Tooth paste, check. I toss the bottle into the bottom of my cart and pull out my grocery list from my pocket. Q-tips, baby isle. A sigh escapes my lungs as I slowly push my cart over to the bottles and lotions specially made for infants. It’s been three months since I had miscarried my baby boy. I watched for weeks as the box of q-tips slowly emptied, crushingly reminding me, every time I peed, showered, brushed my teeth, or tried to look at myself in the mirror, of soon having to walk down that dreaded, avoided isle.

Advancing towards it, I focus my eyes on the bottom row; Shampoo, Dove hand cream, Revlon nail file, q-tips. I quickly grab at them, like trying to catch a fly, and knock the whole pile to the ground. Six boxes of q-tips spread across the linoleum. Perfect. I let go of my cart and go to clean my mess. Looking down at the first box my eyes fix on the picture on the back; a mother gently cleaning her perfect little infant’s ears. Tiny nose, tiny eyes, chubby cheeks and thin, soft hair smoothed down atop its head. Mark, Joshua, Andrew. I blink a tear and keep moving, lifting perfect baby after perfect baby off the ground.

Reaching for the last one, I lose my balance for a moment and put my hand to the ground to steady myself. I feel vibrations through the floor and pass it off as a power generator, or whatever a grocery store might use to freeze its freezers. Maybe even some forklift to move boxes.

I stand and scan my list, though I know I’m done having saved the q-tips for last. In my peripheral vision I glimpse another cart just before its owner takes up speed past me and rams my front end. Standing in front of me with that familiar wide-toothed smile is my recently ex-husband Matt Merr. I glare across carts at my rival. Today of all days, you unimaginable bastard. Pulling my cart in reverse to maneuver around him, he starts up with the attack, “Hey there ‘Babykins’, fancy meeting you here.”

“It’s my grocery day, Matthew, but you know that.” Don’t, call me, Babykins. I hold my head up high and push past him, but he follows.

I head towards check-out; what’s he going to do, end his shopping trip early just to torture me?

“I saw your brother today,” he gloats, answering my question. He lives for this. “Loading some boxes up the front steps. Mommy and daddy get tired of ya?”

I spent two weeks in their house before their sympathy had driven me insane. I should’ve moved in with Alex in the first place. He knows exactly how I like to handle my crises; silent grief, laughter, and a bottle of merlot. “They did their best.” I rush along the checkout lines looking for the shortest. Satan keeps pace at my heels.

“There’s always space on my, oh sorry, our, couch, if Ali can’t handle the drama. Hell, I might even let you back in bed.”

I stop short and his body slams into mine. Every line has at least four customers. I stare out the glass walls at the front of the store. Rain drops streak the glass, the wind stretches them further and spirals dirt and leaves over cars and stray carts. Out there it’s as gray and turmoil as my insides. I picture him in her arms, in our bed that he so casually invites me to sleep in. I picture the moment my heart crumbled, and the moment my body gave up on our child because he had taken away our love.

I’m filled with rage, and barely think as I turn and slam the Boston cream pie, that I had planned to buy for the purpose of splitting with my brother while watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, right into his smug face. At the same moment, a silencing BOOM rang out from the sky.

We both turn to look outside, I with my brimming tears and him with his whipped cream beard. A bolt of lightening struck the ground outside, and the building shook, followed by repetitive crashing thunder. A crowd of soaked customers rushed back into the building, bringing with them a wisp of cool air. One little dark-haired girl sobbed and screamed as her mother carefully removed a splinter from her forehead.

I fumble into my purse to find my cell phone in a daze when the lights flickered and went out. A few frightened individuals yelped, and all became a blur of scattering outlined bodies and the sound of hurried footsteps. “Matt?”

No answer. “Matty?!!”

He places his hand on my shoulder and feels his way down to grip my fingers. “I’m here.”

Lightening gives a brief moment of light and our eyes meet just before the dark consumes us. The floor starts to shake, and a quiet rumble begins. Groceries are shaken off their shelves onto the floor and carts shift slowly, their wheels a melody of rattling plastic and metal.

The rumble grows to a growl. I grip his hand tighter.

A blinding light fills the room. I’m falling through space and time, skipping Purgatory, straight to Hell.

I wake as I’m whispering, “I forgive you.”