New Home

by Beverly Tjerngren

After her older girls hurried out the door on their way to the mall--with her calling out after them strict instructions to wait on the bench outside the main entrance at exactly two o'clock--Rachael decided that she might as well make a trip to the grocery store and do a bit of shopping. Ordinarily she hated shopping on the weekends (she'd been spoiled by the housewife's luxury of being able to shop in uncrowded stores), but she couldn't think of anything better to do, and she felt desperate to get out of the house.

She strapped Francie into her carseat and drove to the family-run grocery store that was near her mother's house a couple of miles away. It was much smaller--and pricier--than her own neighborhood supermarket, but Rachael liked the atmosphere and she was in the mood for a low-key shopping trip, even if it ended up costing her a few dollars more. When she pulled into the parking lot she saw that there were only three other cars there, something that left her with mixed feelings. While it was nice not to have to battle through crowds of other shoppers with her grocery cart, she knew that the lack of customers would ultimately drive the store out of business, and probably sooner rather than later.

For the moment, however, they were still selling and she was still buying, so Rachael pulled Francie from the backseat of the car and set her on the asphalt, holding her hand tightly as she trotted through the parking lot toward the front doors. Inside, Rachael lifted the little girl into a shopping cart and started to make her rounds, going first around the perimeter of the store, then venturing into the aisles, saving perishable products, of course, for last, just as she'd been taught in her home economics class what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Rachael loved grocery shopping. She always had, ever since the days she and Karen trailed behind their mother in this very same store. There was such a sense of possibility in grocery stores. You could make almost anything worth making from the ingredients that lined these shelves. Every new or unusual product was like an unearthed treasure to Rachael. She would pick it up, turning the package this way and that to examine it from all sides. Now I wonder what you'd use this for, she'd think to herself. The best products were those that came with exotic recipes on the outside of the package, and she often came home from the store with ingredients for an entire meal based on one ingredient she'd never before thought to use in quite that way.

Today, though, she stuck to the basics, both because her budget wasn't up to as much adventurousness as it used to be (her exotic meals had ended more times than she cared to remember with a call to the local pizza delivery place), and, perhaps more important, because Francie didn't have the patient temperament of a dedicated shopper. She had a fifteen-minute limit at the grocery store--twenty, if there was a bakery-fresh cookie involved--and Rachael knew that she needed to be quick if she wanted to preserve her youngest daughter's cheerful mood.

The calm environment of the store lent itself to a successful shopping trip, and Rachael found herself going through the checkout lane before Francie had even started her tell-tale leg kicking--when she was getting close to reaching her limit, she always started kicking the front of Rachael's thighs as Rachael pushed her in the shopping cart, but today her legs had remained blissfully still. The middle-aged cashier had rung up her purchases and the high-school box boy had arranged them neatly in thick sacks before Francie gave even a thought to whimpering or nagging. Rachael was sending a quick thank you heavenward for her good luck when she stepped outside through the automatic doors and saw a little girl standing off to the side, carefully cradling a long-haired black cat in her arms.

Rachael cast a wary glance toward the girl as she pushed her cart past. She thought that the girl must be about Natalie's age, though Rachael didn't recognize her. She was dressed in well-worn jeans and a faded sweatshirt--No coat, Rachael thought critically--and her hair was a stringy, dishwater-blonde rats' nest. Against her better judgment, Rachael turned back and called to the girl, "Is everything okay, honey?"

The girl answered in a small voice, "I have to find a home for my cat."

Rachael turned her cart around and pushed it back toward the girl. "Does your mama know you're here?" she asked gently.

The girl nodded solemnly and Rachael noticed tears welling in the corners of her eyes. "My dad says I have to give my cat away or else he'll kill her. He's waiting in the car." Rachael saw her eyes dart quickly in the direction of a beat-up sedan at the edge of the parking lot, then back to the ground in front of her. "Her name is Silky," the girl added, almost as an afterthought.

"That's a pretty name," Rachael said encouragingly. "Why can't you keep her?"

The girl didn't look up. "My dad just doesn't like cats," she murmured. "He says he'll kill her."

Rachael sighed and made a snap decision. "You know," she began, "I was just thinking that I'd like a cat, and Silky sure is a pretty girl."

The girl looked up at Rachael finally, with eyes almost not daring to hope. "Really?"

"Really," Rachael assured her. "Can you carry her over to that silver car for me?" Rachael pointed out her car in the middle of the parking lot. "I'll be there in just a second."

Rachael turned her shopping cart toward the sedan where the girl's father waited. The look on her face must have said something to him and she could see confrontation in his eyes as she approached. She didn't stop, but walked slowly past the car, saying softly but clearly into the open window. "You should be ashamed of yourself." Then she continued to her own car, where she loaded up her groceries, her small daughter, and her new cat, then she drove quietly home.