His mother looked down at the grocery bags in her arms. At the white sneakers on her feet. At the gravel.
She didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
Brent looked past her. At the garden. At all those people with their boxes and buckets and bags, moving through the fog, quietly picking vegetables. At the old man in the feed store cap. At the young mother with the baby. At the man in the Walmart vest.
He looked back at his mother.
At the two empty grocery bags.
I watched it happen. I watched him understand. It moved across his face like a shadow across a field.
“No,” he said. “No. Mom. No.”
“Brent—”
“You’re here for… you’re here to get food?”
His mother lifted her chin. Her lip was trembling.
“Every Saturday,” she said. “For a year and a half.”
Brent took a step backward. Like she’d pushed him.
