August is already digging in the grocery bag. “Did you get cheese?”
“Yes.”
“Dinosaur gummies?”
“No.”
His face falls.
She pulls a small package from another bag. “But I got dinosaur fruit snacks.”
He gasps like she has delivered treasure from a foreign kingdom.
“Blue Rex approves,” I say.
August clutches them to his chest and runs inside to show the judge his bribe.
Amelia lingers by the truck.
There are bags in the passenger seat. Not many. Bread, milk, fruit, cheese, coffee filters, cheap pancake mix, a pack of socks for August, and a small paper bag she keeps separate.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I wait.
She sighs. “It was strange.”
“Being out?”
“Being able to decide how long to stand in the cereal aisle.” She laughs softly. “That sounds pathetic.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Her eyes lift. “Jeremy used to call me if I took too long.”
My jaw tightens.
“Then he’d ask why I needed so much time. Who I saw. What I bought. Why I bought the wrong brand.” She looks at the grocery bags. “I stood there today and compared prices for ten minutes because no one was counting the minutes but me.”
I don’t know what to say.
Everything I think of sounds too small.
So I say the only true thing.
“Good.”
Her mouth trembles.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “Good.”
She reaches into the little paper bag and pulls out a pack of coffee filters, tossing them to me. I catch them against my chest.
“Emergency supplies,” she says.
“You save the house from future breakfast fires.”