The closer we got to main street, the uglier things got. Buildings were covered in graffiti and tags, announcing gangs and members. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel out of fear and tried to keep the anxiety from showing through on my face. I'm pretty sure I failed at that, though. My face was an open book. I couldn’t hide what I was feeling for shit.
"EVerything okay, dear?" mom asked.
"Mm-hmm," I hummed.
I wasn't a person that scared easily and I knew the gangs in my city were pretty tame, but after hearing tales of organized crimes on the east and west coasts even graffiti was enough to make me nervous.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I just don't love this side of town," I told mom as I pulled into the supermarket parking lot. It was fairly crowded, but I got us right up to the front and placed mom's handicap sticker on the mirror. "We can do this pretty quickly. We don't need much."
I hopped out of the car and helped my mom out as well, before being sure to lock the doors. Not that there was anything of value in the car. But it doesn't hurt to be safe.
I linked my arm through mom's and let her lean on me as walked. Ever since the attack, her legs didn't work so well. "Come along, M'lady," I said with a grin a wink towards mom. She didn't respond, though she didn't really respond to much these days so it wasn't a shocker, and leaned her weight down on me. I bore most of her weight without much problem, I suppose it must have been an interesting site. My mother, while not an overly tall lady, towered over my short frame. She didn't weigh much, though, and I was used to helping her out by this point. Once we were in, I grabbed a cart and started making my way up and down the aisles of the market.
I hated grocery shopping with a passion. Everything about it drove me crazy and it was by far my least favorite chore. But after it was all said and done we'd have a full pantry which I suppose was more than enough for mom and me.
"Can we get some fruit?" I was shaken from my intense focus by mom's question and looked over to where she was staring longingly at the produce section. I bit my lip. We really didn't have enough for fresh fruit and vegetables, but the look in her eyes was so hopeful I just couldn't say no.
"Sure," I agreed after a moment, "But we can't get much and we won't be able to have much meat on hand this week if we get fruit."
She grinned at me, a look full of so much joy it was heartbreaking. She should always look like that. I'd give anything for her to constantly look that. It wasn't fair that she had to spend so much time unhappy simply because I didn't make enough money. But there was nothing to be done about it.
I looked at the prices of fruit and grimaced. This wasn't even good fruit, yet it was crazy expensive. Lucian had given us a fruit basket once as my "one year work-iverssary" (I didn't think of being stuck in a dead end for a year to be anything worthy of fruit, but apparently everyone else did.) And, my god, was that fruit fantastic. Made the mushy apples and sour grapes I bought seem awful.
Mom looked like she wanted to try everything. The woman loved fruit. She used to tell me stories about when she was a girl and her parents grew apples and carrots and watermelons and tomatoes and strawberries in the yard. She’d reminisce about how she could just go out into the garden and pick all the fruit she desired. I'd love to give her something like that again, if only to just see the look of joy on her face as she saw all the fruit she could ever want.
I noted how conservative she was being, grabbing simply one apple, weighing it to be sure she was getting a small one, then repeating the process with a peach. Smiling sadly, I grabbed the two best mangoes I could find for her and me. She and I loved mangoes and when I was little she, my father, and I would all sit down on Saturday and have mangoes together. It was our special thing. I hadn't had one in ages. I missed the taste. After a couple minutes I saw her walk back to the cart, two little plastic bags containing her two fruits.
"What else do we need?" she asked curiously as she walked next to me.
"Oh, the usual. Bread, milk, eggs. Ya know."
She nodded, looking distant once again as she went somewhere else.
It was as boring as shopping always is. Walking up aisles, looking at prices, lusting after things I knew I couldn't afford, then having to pay out the ass for everything.
I never understood why it was people seemed to enjoy shopping. Not that I ever really shopped for fun items. But even then I imagine it would more of a stressful experience than something enjoyable.
Even when I did treat myself to something like a pedicure, the whole time I was was spent with my mind racing, full of thoughts of mother, of my pay, of what would happen if I'd miscalculated and didn't have enough. So, I stayed away from things like that. Rachele and Lucian often told me I needed to loosen up and relax. I found that much easier said than done. What was the big deal about relaxation anyways? It's not so great. People that are relaxed are people that don't get shit down, I figured. I didn't understand the attraction.
I stood in line at the cash register after a good half hour of shopping and was starting to regret promising mother a day out. I was exhausted already and it had only been a half hour. By the time it was our turn to check out I was yawning every two seconds and barely paying attention to the numbers popping up on the screen announcing the price.
"That'll be $152.73 ma'am," the cashier said, looking horribly bored and disinterested. I grimaced as I slid my debit card and typed in my pin-number. 0129. Mother's birthday.
"Thank you," I mumbled as I grabbed the shopping cart full of bags and started pushing it back towards the car. Mother grabbed my arm and leaned over on me, balancing most of her weight onto me as we walked. She was tired.
I got her sitting in the car while I loaded the bags up into the trunk and backseat. She wasn't speaking much, which wasn't odd for her once she had her medication in her.
I climbed into the front seat, before leaning over and buckling her seatbelt. She didn't whine or anything. She was exhausted.
"How're you feeling, mom?" I asked as I started up the car, already knowing the answer and just wanting to see what she'd tell me.
"Tir'd," she said, leaning her head on the window and letting her eyes fall close.
"Well, let's get you home and you can lay down. I need a nap, too, I think."
"You should," she agreed sleepily. "You don't rest enough."
I was careful as I drove, trying to not jostle her too much or take any sharp turns. I felt myself relaxing the closer I got to the flat and speeding up. I wanted to be back in the comfort of my own apartment more than I'd realized I did. And once I saw our apartment building I grinned. 'Finally,' I thought, imagining the hot bath and long nap I was planning on the second I got all the groceries put away.
Once I was pulled into my parking place, I shut off the car and leaned over the seat again, unbuckling mom’s seat belt and jostling her awake.
“Come on, momma,” I said, shaking her shoulder. “We’re home.”
“‘m sleeeepy.”
“I know you are. Know, come along. You can sleep inside.”
She whined loudly, clearly not loving the idea of moving.
“Think about it, mom. You’ll have your own nice soft bed and your pillow and blankets.”
That seemed to entice her enough to make her stretch out and open her eyes, but she didn’t look happy about being woken. I chuckled and opened the trunk, grabbing as many grocery bags as I could and let mom take the lighter ones, with eggs and bread. I was laden down with bags, but I managed to get everything.
We had a ground floor apartment, on account of mother’s difficult moving, and it only took a few minutes to get to the door. I went to unlock the door, but noticed I didn’t need to. It was open. Not even shut all the way. “Mom,” I said, getting upset. “You have to close the door dammit!”
“But—”
“No buts! The door has to stay shut.”
“But you were the last out.”
I stopped my tirade at her words and thought back. She was right. I was that last out. But, I wouldn’t forget to close the door. Would I?
I kicked the door open with my foot, then froze in shock at the sight in front of me.
The apartment was trashed. The table was turned on its side,everything on it thrown to the floor, the fridge was unplugged and open, the small TV in the living room had been broken, things were scattered everywhere. I dropped everything in my hands. Someone had been here.539Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZRjgUhs2nE
