Earlier Carole had tugged at the shirt that was a skosh too tight around her breasts, which resulted in an unattractive pucker stretching from one to the other. She knew it looked awful but decided it did not matter for fifteen minutes inside the grocery store. And anyway, the short-shorts she was wearing under it accentuated her long, sinewy leg line, exaggerated even more by a pair of sandals that added a solid two inches to her height. One feature still mercifully intact, she reassured herself, until time came for that, too.

She checked her hair in the rear-view and then stepped out of the car, wallet in one pocket and mobile in the other. A box of pink stuff and coffee pods and what else, she asked herself silently. Something. Detergent booster, that was it. Inside the store she was instantly too cold (why can you never remember your sweater, she chided herself) and picked up her pace to get this bothersome chore behind her. Snapping up a plastic basket and sprinting towards the baking aisle, she apologized after rounding the corner too quickly, narrowly diverting a head-on collision with an elderly woman, who only smiled at her. Thwap! went the cardboard box of sweetener into the ugly plastic receptacle.

Turning on her heel, Carole startled, her gaze locking instantly with another she hoped never to meet again.

She’d rehearsed this potential encounter. So many things she had to say to this woman who’d wreaked havoc on her family all those years ago, setting in motion a Rube-Goldberg-style sequence of events that would all but ruin her child and eventually actually destroy her family, along with everything she’d worked so hard to build. If ever I see you again, she wished she’d said at the end, I will have so much hellfire to hurl at you, there’ll be nothing left but a greasy spot. Even that threat somehow struck her as so empty, the benign warning her own mama used on her all the time growing up, that meant absolutely nothing.

On that day, though, during the seeing again, her words would flow like a toxic chemical spill, she imagined, and engulf this beast of a human satisfyingly in their destructive slurry. This illusory scenario always inspired her to sit up straight and square her shoulders.

Don’t dwell on it too long, advised a close friend. Just for a little while, and then release it so that it doesn’t fester into a cancer that kills you.

That was a tall order but she knew it was truth. Still, she wondered what she’d actually say in this chance encounter that now stood inches from her nose.

She could hear the sound of her own breath, a sharp inhaling, and then her silken contralto words flowing naturally. “Faye—it has been so long. How lovely to see you. I hope you’ve been doing well—please give my best to your family.” Faye was left to stand dumbstruck in the empty aisle contemplating the thing that had just unfolded.

At the self-checkout Carole’s hands shook uncontrollably when she dragged the barcode across the scanner and then absently punched buttons on the glass screen with a single knuckle, misfiring until she finally completed the transaction. Her head was spinning and her vision blurred. Don’t forget to take your bags and receipt, intoned a synthetic voice, but she was already out the door, leaving the pimply attendant to follow only with his predictably wan expression.

Inside the car she grasped the steering wheel and leaned her forehead against it, waiting for the shakes to subside, wishing she’d had the wherewithal to grab coffee pods at least. You are a chicken shit in an ugly T-shirt, she said aloud to the wrong person.