Forty minutes after I parked, the sign for row B4 was still standing exactly where I’d left it.
My car wasn’t.
I stood beside the cart return with a bag of groceries in each hand and my phone held up in front of my face. On the screen was the picture I’d taken when I arrived. My blue SUV. The B4 sign right behind it. The same dented cart return. The same crack in the asphalt, shaped like a lightning bolt.
I looked at the picture.
I looked at the empty space.
I looked at the picture again.
There was a little silver hatchback parked there now, with a stuffed bear suction-cupped to the back window. The bear was waving at me.
My hand tightened around the cart handle until my knuckles went white.
For six weeks, every time this happened, I’d told myself I’d made a mistake. Wrong row. Wrong section. Wrong entrance. I was tired. I was distracted. I was getting older.
But this time I had a photograph.
There was no wrong row to blame.
I have always been a person who loses things.
My phone. My keys. My reading glasses, which are usually on top of my head. My train of thought, halfway up the stairs. I’ll walk into a room with total purpose and stand there in the middle of it wondering what on earth I came in for.
My mother used to say I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on. My third-grade teacher wrote on my report card, Emma is bright and creative but needs to keep better track of her belongings. I lost that report card, too.
My husband, Tristan, is the opposite.
He knows which drawer has the batteries. He knows where the passports are, and the spare house key, and the warranty for the dishwasher. He keeps the kids’ vaccination records in a blue folder labeled VACCINATION RECORDS. He can tell you, without looking, how much milk is left in the fridge.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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