Sam’s Supermarket: Today’s Special: A Baby!

I like the potato-filled Boerekas, or Pastries, the most, and after that the mushroom ones. I eat here occasionally when my refrigerator is empty and the cupboard is bare. And I’m too exhausted to go shopping. It’s a supermarket, after all, and supermarket grazing is a well-known activity and allowed for in the pricing of popular ‘ready-to-eat’ foods in every supermarket. It was starting to snow as I walked in here and from what I can see through the window, the snow is falling heavily now. We’re in for one of those nights, I think, and we’ll have to dig ourselves out in the morning. I try a spinach pastry. I quite like the taste but I need a drink to go with this.

I move to the next aisle and inspect the bottles of drinks and settle for an iced tea, except that it won’t be iced straight off the shelf. No matter, the place is cool and the tea will be cool enough. There are only a few other shoppers at this time of night and in this kind of weather. Perhaps I’ll be the last customer of the day. A crazy crash of thunder makes up my mind. I have to leave. I return the opened bottle of tea to the shelf and head for the door empty-handed. “Couldn’t find what I wanted,” I apologize to the single cashier on duty. She’s new; I haven’t seen her before. She’s not so young either.

She calls me over: “Excuse me, sir, could you stop here for a moment?” I walk toward her. “What’s your name, Sir,” she asks

“Simpson. Anthony,” I reply. “Is there a problem?” Boy is there a problem… I just finished a four-course dinner off the shelves.

“No problem. You look vaguely familiar. I thought I knew you, that’s all. You do look familiar. Where are you from?”

“Here and there,” I answer.

“Where were you born?”

“I was an adopted baby thought to have been abandoned and left in a police station.”

She stared at me for a long time. “It wasn’t a police station. It was a supermarket. I know exactly who you are and you know me too. You have been brought to see me a number of times over the years by people trying to identify you. The last time was about 10 years ago. That’s why you look familiar to me. Each time I’ve seen you, you have been a couple of years older. Just look at you now, a grown man!”

“You know me and my history?” I stammer.

She looked out the shop front. “It’s heavy snow out there. You can’t go out in this. Sit down and I’ll tell you all about yourself.”

I pull the chair from a vacant cashier’s booth and sit down facing her.

“I was about 20 when this happened. It was in the old supermarket in Fourth Avenue. It’s gone now. I was new on the job and I didn’t have the experience to deal with the strange goings-on that night. It was the end of my shift at 9 o’clock in the evening. There were about five customers still doing their shopping. One of the women came over. I rang up her goods. Then a couple followed her. I checked them out and looked at my watch, saw it was almost closing time and shouted: ‘Time everyone. Please come and pay!’ I heard a faint cry that sounded like a baby. I looked around but saw nothing. Another customer paid and left. I heard the cry again and left my position and started walking up and down the aisles looking for a baby or a small animal. I found nothing. Then I heard a woman shout ‘Over here! Aisle 6 where the tea and coffee is.’ I dashed over there as fast as I could.  

There was a bundle wrapped in a shabby looking grey blanket and pushed well into the space between the floor and the bottom shelf where the boxes of tea were standing. I had to pull you out by the bottom of the blanket. A baby! A tiny little baby! I picked you up. You couldn’t have weighed more than 5 or 6 pounds. I held you for a moment and then called out ‘Whose baby is this?’  

The woman who had called out was standing there and pointing at me and shouting, ‘It’s mine! It’s mine!’ and came to take it from me. I stood frozen in shock and handed the bundle over to her without a word, without a question. Her husband stood there as though carved in stone, watching all this. He never said a word. She said, ‘bring me a basket, Tom’ and he went away and came back with one of those baskets they used to have in supermarkets. She put the baby in the basket, took her husband’s arm and walked to the door. I looked at the trolley they had been using. It was a quarter full. I called, ‘what about your shopping, Madam?’ and she said, ‘We didn’t buy anything. We were only looking,’ and off they went. Out into the snow, just like tonight.”  

“I called the manager who lived across the street. He came over to lock up. I told him the story of the baby but I was very upset and very young and there was no sign of the couple or the baby. He made no suggestions and made no comments. But next morning I told my mother and she said I had to report it all to the police. I went to the station and told them what had happened and they wrote a report, took my address and phone number.

“If anyone comes to report a missing baby we will call you, Miss. Thank you for coming in and reporting this.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t speak. That’s all I know. I have never seen that couple here again.”

I sat dumbfounded. I searched for words, but nothing came.  

“Now you tell me your side, Anthony Simpson.” she said.

‘My mother and father are Jenny and Tom Simpson. They live near here. I live a few blocks further away. I grew up here from birth, although they told me the version where I was found abandoned in the waiting room of the police station. I wasn’t very interested. I went to schools near here. I attended the university in town. As far as I’m concerned Jenny was my biological mother and Tom my father. No one could have had better parents. I love them dearly. I will do anything I can to help them as they grow older. I am 28 and they are close to 70.’

“Go on,” said the cashier.

‘I can only assume that they were a childless couple. They saw a one-time opportunity and were quick to react.’

“You never looked for your birth-mother?”  

“Never! Why would I? I had a loving mother and father. I had a great home. My life was perfect.”

“A great ending to a 28-year-old memory! Thank you for shopping here, Anthony!”