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“I’ve never told you this,” she said. “But there’s something about taking the cart back instead of leaving it in the parking lot. I don’t know when this came to me; it was a few years ago. There’s a difference between leaving it where you empty it and taking it back to the front of the store. It’s …

Marsha called her husband and told him, and said to come to LuAnn’s after work; then she gave LuAnn her cigarettes and left to get her children at school and buy more steaks. At three-thirty LuAnn went outside and looked at snow on the earth and gathered on wide branches of pines. She said: “Thank …

As she filled the cart, she looked with compassion at women, the harried ones, some with a child or two, the women who did not have housekeepers and someone to care for their children, perhaps did not have husbands or did not have good ones, who were not going to the gym for a long workout to fulfi…

Her mind was eluding her: it was living the day ahead of her; it was in the aisle of the supermarket, it was bringing the groceries into the house and putting them away; it was driving to the gym for aerobics and weight training; it was home eating lunch, then taking clothes to the dry cleaners and…

In the stadium the music was joyful and LuAnn walked to its beat. They passed the boys playing basketball, and she said: “I’ll go to confession today.”

“Really?”

“It’s at four on Saturdays.”

“I didn’t know you did that.”

“Not much.”

“Do you think you need to?”

“Yes.”

“To be for…