The black sedan waited.
Elena should have left.
Instead she sat outside on the sidewalk near Ethan’s pickup.
Lucy ate crackers from a paper bag.
Ethan leaned against the truck.
Elena held a receipt in one hand.
Seventy-eight dollars and forty-two cents.
She looked at him.
“You overpaid.”
“For your medicine?”
“No.”
“The store price.”
“Insurance should have made it twenty-three.”
He shrugged.
“I've overpaid for worse.”
Elena held out seventy-eight dollars.
“No.”
“You cannot refuse this.”
“Watch me.”
“Ethan.”
“Elena.”
Lucy whispered:
“This might take a while.”
Both adults looked at her.
She kept eating crackers.
Elena said:
“I owe you.”
“No.”
“You objectively paid money on my behalf.”
“You can repay by not letting people get treated like that.”
The sentence surprised her.
Ethan looked away as though he had not meant to say it.
Elena studied him.
“You've had problems here.”
He hesitated.
Lucy stopped chewing.
That told Elena yes.
“With your daughter?”
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck.
“Not exactly.”
“What happened?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
He looked toward pharmacy window.
“Her mother used this store.”
Elena waited.
Ethan's voice changed.
“She had ovarian cancer.”
Elena’s expression softened.
“I'm sorry.”
“Three years.”
“Then recurrence.”
“She needed anti-nausea medication.”
“Insurance kept changing authorization.”
“This store was closest.”
“Sometimes they helped.”
“Sometimes they acted like we were trying to steal something.”
Elena listened.
“Gary?”
“Sometimes.”
“He wasn't always terrible.”
“That’s harder, honestly.”
“How?”
“Because if somebody’s cruel every day, you know what you’re dealing with.”
“But people who are kind when they think you deserve it…”
He stopped.
Elena finished:
“Make you wonder what changed about you on the bad days.”
Ethan looked at her.
“Yes.”
Lucy sat quietly.
She was old enough to understand mother.
Too young to hide reaction.
Elena asked gently:
“Her name?”
“Rachel.”
“How long?”
“Two years ago.”
Elena looked toward Lucy.
“I'm sorry.”
Lucy nodded.
“Dad says Mom hated sad faces.”
Ethan smiled.
“She did.”
Lucy continued:
“She said if people made sad face too long, she’d haunt them.”
Elena laughed softly.
“That sounds reasonable.”
Ethan looked at daughter.
“She also told you not to threaten strangers with haunting.”
“I’m informing.”
Elena felt an ache she did not understand.
Not pity.
Recognition.
Loss recognizes loss even when shapes differ.
She looked at Ethan.
“I bought this company because of my mother.”
He frowned.
“What happened?”
“She grew up in a town smaller than this.”