“Where’s your mom?”
“At home. She’s sick. My brother is sick too. They both have a fever.”
The people in line behind her started sighing.
That was when I noticed the man standing right behind her.
A dark coat. An expensive watch. Clean shoes that had never seen our neighborhood.
He looked at the girl, looked back at me, and nodded.
He wasn’t annoyed.
He was staring at the girl as if the world had just tilted under him.
I didn’t like that.
I caught my manager’s eye, lifted one finger, and said, “Can you hold my lane for 30 seconds?”
He nodded.
I stepped away from the register, grabbed bread, soup, crackers, bananas, children’s cold medicine, and another jug of milk.
I paid for it myself.
When I handed her the bags, her eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t take all this,” she whispered.
“Yes, you can,” I said. “Go home. Take care of your brother.”
She nodded quickly.
“Thank you.”
Then she ran.
That should have been the end of it.
The man stepped forward next.
He put a pack of gum on the conveyor belt and barely seemed to know where he was.
“You only want this?” I asked.
