I smile. “Good. That’s the one I wanted, too.”
We do the same thing with several toothbrushes before settling on a light purple one with blue stripes running down the bristles for me and a blue one with a lightning bolt across the stem for Benny. I didn’t know toothbrushes came in colors other than white. Benny points and nods his head again, instead of answering. I wonder if the anesthesia in the hospital has made it hard for him to talk.
The next aisle has so many different kinds of shampoos that I start to feel light-headed looking at all of them. There are bright green bottles with names like Clarifying Fruit Acid Rinse and square purple ones called Coconut-Freesia Detangler. Honey has already thrown two bottles in her bag.
“I’ll be right over there with Nana Pete,” she says, pointing. Nana Pete is in view at the end of the aisle, trying to cram her feet into a pair of blue shoes. Honey looks back over her shoulder. “There’s hair ties and stuff, too, at the end of the aisle. Make sure you get a few.”
Benny stares through the slats of the shopping cart, examining the rows of hair ornaments, while I start uncapping and smelling the different shampoos. I am beginning to feel as giddy as a bumblebee flying from flower to flower. They all smell so delicious! I settle finally on a bottle of Mandarin-Mint Deep Conditioning Shampoo for dry, undernourished hair. It has promised to transform my dull, lackluster locks into a shiny, bouncy head of hair. I am just about to put it in the cart when, at the very bottom of the shelf, I notice a small, clear bottle filled with orange liquid. As I kneel down to look more closely, the inside of my lungs compress, as if filling with water. The little teardrop sticker says Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo. It’s the only shampoo we have ever used at Mount Blessing. My heart pangs for Mom, who, just two weeks earlier, soaped up my hair in the sink when I was too sick to take a shower.
Suddenly I notice that Benny is pointing at something outside of the cart. “What is it, Benny?” He points toward the wall of hair ornaments. I extract a beautiful barrette, as thin as an emery board, with tiny, tentacle-like decorations coming from the center of it. Each pink feeler is secured at the tip with a small silver bead. It looks like a gorgeous flower. “This?” Benny nods his head vigorously and then points at me. “It’s beautiful,” I whisper. Benny points to my head. “You think it would look good on me?” He nods, his eyes wide as I hold it against the side of my head. “Yeah? Really?”
Next to the barrettes is a small selection of handheld mirrors. With the barrette firmly in place, I walk over and stand in front of one until I can see myself. It’s so pretty! And it looks just right in my hair, not too large, not too small, just the right shade of pink against my skin. I turn to look at Benny, full of excitement, and then—
And then I remember number two of the Big Four: Clothe the body. Adorn the soul. How many times have I heard Emmanuel say that during Sunday services? Do not concern yourself with the outer trappings for the body. They mean nothing in the eyes of God. Our bodies will die. Souls live forever. Spend your time on this earth clothing your soul.
Slowly, I put the pink barrette back on the shelf. Benny kicks his foot against the inside of the cart and points angrily at the barrette.
I shake my head. “It’s okay, Benny. Really. I don’t need it. Actually, we shouldn’t be spending any time at all in this dumb store. We don’t need anything in here.”
Benny stares at the barrette forlornly as I push the cart back down the aisle.
I pull out the bottle of fancy shampoo and put it back on the shelf. In goes the Johnson & Johnson. “This is all we need, buddy. Okay?”
He stares at the floor through the small silver squares of the cart and sticks his lower lip out. Just as I turn the cart around, I catch sight of Honey. She is standing at the end of the aisle, watching me.
“It’s okay to get something you really want, you know,” she says, walking toward us. She pulls the pink barrette back off the shelf and throws it inside the cart. “Benny’s right. It looks great on you.”
I lean back over and extract the barrette. “You get the things you need, Honey,” I say evenly, “and I’ll get the things I need.” Hanging the barrette back on the hook, I push the cart firmly past her and make my way to the front of the store.
Nana Pete pays for everything with a credit card, swiping the paper-thin rectangle through a little silver machine and signing her name with an odd-looking pen. The cashier is a tall, lanky boy with pale arms and pimply skin. For some reason, the lights behind him look very bright. I stare at his T-shirt with a picture of Jesus on the front. The bearded image blurs, comes back into focus, and then blurs once more. I squint hard, trying to make out the words underneath Jesus’s face.