His Name Is Henry
The glass broke in the next aisle.
It wasn’t one bottle. It was a lot of them. A sharp, crashing, splintering sound that went on for two or three full seconds. Like somebody had dropped a box of Christmas ornaments down a flight of stairs.
Then silence.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Oh my God. Are you kidding me? Are you KIDDING me?”
My daughter Zoe and I were standing in the cereal aisle at Lakeview Foods on a Saturday afternoon in March. I was holding a box of Cheerios. She was holding a box of Lucky Charms and making her best argument for why marshmallows were a vegetable.
We both froze.
“Mom,” Zoe whispered. “Something broke.”
“I know, baby.”
The woman’s voice got louder.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! Look at this! LOOK at this!”
I put the Cheerios back on the shelf.
I didn’t want to go look. I want to be honest about that. My first instinct was to stay in the cereal aisle. To mind my own business. To pick up the Cheerios again and keep shopping and pretend I hadn’t heard anything.
That’s what I’ve always done.
Zoe was already walking.
She went around the end cap. Past a display of Easter candy. Into the juice aisle.
I followed her.
A young employee stood beside a stock cart.
He was maybe nineteen. Short. Stocky. Round face. Glasses with thick black frames. Light brown hair cut short and neat. A green Lakeview Foods polo shirt tucked into khaki pants. A name tag pinned carefully over his heart.
HENRY.
He had Down syndrome. 