I come around the end of the aisle and see him.
Forty-something, nothing remarkable about him, decent-looking in the specific way that explains how he gets away with things. He's already moving toward her with this open, easy expression, hands loose at his sides, the whole performance of a man who has simply been worried.
I'm beside her before he reaches her. My hand finds the small of her back and I feel her exhale slightly, one small breath.
Brad stops. He hadn't expected me. "Hallie." Warm. Relieved. "I've been looking everywhere."
"Daddy," Theo says from the cart, not looking up from the crackers.
Brad's eyes go to him. He crouches down. "Hey buddy. Miss me?"
Theo considers this seriously. Doesn't answer. Goes back to the crackers.
Brad straightens and looks at me with that reasonable expression. "Sorry — I don't think we've met. I'm Brad. Theo's dad."
"Ronan," I say.
He waits for more. I don't give him any. My hand stays where it is at Hallie's back. She’s trembling.
He turns back to her. "I just want to talk. Five minutes." A glance at me, at my hand. "Privately."
Two women with a cart have slowed at the end of the aisle. A teenager stocking shelves is pretending not to listen. Everyone in here can see a perfectly reasonable man asking for five minutes with his family, and a woman who seems tense, and a man standing too close to her. I know exactly what that looks like from the outside. So does she. So does he — it's why he chose here.
"We can talk here," Hallie says.
His jaw tightens. Just slightly.
"Give me a minute," I say to Hallie. It hurts me to tear myself away, but we’re safe here in public I walk to the next aisle and call Danny.
"He's at the grocery store on Main," I say when he picks up. "Step on it."
I get the apple juice. When I come back Brad is still talking, low and steady, and Hallie is standing with her chin up and her face completely closed. I step back in beside her and she shifts slightly toward me, just an inch, and I put my hand at her back again.
Brad looks at my hand. At Hallie. It’s getting harder for him to hide his anger. I can see the vein in his neck twitching.
"This doesn't involve him," he says.
"He's with us," Hallie says.
Us.
Brad looks at the cart. At Theo. At me. He's doing the math, knowing there's nothing he can do about it here without making a scene, which is the one thing he won't do, not in public, not where people can see.
He makes a decision. "I'll call you," he says to Hallie. Like this is a pause.
"Don't." Hallie says.
He looks at me one more time. I look back at him and don't say anything because there's nothing to say and he knows it.
Brad leaves.
Hallie stands there with her hand on the cart. Theo has gotten the crackers open and is eating them with total concentration, completely uncaring that his father has come and gone.
"Okay," she says quietly. "Let's go."
Back at the cabin I make pasta. It's the only thing I can cook without thinking about it and right now thinking is in short supply. Hallie sits at the kitchen table with her hands around a mug of tea and doesn't talk much and I don't push it. Theo eats two bowls and then slides off his chair and disappears down the hall.
Ten minutes later: "Mr. Ronan!"
