Clara and Vincent

Clara was 80 years old and living alone after the death of her husband. Although he had been sick for a long time, his passing was a surprise leaving her adrift for the first time in her memory. They had never had children and she had outlived her only sister. Most of their friends had either passed or moved to Florida, leaving her alone in a neighborhood she no longer recognized. But Clara kept reminding herself that she was reasonably healthy, warm and dry. She didn’t want to spend her last days wallowing in self-pity. She didn’t want the light to go out of her eyes. But some days were harder than others. Some nights were dark beyond knowing.

The city wasn’t a place for old people. The pace was too fast, the sidewalks cracked and uneven. All of the old stores were gone, replaced with gleaming shops with names she couldn’t pronounce. Everything was so expensive. The aisles were cramped and she bumped into things more than she used to. She didn’t know anyone at her grocery store. Gilbert Owen had run the store for as long as she could remember, but he had sold out to a younger man who she had never met. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him in the place. He had hired a young Indian man to run the place and had installed self-checkout lanes everywhere. Clara struggled to work the scanner. She had trouble lifting the heavier items and placing them in the flimsy plastic bags. Grocery shopping took up half the morning these days.

Clara felt lucky to still have a car and her driver’s license, but she knew that eventually she would have to give up both. Her eyesight was going. She didn’t think she could pass the eye test the next time she had to renew her license, just two years away. She would just have to take the bus after that, something she wasn’t looking forward to. It was dirty and far too loud. But there was no point borrowing trouble, Clara thought to herself as she drove to the grocery store. She reminded herself to stop fretting over things she couldn’t control…which seemed to be everything now. She needed to concentrate on the task at hand. She hadn’t wanted to go to the grocery store on a Saturday but somehow she had let the pantry empty itself out and there weren’t eggs or milk or bread in the refrigerator. She hadn’t been paying attention and now she would have to fight the manic weekend crowds. The hardest part was remembering everything she needed. She had recently started making a list but her handwriting had gotten so poor she could barely read it anymore. She was planning on making soup. One pot would feed her all week. She hoped she could find tomatoes that were fit to eat. The produce under the new management was terrible. She chided herself for such uncharitable thoughts. 

It was Vincent’s first day off in over a year. His two jobs kept him busy during the week and his Uncle’s landscaping business provided him as many jobs as he wanted on the weekends and he took them all. He needed the money, for one thing, and for another, when he was working he had less time to think about the hash he had made of his life. He was only 28 and on his second divorce, with two children he only saw once a month. The friends he had left called him Vinny and blamed him for both divorces, but no more than he blamed himself. Most of his money went to his exes for the care and feeding of children who no longer felt like his. 

He had taken the day off because he felt like hell. He woke up with a splitting headache and a sharp pain running through the middle of his back. He had strained it the day before lifting a sack of fertilizer from the back of his truck. Now he could hardly get out of bed. He managed to make a pot of coffee in the midst of his agony and then sat at his kitchen table rummaging through the medicine box looking for the Tylenol. It was empty. Of course it was empty, he thought, why wouldn’t it be?

Vinny was rapidly coming to the end of his rope. He felt like he was living someone else’s life, one that had no future and no point. How had it come to this? Yes, he had made a few bad decisions, most of his mistakes were self-inflicted. But the price he was being made to pay seemed too dear, too much to ever pay. His boss at the distribution center where he worked at night had asked him, “where do you see yourself in five years, Vinny?”  Vinny had said—“hopefully better off.” But on his way home that night he pondered the question over and over in his mind and the only answer that felt true was—“dead.” But he knew he was too much of a coward to kill himself. The worst nights of his life were always the times when he thought about running away, making a break for anonymity, leaving all of his mistakes in the rear view mirror. He would take on a new name and craft a new identity, and try his best to stay one step ahead of his past. But each time he imagined this new life all he could see were the faces of his children. He had brought them into the world. What about them?

Clara made it to the self-checkout station and fumbled with the scanner. It had taken her over an hour to find everything. She crept through the store like thick syrup as all the young people sped past her on all sides. They seemed in such a hurry. It was like they couldn’t even see her, as if she were invisible. Everyone moved so fast now. She could hear the noise they made as they passed her in the aisles, like a spring breeze. And now she could feel their growing impatience as they gathered in the line behind her at the checkout station. They had places to be and people to see and when in the world was this old woman ever going to finish? She finally placed the three paper thin plastic bags in her cart and moved away from the checkout station. It had cost $100 to barely fill the three small bags, and as soon as she sat them in the cart, each of them fell open and cans of beans and her tomatoes rolled around every which way. How she hated it when the store had done away with paper bags.

There was a wide walking lane painted with bright yellow lines on the blacktop that led to the parking lot. Even though it was a walking zone Clara always stopped and looked both ways before venturing out. Then she would proceed on her way, slowly and methodically, much to the frustration of the men and women in their SUV’s waiting for her to cross. She had never noticed how slow she was until Harold had gotten sick. Once he no longer was able to go with her, she felt unsure of herself out and about. By the time she made it to her car she was sweating and her hands had begun to tremble ever so slightly. She noticed a truck idling in the lane down from her car with its blinker on. Was he waiting for her? Why had she come shopping on a Saturday? Clara fought back against a rising tide of tears as she gathered up her tomatoes and canned beans, shoved them into the plastic bag and lifted it out of the cart. When the bag ripped open sending it all crashing to the pavement and rolling across the parking lot she burst into tears.

Vinny saw the old woman, saw her groceries spill and for just a moment thought of throwing the truck in reverse. He didn’t need this. He needed some Tylenol. But then he paused and closed his eyes. For the first time in years he thought of his long dead grandmother. He opened his eyes and saw the old woman crying. He placed his truck in park, turned on the emergency flashers, got out of the cab and began gathering cans of beans and boxes of pasta. 

Clara was embarrassed when he approached her and a bit scared. He was a young man, powerfully built and sloppily dressed. The expression on his face looked weary and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or tired. 

“Looks like you’re having trouble,” he said without changing expression. 

“I’m so sorry,” Clara said.

“No need to be sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s these cheap-ass plastic bags!” The young man managed a hint of a smile.

Clara had stopped crying, but her hands were still shaking. She had gotten into the habit of skipping breakfast, drinking only coffee and a small glass of water. Her appetite had never recovered after Harold passed. But going grocery shopping with nothing in her stomach had been a mistake. Now her head began to ache and she suddenly felt as weak as water. The young man had gathered all of her runaway groceries and placed them in her trunk. Now he stood next to her, his dark eyes staring out from under his baseball cap.

“What you need are a couple of those special bags the store sells with sturdy handles on each side. At least they stand up in the cart.”

Clara thought to answer exactly how Harold would have had he been alive, “yeah…but they charge you two dollars each for those bags! First they take away the paper ones, replace them with the worthless plastic ones. Then they offer to sell you bags for two dollars. It’s a scam.”

Vinny smiled down at her. “Well, I’ve got a bunch of them behind the seat in my truck. How about I get you a couple?” 

Clara watched him go back to his truck, park it in an available space and return to her with three wrinkled bags emblazoned with the store name—Uncle Willie’s. He handed them to her and noticed that she had lost her color. He saw her hands trembling and then heard himself say, “Ma'am? You don’t look so good. Are you alright?”

“I’m afraid I’m just old and worn out. I’ll be ok once I get back to the house. I should have had some breakfast this morning. Don’t know what I was thinking,” Clara rambled.

Vinny thought of his children. Out of nowhere their bright faces appeared. They were drifting away. He was losing them. Suddenly, desperately, he wanted to be the kind of man who they would one day be proud of. He was still young. It wasn’t too late. He had time to turn it around. He extended his hand. “My name is Vincent. What’s your’s?”

“I’m Clara.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Clara.”

“I’m pleased to meet you too, Vincent.”

Vinny insisted on walking Clara back inside Uncle Willie’s. There was a small bistro inside that served breakfast biscuits and sandwiches. Vinny bought her a sausage and egg biscuit and a glass of orange juice. They sat at the small round table and talked about themselves for a few minutes. Before long Clara’s color had returned, her hands were once again steady. Vinny then walked her back to her car, helped her in safely, then waved to her as she drove out of the parking lot.

For the first time that he could remember the knot inside his stomach was gone. As he got into the cab of his truck he noticed that his headache was gone and the kink in his back had melted away.