I thought about my mother and the way she used to say that anything worth knowing was worth knowing today.
Then I turned the cart around.
My legs felt disconnected from my body as I approached the bakery display. Leo fell silent, sensing the change in me the way small animals sense an approaching storm.
Ten feet.
Six feet.
Three.
“Excuse me,” I said.
My voice came out thinner than I intended.
The woman did not turn.
“Excuse me,” I repeated.
She looked up, distracted, still holding the loaf of bread.
Her eyes passed over me and landed on Leo.
Something flickered across her face.
Recognition.
A soft, startled recognition, like the expression someone gives a child they have seen before in photographs.
Then she looked back at me and understood who I must be.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“Do you know my son?”
She slowly returned the bread to the shelf, as if buying herself a few more seconds.
