“Zoe,” I said. “That’s where Aunt Annie worked.”
Zoe looked at the store.
She didn’t say anything for a long time.
Then she unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Can we go in?” she said.
We went in.
Zoe walked straight to the checkout lanes.
She looked at the cashiers. At the baggers. At their name tags. One by one.
TOM. KAYLA. DEVONTE. MARISOL. GRACE.
She said every name out loud. Quietly. To herself.
Then she walked over to the magazine rack.
The same one. Or one just like it. Twenty-eight years later.
She stood in front of it.
She looked at me.
“This is where you were?” she asked.
I nodded.
Zoe took my hand.
She turned around. So we were both facing the checkout lanes.
“Okay,” she said. “Now we’re not pretending.”
I stood there with my daughter.
At the magazine rack at the Super One on London Road.
