the editor of The Pittsburgh Anthology (Belt Publishing) and is a regular contributor for Zona Motel.
Rachel Goes Shopping is part of a novel.