Personal Effects

Sarah's grocery cart was nearly empty- save for a package of toilet paper, some Daisy razors, and a carton of Neopolitan ice cream. She had wanted it to be a quick stop, but instead, she wandered aimlessly through rows of cookies and chips and processed cheese. She couldn't tell anyone how long she'd been there.

Her thoughts wandered into territories that people weren't really supposed to think about. She wondered what would happen if she didn't ever go home. What if she walked outside, right past her car and vanished? How long until someone reported her missing? Probably not long enough, she thought. Her abandoned car would the first clue. The registration would give her name. Someone would've seen her today. Hell, she was probably on camera. And then again, where would she go? She'd have to go somewhere.

She thought of her wallet with her ID and credit cards and countless other things linked to her life. We have too many things, she decided. Too many things attached to memories and faces and names-- meaningless things that become us. She pulled a green and copper marble out of her pocket and started rolling it around in the palm of her hand. She couldn't keep thinking this way, she told herself. It was unhealthy. It had been just over a year. She had to move on. Think about something else. Push it out of her mind, but not altogether-because she wanted the memories. Didn't she?

She put the marble back in her pocket and stopped at the magazine rack near the front of the store. A Cosmo caught her eye and she started flipping through it. She noted that, although the photos changed from month-to-month, the content always seemed to be the same. Sarah found an odd comfort in that. She caught the outline of a face just as it leaned toward her.

"Excuse me," the man said, as he reached across her to grab an Esquire.

Then he smiled one of those obligatory smiles you give to strangers and headed to the express lane. Sarah had wanted to smile back, but that was difficult these days. She felt so far away from the person she'd been. Nothing made sense anymore.

"It's been over a year," her sister would say. "You have to move on, live your life."

Sam was like that- unflinchingly practical, unemotional, and condescending in ways she didn't seem to realize. All this served her well with the children. She'd taught kindergarten for the past five years and rarely had problems keeping them in line. She always had a snide comment about something. Sarah could already hear what she'd say about the ice cream.

"Sarah, really? You know ice cream makes you fat. It goes down smooth, but it becomes a hard clod of saturated fat right here," she'd say, motioning to her stomach.

"And that's the way we like it," their father would say, and he and Sarah would clang their spoons together in victory and kept on eating.

It was always Neopolitan. Her dad would scoop out the strawberry and Sarah would have chocolate and vanilla-, always in equal amounts. They'd sit and watch basketball for hours, laughing and joking during commercial breaks.

Eventually, the game ends and reality begins again. For Sarah, the game ended one day last spring. At an unusually early hour, the phone started ringing. Sarah eventually answered. The subsequent news shocked her to the core. She knew instantly that nothing would ever be the same. No one else knew how to react or what to say so they did what people have always done-expressed condolences in the most sterile of ways: flowers, sympathy cards, and well-meaning phone messages that always sounded rehearsed in some indescribable way.

Sarah never imagined that her father would be dead at sixty-two. Her mom had left them long ago-before memories started to stick. Now, it was just her and Sam. Her sister didn't wallow in grief long. It wasn't her style. Instead, she got over it by creating another life. She was four months pregnant, eager to preside over a child of her very own, when she finally told Sarah.

"It's what Dad would have wanted," Sam told Sarah.

"For you to get knocked up?" Sarah retorted.

"No," Sam said angrily. "For life to go on." She paused. "When did you become so negative?"

"Negative, right. Well, it's hard to be positive… when all I'm left with is you. "

Sarah put the magazine down and glanced around as though she was afraid that other people could read her thoughts. She regretted the statement now - just blurting it out like that. In that moment, she'd had so much anger and resentment toward Sam. Maybe she was sorry now, but part of what she'd said was true. Why in Hell's name would fate have left her alone with a sister she had nothing in common with except parents that no longer existed? She'd have to make peace with it. Sam was still family, all the family she had left.

Suddenly, a loud beep of a security alarm whisked Sarah back to reality. She looked over to see a defiant-looking girl of about seventeen standing near the store's exit. The girl was clad in army boots, a loose-fitting top and miniskirt. She looked like she about to hightail it out of there when the store manager appeared. He seemed particularly interested in the gaudy, threadbare tote bag she had slung over her shoulder. He reached for the girl's arm. She immediately snatched it away and began yelling,

"Don't be touching me! You have no right!"

"Miss," he said calmly. "I just need to check your bag."

"Nothing in there," she snorted back.

The manager looked at her and paused.

"Look," his eyes rose toward the ceiling, "we have cameras here. I need to see the bag."

The girl didn't move.

"I'm not going to press charges. Just let me see the bag."

She looked up toward the ceiling, at the camera, and sighed loudly. She dropped the bag at the manager's feet. He knelt down and started rummaging through it. As he did this, the girl fiddled with several bracelets on her arm. Her eyes flitted nervously around the room.

She was wearing way too much make-up, Sarah noted. She'd never let her daughter wear that much make-up, if she had a daughter. It made the girl's eyes look hollow and it made her face look older than any experience she'd accrued behind it.

The manager stood up, an item firmly in his hand. When the girl saw it, the tough demeanor softened ever so slightly. She stood up straighter, embarrassed.

"OK, I won't contact your parents about this alright?" he said with a note of kindness in his voice. "But, you certainly should," he added, clutching the EPT pregnancy test in his hand. The girl's body stiffened.

"Gimme my bag." She looked at him coldly.

He looked back at her straight on, now with more anger than sympathy.

"Look, Missy. I'm doing you a favor." He dangled the bag out in front of him. She snatched it out of his hands and darted outside.

"You better not pull this again, alright?!," he called after her, then shook his head in dismay.

Sarah was still looking in the direction of this whole commotion when the manager walked by her.

"Your ice cream's gonna melt," he said.

Sarah glanced down and saw droplets of condensation starting to form on the carton's lid. How long had she really been here? How much of her afternoon had been sucked away in this meaninglessness box of a grocery store? Her father would've chided her for squandering so much time. Wasting the precious gift of life, he'd say, blah, blah…

I gotta get out of here, Sarah decided. With that, she abandoned her cart and walked away. There was nothing she really needed, not today. She was crossing the parking lot toward her car when she heard the screeching tires. Then, there was silence-the quietest of silences you can imagine in the middle of the afternoon.

In the midst of it, there was a figure in the street, motionless. A few people started gathering along the sidewalk. Sarah walked toward them. As she grew closer, she looked down and recognized a tattered tote bag. Its contents were now strewn all along the street. She looked down at the girl and knelt down beside her. She was bloody, but conscious. The driver rushed up, terror in his eyes.

"I didn't see her! I swear I didn't see her!" He put his face in his hands. "Oh, God. She came out of nowhere…" His voice trailed off.

"Someone call 911!" a woman called out to the growing line of bystanders.

" I already have." a woman answered, waving her phone in the air.

Sarah turned back to the girl. "We're getting help. Don't try to move. Just breathe."

The girl nodded and looked down at her leg. It was awkwardly twisted in an obviously unnatural position. She saw the scrapes and the blood. She definitely saw the blood. Her frightened eyes darted back to Sarah.

"Am I gonna die?" she asked seriously.

"No, don't think that way" Sarah answered. "You're going to be fine. Just fine."

"What's your name?"

"Rachel."

"Rachel, everything's going to be OK." Sarah reached into her purse for a pen. "What's your parents' number? I can call them for you."

"They don't know where I am. It's better that way. Please."

"Are you pregnant?" Sarah asked hesitantly.

" No. I don't know. I might be."

Rachel's pleading eyes had the depths of an ocean. Sarah could sense the pain, the drowning fear. She put the pen away and reached deeper into her purse and pulled out the green and copper marble--one of her father's famous marbles. She took Rachel's hand and dropped the marble into her palm.

"Now you hang onto this." She clasped Rachel's fingers around the marble. "It's a lucky charm. You can keep it if you promise to stay positive. Keep breathing."

Rachel nodded. She looked down at the marble in her hand.

"Someday," Sarah continued, "you'll look at that small little thing and you'll remember the gravity of this moment and how it brought you back to Earth."

Sarah realized after she'd said it that she was speaking for both of them. When the paramedics arrived, Sarah was quickly pushed aside.

"What's your name?" one of the EMTs asked Rachel.

"Are you a relative?" another asked Sarah. She shook her head.

" No. Just passing by."

"Can someone get my stuff?" Rachel asked. "I don't know where anything is."

"I'll collect your things" Sarah spoke up.

She walked back to the street and bent down to pick up one of Rachel's stray boots, her bag and whatever else she could find. She walked back to her car and carefully placed Rachel's things in the front seat, as if they were the most precious things in the world. From the parking lot, she saw the emergency workers hoist Rachel onto a stretcher. By the time she drove back toward them, the ambulance was pulling away. Sarah followed, as if there was no other decision to be made.

Rachel had never been in an ambulance before. It was odd being inside, rushing through traffic, hearing the sirens and knowing they were for her. She held on tightly to the tiny marble in her hand. Through the back window, she could see that woman who'd helped her. The woman she didn't even know. Was she following them to the hospital?

Rachel wished she knew the woman's name. What had she taken her away from? Surely, she'd had other plans for the evening that didn't involve this. Maybe she was on the way home to make dinner for her family or something. Rachel looked through the back window again. The woman was still following. Wherever this stranger had come from, her presence brought Rachel comfort. At least at the hospital, there would be someone she'd recognize, even if they'd just met.

She still clutched the marble in her right hand. Her fingers could feel its smoothness, its calming nature. Today she'd believe in the power of luck and the promise of hope.