Grieving in Aisle Five

I realized it in the grocery store, somewhere between the green beans and sweet corn. One day, she would be one of my “so long ago” memories, the ones that felt like they happened to someone else or didn’t happen at all. I would be someone who lived a longer life without her than with her.

The thought bloomed a fresh forget-me knot in my throat. The tears would be next. I blinked them back and stared hard at the Green Giant.

Her funeral was three weeks ago. Her brother Shaun and I stood over her grave for some time after the others left. Something to help you get through this, he had said as he handed me a book wrapped in brown paper. It wasn’t quite gift-wrap, but then what pattern would have been appropriate?

Maybe something bright that said “sorry for your loss” in a million different places. Or “it could be worse” on a black-and-white pattern. She would have loved that. I could almost hear her countering with other patterns, concocting a business model for selling gift wrap for the grieving.

I told her brother about the gift paper idea, hoping her humor might be a family trait. Instead, he stared at me with red-rimmed eyes and told me it was OK to miss her.

We made small talk about his sister’s tombstone and the weather long after we ran out of things to say. I would have left, but I didn’t want her to feel lonely being dead all by herself. Having been dead for such a short time, she wouldn’t have made any dead-friends yet. She was not the easiest person to get close to.

But she and I were close. In the six years since we met, there weren’t two days I could put together when we didn’t speak. In all that time, I couldn’t remember hearing her brother’s name. Her family was one of many topics we avoided when we hung out. When her dad died two years earlier, she would only talk about the people she didn’t recognize at the funeral. And I knew better than to ask, I didn’t like talking about my family either. Maybe that’s why we work so well—had worked.

The book her brother gave me said the first step to grieving is to make peace with the loss: moving on isn’t forgetting, and happiness isn’t denial. They’re dead but you have to grab life by its bull, or something equally life-affirming and useless. I skimmed chapters until I got to the end but there weren’t any sections on explaining in job interviews that you lost your last two jobs because you couldn’t keep it together through a shift. There were no life hacks on buying groceries without having a breakdown in the same aisle every time, either. Those might be worth including in a revised edition.

I had the bright idea of sending a letter along those lines to the publisher. But I heard the suggestions in her voice as I wrote, her excited injections souring to nagging corrections, and only managed to give up after trying to throw my computer through a window.

I slapped my cheeks, focusing on the sting to clear my head. My eyes were sore, my throat, too. I wasn’t sure if I was about to cry or if I’d just stopped, and if anyone asked I couldn’t tell them what I was doing in the canned goods aisle.

A runaway cart rolled to a stop against my leg. The woman who collected it looked a few years older than me judging by the shallow lines around her eyes and lips. The kid with her wandered through the aisle touching everything in reach on the lower shelves despite her whispered commands to “stop that now.” She looked tired. She looked away. The kid ran to the end of the aisle and the woman leaned in to pick up a few cans of sweet corn before following.

Before I could think better of it, I texted Shaun. We had nothing in common, didn’t run in the same circles, but he was the strongest in a collection of fading links and the best in a clutch of bad decisions.

His reply came before my screen could fade to black.

I found a bench in the park nearby where I could wait for him. Summer was fading quickly into spring, leaving little space for the winter, but today was a cold day and her brother showed up blowing frost clouds. His lips were already chapped and his eyes were red and watery, but he wore his jacket open down the front and what looked like pajamas underneath.

I scanned his features for some remnant, but Shaun looked nothing like his (indisposed) sister. Her eyes reflected neither mirth nor mischief, while her face was always on the brink of a smile. No matter how I looked at him, he seemed like someone who’d wait for you to stop laughing before telling you why your joke wasn’t funny. I couldn’t find a trace of her in him. Something of my thoughts must have shown on my face.

“Is there something on me?”

I shook my head. “You don’t look like her.”

Shaun lowered his head as he sat so I couldn’t see his expression. “Is that one of your jokes?”

“No.”

Already, a misstep. Silence chased the thoughts from my head faster than I could process them until Shaun cleared his throat.

“I haven’t heard from you since—”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I figured you finished that book and moved on with your life.” He disguised it well but there was a lilting undertone to his voice. I could swear I heard his (dearly depleted) sister. So that’s what they had in common--unless I was imagining things. Reading his deadpan expression was near-impossible but, like his (unavailable for comment) sister, his voice gave the game away.

“Are you teasing me?”

His lips twitched like they were aiming for a smile but weren’t sure how to pull it off.

“I’m not very good at it lately.” He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His eyes fixated on his shoes, or the ground between them as he spoke. Changing the topic completely, he asked, “Why did you call me out here?”

I hugged the back of the bench and focused on the logo on his jacket sleeve: an orange-red phoenix flying skyward, trailing filigree flames in its wake that continued halfway to the cuff. “Oh, that.” Now that he sat in front of me, curled over his knees and waiting for an answer, everything I felt in the grocery store seemed silly.

“I just wanted to shoot the breeze, you know?”

“Really?” He peppered the word with skepticism—his voice expressed what his face wouldn’t. A sigh, then he continued, “I don’t know what you were really hoping to get out of this. I don’t even know why I came, we have nothing to talk about.”

“Didn’t stop us the last time.” I tried to laugh it off, but the sound barely made it out.

“Yea, that funeral was a blast.” His voice took on a muted edge and the words came out low and fast. The tension lingered for a beat before Shaun cleared his throat. I could see his jaw flexing as he stood. I wondered then why he wouldn’t look at me though we were sitting an arm’s length apart on that rickety park bench. I wondered whether his eyes were red from only the cold.

He zipped the front of his jacket and mumbled, “I can’t stand this park.” But he surveyed the sprawling field with a nostalgic air, as if discovering that some memories are better left buried. The park was unchanged with time but seemed smaller somehow, and stranger: the empty benches dotting the perimeter, the lake and its inhabitants fleeing south until spring were factors but not the whole reason for the hollow feeling in my chest.

Shaun’s gaze landed on me and it was all I could do not to fall into the void I found there. In a tone that felt too forced to be light, he said, “If you really want to talk, let’s go somewhere else.” And when I hesitated, he added, “It’s my treat.”

We walked together but alone. He kept a few steps ahead with his shoulders slumped, arms thrust into his pockets, head down, while I stumbled over his shadow trying to match his pace. I only caught up to him as he opened the café doors.

I found us a booth in the back, away from the other patrons: the students with their empty plates and books laid out to reserve the full table; the freelancer nodding along with a song barely audible through her headphones, too lost in her work to notice her humming was getting louder; the group of girlfriends catching up in the storefront booth, dodging silences with comments on pedestrians. They were quiet when we walked in.

Shaun set down a pair of mugs, each the size of both my fists and filled to the brim with hot chocolate. “Did you want yours with marshmallows?”

I shrugged. On the walk over, I could only think about the emptiness reflected in his eyes when he looked at me—the only time he’d looked directly at me. Even now his eyes traveled over the framed art on the walls, the other patrons, the steam rising from our mugs, but they did not come to me again.

“Are those your pajamas?” I finally asked. My half-finished hot chocolate had gone lukewarm and started to congeal.

Shaun checked his clothes, like he wasn’t sure what he was wearing, and nodded.

“It’s the middle of the day...” His eyes darted up to meet mine and my voice trailed off. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Are you doing OK?”

“You should stick to worrying about yourself, you’re better at that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shaun pulled out his phone and read: “I just feel so empty. It’s like nothing matters anymore. But I still see her everywhere, like she isn’t really gone…”

He was reading my text from earlier. I cringed and grabbed for the phone, but he was faster.

“Listen, I wasn’t in a good place when I sent that.”

“I wasn’t in a better place when I read it.” Shaun leaned forward, using his left hand to emphasize his words as they grew heated. “You lost your friend, I lost my sister. And you had the nerve to call me out here to comfort you.”

I tried to keep my composure but the tears I’d held back were already running free. I felt small, humiliated—and ashamed more than anything else. “If you felt that way, why did you agree to meet?”

Quiet tension settled over our table, and I was keenly aware of the other patrons’ attention. The group of girls had left, but the student from earlier stared at our table, only looking away after our eyes met. The freelancer’s headphones hung around her neck, but to her credit, she kept her eyes locked on her screen.

Shaun shrugged. “So I could say that to your face.” He slumped over, resting his elbows on either side of his mug. Hiding behind his fists, he added, “I thought it would make me feel better.”

“Did it?”

“No,” he said. “Does pretending she's still around help you?”

Our eyes met, but the emptiness there no longer scared or threatened to devour me, instead it was a mirror of what I had been feeling, returning a richer and deeper reflection with sharp contrasts. I couldn’t look away.