He pushed the cart through automatic doors. Seventy tomorrow. The fluorescent hum overhead like always. Produce first. Then dairy. The same.

Pyramids of apples. Strawberries in January. Thirty kinds of bread. He’d grown up with ration stamps and still felt the wonder of it. All this plenty. All this waste.

A young woman brushed past without seeing him. When had that started. The not-seeing.

The checker was maybe forty. Lean face. Cigarette voice when she said the total. Her hands moved quick over the scanner. Knuckles rough. No ring. Never a ring in the three years he’d been watching.

He wanted to ask. Wanted to know what brought that hardness to her mouth. What took the ring off or kept it off. If she had kids. If anyone was waiting.

But you don’t ask. Not anymore. Not at seventy.

She gave him his receipt. Their fingers didn’t touch.

He pushed the cart toward his car. The asphalt wet from earlier rain. Somewhere a cart rattled loose in the wind.

Tomorrow he’d be seventy. Tomorrow he’d come back. Same path. Same abundance. Same silence between strangers who might’ve had stories to tell.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​