Produce Aisle at Midnight

The fluorescent lights hummed their constant, headache-inducing frequency as Maria pushed her cart through the empty grocery store. It was 2 AM — the witching hour for the sleepless, the heartbroken, and the night shift workers moving through the world like ghosts.

She stopped in front of the spinach, her fingers hovering over a plastic container. Fresh spinach. Paul would have approved. He was always going on about antioxidants and fiber and living forever, as if his regimented self-improvement could somehow ward off the inevitable decay that had taken his mother in the end. Some ironies felt too cruel to voice aloud.

"You're going to buy that spinach?"

Maria jumped. A man stood three aisles over, leaning against a display of canned tomatoes. He looked to be in his early thirties, dark hair falling across his forehead in that carefully messy way that suggested he'd given up on caring. His scrubs were wrinkled.

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe I'll just stand here contemplating it until it expires."

He laughed — a genuine sound that caught her off guard. "I get that. I'm a zombie tonight. Twelve-hour shift, two patients coded, and all I want is an orange but I've been staring at them for ten minutes like they're alien artifacts."

Maria found herself walking toward him. "I'm Maria."

"Ben."

They stood there in the harsh glow of the produce section, two strangers connected by insomnia and the absurdity of the moment. She noticed the orange in his hand — a navel, slightly blemished, imperfect like everything else that mattered.

"My husband left," she heard herself say. Why was she telling him this? "Two weeks ago. Moved out while I was at work. Left a note about finding himself. I haven't bought spinach since because he was the one who cooked it."

Ben nodded, like this was the most normal confession in the world. "My wife died last year. Pancreatic cancer. I still buy her favorite cereal. It sits in the pantry until it goes stale, then I buy more."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspeakable things.

"You know," Maria said softly, "I think I'll get the spinach. And maybe some wine. A lot of wine."

"Smart woman." Ben held up his orange. "I'm getting this. And some ice cream. The really expensive kind that pretends to be artisanal."

"Want to split them?" The words escaped before she could reconsider. "The wine and the ice cream. I have a couch. And terrible judgment calls apparently."

Ben smiled, and for the first time in two weeks, Maria didn't feel like she was underwater. "That," he said, "is the best offer I've had in a year."

They walked to the checkout together, spinach and orange and wine and ice cream, two people who hadn't planned to find anything, least of all each other.