He said it so often I eventually started hearing his voice in my head whenever I made a bad decision.
Years later, after his sight disappeared, I became more protective than he liked.
If someone bumped into him, I reacted first.
“Slow down first.”
If a waiter spoke to me instead of him, I corrected them.
If strangers stared at his white cane, I stared back.
Grandpa usually noticed.
“You planning to fight the entire city today?” he’d ask.
“If necessary.”
Grandpa usually noticed.
“Sounds exhausting, son.”
“I’ve got time, Grandpa.”
“You’ve got a job, Adam.”
Grandpa always found a way to make me laugh before I embarrassed us both.
***
That Saturday, the store was packed.
“You’ve got a job, Adam.”
Carts jammed the produce section.
Children reached across shelves.
Someone had built a massive cereal display near the entrance that narrowed the walkway enough to cause a traffic jam.
Grandpa tapped his cane lightly ahead of him.
“Busier than usual.”
Grandpa tapped his cane lightly ahead of him.
“Very.”
“Holiday?” he muttered.
“No.”
“Then people have simply decided they all need bananas at once!” he joked.
I laughed.
We worked our way through produce, bread, canned goods, and coffee.
We worked our way through produce.
Grandpa rejected the expensive coffee I tried slipping into the cart.
“Absolutely not.”
“You can’t even see the price.”
“I heard your breathing change.”
“My breathing?” I frowned.
“That’s the sound you make before wasting money, son.”
“You can’t even see the price.”
I put the coffee back.
“You’ve become impossible, Grandpa.”
“I raised you, Addy. I know you better.”
By aisle nine, the crowd had thickened.
The aisle was narrow, boxed in on one side by pasta sauce and on the other by a temporary display of paper towels.
Grandpa moved carefully.
“I raised you, Addy. I know you better.”
His cane swept ahead in controlled arcs while one hand rested lightly against the cart.
I walked beside him.
Behind us, someone sighed.
Loudly.
Then again.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Behind us, someone sighed.
Standing a few feet back with a cart was a man in his early forties. He looked well-kept in a pressed button-down shirt and an expensive watch, a phone loosely cupped in one hand.
His wife stood beside him, and a little girl about six or seven walked near the cart holding a box of cereal against her chest.
