“What is it to you?” I heard a man say in the next aisle.

This man, I will call him Frank, was medium built, medium height, and plain. Standing next to him was a tall, slender, and attractive woman. I called her Mary, because everyone deserves a name, even before you know what they are actually called.

He was managing the cart filled with the items.

“I said what is it to you?”

“I don’t know… I just don’t like it,” was her reply.

As he moved, I noticed something about how she moved. Slightly imperceptible, but when accompanied with the way her right foot dragged at a turned angle, and her right hand curled like she was holding an invisible stick, I would have guessed Mary may have had a stroke, or a palsy of some kind.

“She is my mother and I will talk to her, okay?”

“Okay,” Mary said.

Frank didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. He grunted and was thrumming the cart handle with his thumb. That was his right hand. In his left was a coffee cup. Not his, hers. I knew that because she took it from him with her left, drank, and then held it for a moment.

“I can hold that for you,” he said, a bit pleadingly.

“No thank you,” Mary said. She looked sad, like she might cry.

“Here let me take it,” Frank said, as he reached for the cup.

In her effort to maintain control over the coffee and balance from Frank’s insistence, Mary dropped the cup.

“Damn it, Claudia!”

Claudia.

The name landed harder than the cup. It was a beautiful name to be spoken aloud. She carried it.

“You’re always doing this! I was just trying to help. You have to let me help you.”

Frank immediately went to the floor to retrieve the cup. In one swoop he picked up the cup and the displaced lid without letting go of the cart. That seemed odd to me until I realized Claudia was leaning against the cart as a way of steadying herself.

Within a few moments, a man in a blue work shirt and khaki pants appeared with a rolling mop bucket filled with water, a mop, and a wet floor sign. Frank and Claudia seemed disinterested in the cleanup effort and had moved a few paces beyond as a result of the line shortening.

“I can hold my own coffee.”

“Yeah, until something like that happens.”

Suddenly, I became aware that my line had slowed to a crawl. A woman at the front of the line was having an issue with the cashier. She was waving her arms and gesticulating toward the man at the register. In one hand she held money bills and the other coupons. He seemed entirely unbothered by this and patiently waited until she was done. Unmoored, he said flatly, “Would you like me to ring it up for you?”

She muttered something about this being bullshit, and stuffed the coupons back in her purse.

Once that scene ended, I was able to focus back on Frank and Claudia. They had moved further along than I and were close enough to the register that he began to put items on the conveyor. I noticed that he held the cart with his left hand while using his right to empty the cart. This allowed Claudia to continue steadying herself. When she tried to help and hand him something, he just said, “I got it, I got it.” She seemed defeated by this and didn’t continue.

It was then that Claudia noticed me staring at her. Normally, if I got caught like that, I would look away. But I couldn’t.

There was something in the way she was being handled that felt familiar.

She didn’t pull her gaze away either. This lasted for about fifteen seconds. I can’t say there was a connection or any kind of recognition between us. She didn’t smile and neither did I.

The woman at the front was at it again. I turned to see what was going on before turning back to regard Claudia. This time, she was standing unassisted by the cart with a more erect posture and facing Frank. She turned to look at me, and moved the strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face to behind her ear. She smiled.

And I nodded.

She turned back to the cart and placed both hands on the edge.

That’s when I heard Frank say, “Shit, I forgot something.”