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Eleven
Abby wheeledthe grocery cart through the produce section with her dad trailing behindher.
“I can buy my own damn groceries,Abby.”
He’d been grumbling since they entered the supermarket, although it lacked the bite of his former complaining. Back then every word had been underwritten with cruelty, a desire to hurt her. Since he’d been sober, he’d grown almost gentle, his complaining half-hearted, as if it were part of an affect he was obligated tomaintain.
“I know,” she said. “I told you: I needed to stop formyself.”
“If you think I believe that, you’ve probably got a bridge to sell me,” he said under hisbreath.
She hid her smile as she picked up a head of broccoli. He wasn’t entirely wrong. He’d been buying his own groceries and paying his rent since he got the job on the ranch, but a peek through his kitchen told her his selections were all about convenience. The freezer was stuffed with ice cream and microwavable convenience food, the cupboards loaded with boxes of shelf-stable mac and cheese, instant potatoes, and sugarycereal.
Now that alcoholism was off the table as a cause of death, diabetes and heart diseases were realconcerns.
“I’m picking up some broccoli for myself,” she said. “Do you wantsome?”
“What on God’s green earth am I going to do with broccoli?” he asked. “Get arabbit?”
She laughed. “You can steam it! Or even cook it in a skillet with somebutter.”
“Too much trouble,” he said. “I’m almost sixty-five years old. Let me eat what Iwant.”
She threw a bunch of bananas into the cart and followed it up with a bag of apples. “Let’s check out the frozen section. You can dump frozen veggies in a bowl and put them in the microwave. Besides, what if you decide to invite Carol over? You going to serve her a bowl of LuckyCharms?”
She was surprised when he didn’t offer up anobjection.
Interesting.
They continued through the store, chatting as they went about his job and the apartment, the savings and retirement accounts Abby had helped him set up. He demonstrated a lot of financial acumen for someone who’d rarely been sober enough to count the change in his wallet, and Abby had started to wonder if she’d gotten her knack for numbers from him. He enjoyed checking stock prices in the morning — although he insisted on doing it in the newspaper since he still didn’t have a cellphone — and he was often more on top of interest rates than shewas.
It had been a happy discovery, especially since they were still getting to know each other in a lot of ways. Along with the diner, the grocery store was one of the only places where they spent time together outside of the apartment, where they’d taken to playing backgammon while they worked their way through a bowl ofpopcorn.
By the time they reached the cashier, Abby felt victorious. She’d managed to convince her dad to try some yogurt (she’d chosen the low-sugar kind, hoping he wouldn’t notice), plus some frozen green beans andcorn.
Not exactly power foods, but it was astart.
They paid separately at his insistence and then headed out to the car. The sun was setting earlier now, the sky a dusty blue even though it was just after six p.m. She was still getting used to the random swell of well-being that sometimes washed over her when she was with her dad. Of course, it was almost always followed by the nagging reminder that they still needed to talk about the serious stuff, that she still needed to confront him about everything that had happened when she was a kid, but until he’d gotten sober, that had been the sum total of her feelings about herdad.
Now at least, she had these moments of simple happiness. In them, she felt sure everything would be okay. They’d gotten through the rough patches of his early sobriety, and while the path wasn’t guaranteed, she felt confident he would listen to her when the time came, and she was getting closer to speaking the words she’d kept bottled up for solong.
It would be painful but cathartic. He would be ashamed, would apologize. It wouldn’t be enough to take it all away, but it would give them a clean start, and she was surprised to find she was almost looking forward toit.
To find she was almostready.
“I’ll take this,” she said, rolling the cart away after they’d loaded the groceries in the back of thetruck.
He nodded and walked around to the driver’sside.
She pushed the cart toward the metal corral and inhaled the clean desert air mingling with the smells of the city — exhaust and cigarette smoke and coolingpavement.
When she turned around to walk back to the truck, Jason was standing in front ofher.
She blinked, half-believing she washallucinating.
“Abby.”
Just that. Her name, spoken quietly, a request she couldn’tdecipher.
