Page 7 of Angel's Smoke

Anna tucked the shopping basket more securely into the crook of her elbow and stood as flush as possible against the bags of chips while a few straggling shoppers plucked two loaves of pumpernickel from the otherwise barren bread shelves. Along the empty stainless steel rows, a few price tags had begun to peel off. Several had already fallen to the linoleum floor, their sad presence having been plastered to the faux tile beneath the earlier afternoon’s most likely stampeding footsteps.

Every single one of the newly adhered tags was for a higher price.Fucking figures.

“I swear, I thought the local businesses saved their price gouging for the tourists.” But then, when had that ever stopped anyone with the appropriate resources from gaining anything they wanted anyway? Right on cue, Travis’s smug face came to mind. His charming smile and affable demeanor had been the very virtues that enabled the bastard’s vices, hadn’t they?

Anna squeezed her eyes shut. “Nope. We’re not going down that road. Not again and certainly not right now.”

Before her mental wherewithal could course-correct her even further, a flat feminine voice bellowed through the tinny PA system. “The store will be closing in fifteen minutes.”

God. What the hell was she even doing? To hell with the bread. Anna made a beeline for the things that had always taken up the highest places on her survival pedestal: high-fiber cereal, evaporated milk, trail mix, and an extra bag of M&Ms to go into the trail mix because the meager amount it inevitably came with wouldn’t cut it on a good day. And honestly, if her body was already moving on autopilot through a familiar circumstance in a familiar setting, that meant her mind had fewer opportunities to chew over the fact that she hadn’t dreamed about her mystery man in three nights.

Three nights. Three whole nights that, for the first time in months, had gifted her with a few hours of precious uninterrupted sleep.

And the most unnerving sense of disappointment.

The few remnants of customers shuffled past her on their way to the registers, just as eager to get back to their wherevers as she was. Except, their wherevers most likely included other people or, at the very least, a cat or a gerbil or something. Did people still have gerbils for pets?

Lost in a brain fog of Swamp of Sadness proportions, Anna filled her meager basket with whatever her fingers happened to graze on her way over to the candy aisle.

What the hell was his name?

Of all the lingering questions trying their hardest to make sure her now sleepfulnights were otherwise as unfulfilling as possible, that one took the cake. She’d never gotten his name. Oh, she knew he wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. That was why she had no problem spouting off at the mouth and aiming every ounce of sass befitting her hair color at his smug face.

But it hadn’t been smug, had it?

Her fingertips tossed another package of something or other into the basket. Ah. Chocolate tea biscuits. Sure. Why not?

“What if I forget him?” she whispered into an empty aisle. Already, the imagery of what little she’d been able to glean from his features seemed fuzzier than it had been, and she’d only ever really gotten that much of an eyeful—literally—the one time. What if the rest of him would soon be lost to other far more mundane but ultimately pressing thought cycles now that he no longer took up space in her sleep?

And then there was the ten-million-dollar question: why did she care?

A gnawing worry propelled her woodenly toward the only self-checkout register still open. When she finally took stock of what she’d collected in her wee basket, the true consequences of her fantasy man’s inexplicable absence from her dreams stared back at her. A few hours away from the largest late-winter storm to hit the White Mountains in fifteen years and all she had to show for supplies were two boxes of Fruit Loops that were very much sans fiber, chocolate tea biscuits, two bags of M&Ms—one peanut butter, one plain—a bag of grapes, four cans of what she thought were evaporated milk but two of which turned out to be sweetened condensed milk, and—she groaned—a pack of random cupcake liners that were usually stocked next to her favorite just-add-water protein pancake mix.

A pancake mix that, despite Anna’s best intentions, was noticeably absent from her grocery haul.

The PA system’s rusty crackle only added to her rising tension. “The store will be closing in five minutes. Please take your final items to the registers. Stay safe, everyone.”

“Wonderful. Just . . . yeah. Perfect way to top off my Friday night. Truly.”

Before she could officially work up a good wallow, her phone pinged with an incoming text.

622622: This is a reminder that you have an appointment with Dr. Michelle Abramowitz on March 14, at 10 a.m. Please press C to confirm or call the office to reschedule.

Few things had the power to bring her back to reality quite like the very real and very little child currently stretching out her abdomen, discretionary allowances, and calendar availability.

Anna ticked off the days in her mind, surprised she’d forgotten all about her next OB/GYN appointment. But yeah, it was time. Sixteen-week checkup and such. It didn’t matter that, despite choosing the smallest practitioner in the area for the very specific reason of being around fewer clientele, Anna still always wound up in a waiting room full of glowing pregnant women with doting partners.

Partners who’d already taken care of the bill and insurance arrangements while the appointment was happening. Partners who had their thumbs on their vehicle’s automatic start button as soon as the appointment was over. Partners who’d made the post-ultrasound lunch plans the week before and happily took off work to spend the rest of the day beaming over Bolognese and baby talk.

It was a lot to come to terms with, no matter how hard she tried to punch through the reality of her situation, one that had become so different from the one her heart had begun decorating with ornamental trappings after that positive pregnancy test months ago.

Doing her best to shake off the chill of a reality gone cold, Anna tapped out aCto confirm her appointment and caught the eye of the grocery employee standing at the door, ushering everyone out with no small amount oflet’s go, peopleenergy. Anna had just plunked the last of her items into her shopping tote before the employee skewered her with an exasperated stare as though Anna had just used full-volume vocals during quiet time at the library. The woman tucked her elbow-length highlighted hair farther into her Red Sox cap and used her inch-long acrylics to direct the last of the pedestrian traffic, sans Anna, out of her store.

Because of course it washerstore, judging by the prominentManagertaking up the majority of her name tag’s real estate.

Then she bobbed her chin in Anna’s direction. “You finished, hon? We’re cl?—”

“Closing. Yeah, I got that. Just bagging the last of my items.”

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