After paying for the elderly woman’s groceries at the store, she whispered quietly to me, “When your husband leaves, do not touch the snow in the yard.” I laughed it off, but decided to listen and did not shovel the driveway. And when I stepped out onto the porch the next morning, I was stunned by what I saw.
I was standing in line at the checkout of our local grocery store, clutching my worn-out tote bag to my chest. Outside the windows, a blizzard was sweeping through the streets. December had turned out to be especially snowy this year. Fifty-eight is the age when you stop running around supermarkets looking for sales and start going to the familiar place near your house where the clerks know you by name.
Ahead of me, right at the register, a hunched-over elderly woman in a faded shawl was fumbling around. She poured loose change onto the counter from a tattered wallet, counting the coins with trembling fingers. On the belt lay the most modest of purchases: a loaf of bread, a carton of milk, three potatoes, and a small onion.
“Ma’am, you are short,” the cashier, a young woman named Candace with tired eyes, said wearily. “You are short about a dollar.”
