1. An Unexpected Item An unexpected item Five and a half hours after he found out he was dying, Heron drove to his favorite supermarket. In the absence of an alternative, and because it was a Thursday, he decided to stick to his routine. It is no secret that Heron likes to do his weekly food shop on a Thursday. In the evening, if at all possible, late afternoon at the earliest. His family teases him about it, his strange inflexibilities. "Live a little," his daughter had said last week. "Go shopping on a Monday morning, I dare you." But Thursdays are quiet and that suits him. Thursdays are sensible. Heron likes to start the weekend with a full fridge, although his weekends are, in truth, much like any other day of the week now. At the top of the escalator he finds a small shopping cart; a perfect compromise, he has always thought, since a big cart is really too much, a basket not quite enough. Heron is an organized shopper, placing each item into the reusable bag he has labeled for its corresponding kitchen cupboard. He keeps the cleaning products separate from the bread. He doesn't rush, or forget the milk, or squash the salad. Heron isn't one of those people who minds when they change the layout of the supermarket from time to time. If anything, he sort of enjoys it, the hint of scavenger hunt it gives to tracking down the thin-cut marmalade. He could not say, if asked, why he shops in this particular way, the system speaks for itself. Heron pushes his small cart to the farthest, coldest corner of the supermarket. For obvious reasons, frozen foods are always selected last. Today, in a significant break from routine, he slides open the glass lid of a waist-high chest freezer, flattens out the bags of potato smiley faces, and climbs inside. It is the smell rather than the cold he notices first. Even with the lid slightly open, the air inside the freezer is stale and starchy. He is as surprised as anyone to find it is actually quite comfortable inside a chest freezer, even with the frost starting to soak through at the backs of his knees. Heron adjusts his shoulder blades, stretches out his legs, and the frozen potato faces settle beneath him. He lies still in the muffled peace of the chest freezer, and he lives. Heron had felt sorry for the doctor in a way, a youngish woman, fiddling with her pen despite her best intentions. It can't be easy to have to say it out loud to someone. "There are leaflets. And websites," the doctor had said, and then she moved, just slightly, reaching out to touch her desk to show him that this part, at least, was over. Heron had stood up too fast, tangling his jacket on the back of the chair, saying, absurdly, "It's showerproof." And still, it wasn't as cold as you would think, in the freezer, or maybe it was so cold he couldn't tell anymore; that was a thought. Heron looks up through the fog on the glass lid. He looks beyond, to the fluorescent lights and steel joists of the supermarket ceiling. There are things he will have to do now. Things he will have to say. Admit. He looks at the ice dripping and shining on the inside walls of the freezer beside his head. The manic smiles and hollow eyes of the potato faces. He looks at these things and he is fine. Heron is so fine that he might have simply stayed in the freezer forever, had a woman not slid open his lid in search of frozen petits pois and screamed. It takes three members of staff to get him out. He is, as it turns out, quite cold indeed. The back of his head wet, his knees sore and stiffened. The manager is very good about it, cheerful even, when he says, "Let's get you out of there, sir, shall we?" and, "Is there someone we can call?" It is only when he gets home that Heron understands the tone of the manager's voice. Calm, tolerant, as if a man reclining in a freezer was just something one expects in a varied retail career. Heron understands then what the manager saw. A confused old man. Not quite all there. Not quite all here. Excerpted from A Family Matter: A Read with Jenna Pick: a Novel by Claire Lynch All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
