A Soldier's Redemption

“You work here?” he asked.

“Yes.” Then she volunteered, “We all had our hours cut back a couple of weeks ago.”

“That hurts. No wonder you need a roomer. How’s Marsha managing?”

“Somewhat better. She gets an alimony check.”

He paused just after they stepped through the automatic doors and looked at her. “Then her ex knows where she is.”

“Theoretically not. The court sends the checks and is supposed to keep her address private.”

He nodded. “Good thing.”

She headed for the manager’s office at the customer service desk while he got a cart and started down the aisles. Interesting that he’d expressed concern for Marsha, she thought. Apparently a real heart beat behind the stone.

The manager, Betsy Sorens, greeted her with her usual wide smile. “Sorry, Cory. No extra hours. Not yet anyway. You’re at the top of my list though when we can start adding them.”

Cory felt almost embarrassed. “Why should I be at the top of the list? That doesn’t seem right, Betsy. So many others need hours, too.”

“We all need hours, some more than the rest. You’re self-supporting. A lot of the other employees have other sources of income.”

Cory felt her cheeks color a bit. “Still …”

Betsy shook her head. “You’re a good employee. If I can do a little something for you, I will.”

A customer came then with a complaint, so Cory smiled, waved and left. Wandering around the store with nothing to buy and nothing to do felt odd. Almost without thinking, she paused occasionally to straighten the stock on the shelves.

She hated to have time hanging on her hands, and she’d certainly had too much of that in the past year. She’d once been busy almost every second of the day, between Jim and her job. Now she had endless hours of free time, and that meant too many hours to think.

Hours to think about the past, about that phone call yesterday, hours to let her fear and anxiety build when there was no real reason for it. Certainly they would have found her by now if they were going to.

She met Wade in one of the aisles and glanced into his cart. There wasn’t much there yet.

“Having trouble?” she asked.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “You might say that.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been mostly eating in mess halls or eating out of boxes for years. I know the basics about cooking, but shopping for one person isn’t as easy as I thought.”

That was a whole lot of syllables, she thought, and for some reason that made her smile. “I have an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“I hate cooking just for myself. Why don’t we take turns cooking for each other?” she suggested.

“Are you sure? You could be taking an awful gamble.”

“On your cooking?”

“What else would I mean?” he asked.

“I’m willing to take it. And if it doesn’t work out, well, I could teach you to cook. Or you could just let me do it.”

He shook his head. “No way am I going to let you cook for me every night. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

She could almost see him closing down again, as if the idea that he might lean on her concerned him. “Okay then, cooking lessons if you need them.”

That seemed to satisfy him. Armed with the idea that they’d take turns cooking seemed to loosen him up though. He started tossing more items into the cart.

“I should go buy some more groceries,” she said suddenly. “I just realized, I only bought enough for myself for a couple of days.”

“Let me,” he said. “It’ll cover the cooking lessons I’ll probably need.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but then shut it. This man absolutely needed to feel as if he wasn’t a burden. That much was clear to her so she endured it as he spent money on foods she would have ignored because of the price.

But the thought of cooking some of the dishes she had once loved to cook and eat soon had her thinking of ingredients she should buy.

“I don’t know what’s needed to cook some of this stuff,” Wade said. “Grab whatever you need.” It was enough to get her going.

Along the way she saw the man from the parking lot again. He was pushing a cart and carrying a piece of paper, and nodded when he saw her. She managed to smile back. Evidently he’d found his list.

Before they even reached the checkout, two more people had smiled and nodded at her. She was used to that when she was working and in uniform, but for the first time it struck her that folks around here might be friendly as a matter of course. Maybe she ought to make a bigger effort.

By the time they left the store with another four bags of groceries, she was looking forward to dinner.

And how long had it been since she’d last felt that way? No, she wasn’t going there, not when she was actually feeling good, feeling almost normal, for the first time in a year. There was absolutely nothing wrong with feeling good, she reminded herself. Nothing at all. Jim wouldn’t have wanted her to become the woman she had been during the past year.

The shadow that hovered over all her days tried to return when she had to deal with the alarm, but she refused to let it. No more of that, she told herself, as if something as simple as a command to herself could change her entire outlook and banish the fear that never quite deserted her.

But at least she was making an effort, and when she looked over the past day, she felt glad those kids had made that stupid call. Yes, it had thrown her into a tizzy, and yes, it had upset Marsha just as much, but in the course of reacting to it, she had helped Marsha a little bit. Now she could at least help Wade learn to cook.