The Produce Section

What We Refused to Say

Chapter 18: The Produce Section

Linda Foster found them beside the tomatoes on a Saturday.

The grocery store had stacked strawberries in cardboard pyramids near the entrance and was piping in instrumental worship music so lightly that it could be mistaken for refrigeration if you didn't know the songs. Margaret was comparing two cans of crushed tomatoes like the decision might still matter after the week they'd had. Daniel was reaching for a cart with one bad wheel when Linda appeared at the end of the aisle wearing a quilted vest and the expression church women reserved for public encounters with private knowledge.

"Margaret. Daniel."

They turned.

"Linda."

Her smile carried immediate sorrow and delayed curiosity in roughly equal measure.

"I've been meaning to reach out," she said. "I just hate all this division."

Margaret set one of the cans back on the shelf.

"Do you?"

Linda blinked once, the way people do when they have prepared for sympathy and run into grammar.

"Of course I do. It's heartbreaking when the body—"

"Specific people were hurt before the body started having feelings about it," Daniel said.

The words came out quieter than he expected. That made them harder to step around.

Linda shifted the paper-wrapped bouquet in her cart from one hand to the other.

"Well, I know emotions are high."

"That's not the problem," Margaret said.

Linda gave a small, pained smile meant to signal higher ground.

"I just think in times like this it's important not to say more than we know."

Daniel looked at her.

"That's been important at Grace for a long time."

The aisle held still around them. A teenage stock boy on the far end froze with a crate of avocados in his hands and then, sensing adult voltage, bent over the display with sudden devotion.

"I didn't come over here for an argument," Linda said.

"Neither did we," Margaret replied. "We came for tomatoes."

Linda's mouth thinned.

"Well. We're praying for peace."

"Use names when you do," Daniel said.

Linda had nothing ready for that. She gave one short nod, gathered her cart, and moved on toward frozen foods with the brisk dignity of someone determined not to recognize retreat while performing it.

Margaret picked up the can she'd put back.

"San Marzano or store brand."

Daniel looked at her, then at the shelf.

"San Marzano," he said.

"Good."

They moved on to onions.

At the dairy case the clerk stocking yogurt looked up and said, "Hey, Mr. Mercer."

It took Daniel a second to place him. Owen Peters. Seventeen. Played percussion on the youth worship set two summers ago. Taller now, acne clearing, name tag crooked over an apron that said FRESH MARKET.

"Owen."

"You still doing all right after the hailstorm on your side of town?" the boy asked. "My mom said you helped them with that claim."

Daniel remembered then: his mother had cried in the office over roof damage and then apologized for crying as though insurance and weather had dignity thresholds.

"I remember," he said. "How is your mom?"

The boy looked up from the yogurt case properly for the first time.

"She's good. Surgery went okay."

"I forgot that was last week."

"Yeah." Owen smiled a little. "She's walking weird but acting tough about it."

Margaret reached for a carton of milk and said, "That sounds right for your mother."

Owen laughed. "It does."

They talked another thirty seconds. Knee replacement. Physical therapy. Too much Jell-O in the house. Then Owen went back to the yogurt with the relieved expression of someone who had expected a customer exchange and gotten human memory instead.

When they were halfway down the cereal aisle Margaret said, "You asked."

Daniel pushed the cart.

"Yes."

"Before it was strategically elegant."

He almost smiled.

"Yes."

"How'd it feel?"

He thought about Linda in the produce section, about Owen at the dairy case, about how much of his life had been spent preparing language for rooms that rewarded caution while ordinary aisles went unvisited.

"Smaller," he said.

Margaret nodded.

"Good."

At checkout the cashier asked whether they wanted paper or plastic.

"Paper," Daniel said.

Because there was no reason to keep offering the world either is fine when it had asked an actual question.