Page 75 of Heart of a Hero

32

Karen pushed the overloaded shopping cart to the checkout line, wondering what the total would be. While at the big box store, she had taken the opportunity to purchase some items for Laura, Olivia, Zannie, and Marty. But after having assessed the two newcomers' clothes, she knew they were desperate for clothes that fit. Some of their friends had donated some gently used clothing that was perfect, but she wanted them to pick out new things.

Once she was almost to the cashier, Zannie tugged on her shirt. “Miss Karen. I need to use the bathroom.”

Karen smiled down at her and nodded. “Laura, would you mind taking her?”

“Sure, Mom,” Laura said, then looked at her sister. “Olivia, you want to come, too?”

As the girls walked off, Karen started to unload the items onto the conveyor belt, placing them into two piles—one for her girls and one for Zannie and Marty. Turning to him, she asked, “Marty, do you need to go to the restroom?”

“No, I’m good,” he said, intent on helping her.

As she pulled her credit card from her wallet, she knew to keep her receipts to give to Lisa. Marty looked at her wallet and said, “We had lots of those.”

Busy with the task at hand, she didn’t process his words at first. As she ran her card through the reader, she looked down at her still-open wallet, where her few credit cards, debit card, and driver's license were tucked into the pockets. “Hmm? What was that?” she asked.

“Those,” he said, pointing at her cards. “We had lots of those.”

“Oh,” she replied, her gaze on the total ringing up. Then suddenly, it hit her—Carla probably opened a lot of cards to be able to charge for items and then possibly didn’t pay them off. “I guess most people have several of these,” she said.

Marty looked up, his nose scrunched. “Alan had a lot more than you have. He once had thirty-seven.”

Karen’s attention was diverted as the cashier rang up the total. Sighing in relief, she smiled and tucked her card away before placing the bags into the cart. She looked up to scan the area for the girls, smiling when Laura had Zannie by the hand with Olivia next to them, heading her way.

“Miss Karen! I got to dry my hands on a blower on the wall where my hands went down inside a tube!”

Turning to a bright-eyed Zannie excitedly describing the hand-blower, she laughed. “Well, that was special.”

“Marty, you should go. Then you can try it, too,” Zannie said, tugging on his arm.

“Nah, that’s okay,” he said, blushing.

“Let’s get home, guys,” Karen called out, then pushed the cart toward the parking lot. Once home, it was time for dinner. Tonight was fish, salad, and macaroni and cheese. It would just be them since Mark thought it would be a good idea for him to have dinner with Benji, not wanting to force too many changes atonce. She readily agreed and thought tomorrow night would be soon enough for another gathering.

When dinner was over, Laura and Olivia began their homework, and Zannie, wanting to be just like the other girls, sat at the table and colored.

Karen had washed the new clothes and was upstairs folding them when Marty appeared.

“Can I help you?” he asked shyly.

She smiled and nodded. “Absolutely. I’ll put your clothes on this side of the bed, and you can take care of putting them away. I’ll do the same for Zannie’s.”

They worked in tandem for a few minutes, moving in a quiet rhythm. She asked about his day at school and was pleased when he responded with a smile. A nagging thought pulled at her mind, and suddenly, what he said earlier struck her. “I meant to ask you about all those credit cards of Alan’s. How many did you say he had?”

Marty looked up at her. “Thirty-seven.”

Karen blinked, taken aback. “Thirty-seven?” she repeated, disbelief coloring her words. “I don’t know anyone who has that many cards.”

Marty shrugged. “I don’t know if they were all his. They had different names on them.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Different names?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, his voice lowering as if sharing a secret. “I only noticed once when he was taking a shower and left the cards on the table. Zannie was practicing her counting. She started counting his cards and made it all the way up to thirty-seven. When we heard the shower go off, I quickly put them back the way they had been. I never saw them again after that.”

A shiver ran down her spine as she forced her voice to stay calm and even. “Do you happen to remember any of the names you saw?”

Marty’s face scrunched in concentration. “Yeah, I remember one. It was Stanley Whitten.”

---