DECISION SHOPPING — YVANNA VIEN TICA
/She’s struggling between cotton or silk. She hates linen. The customer service confuses itself with her demands. Rain pours out the window. I push the shopping cart. She’s struggling between hats and glasses, screwing a shirt on then off. I think of the traffic. An elderly couple asks me if she’s my granddaughter and I say yes. They chuckle as if I’m lying. I think of my daughter finalizing the divorce papers. They move away. She’s struggling to ask me something and I realize that she doesn’t know what kind of sleeves she wants on a dress. I think of my doctor, how he answered that any time would be a good time to tell the family. She’s given up on clothes and accessories. She tells me she wants to cry but doesn’t tell me why. I think of my doctor’s answer, how I disagree. I think of how the situation is classic dark humor, raw yet restrained. Three hours later, the cart stands empty in the parking lot. The moon appears through a gauze of pregnant clouds. On the drive home, I ask if she wants McDonald’s. She refuses. My daughter told me they’re both struggling to eat. I think of walking in those aisles gagging to the brim with clothes, my granddaughter's empty eyes as she scratched her thin-skinned palms. I realize I’m struggling to lie and tell her she’ll always have a choice. I think of telling her about what the doctor said, but my granddaughter starts crying and turns her face from me so I decide against it. She’s struggling to muffle her sniffles as we inch through traffic. I think of how she’s like my daughter in the way they mourn like ghosts: an unsettling force, afraid to be seen in daylight. Even when I drop her off with the promise that we’ll always go on shopping trips, the empty cart springs into our eyes before shuttling on a long, congested road.
Yvanna Vien Tica is a Filipina writer who grew up in Manila and in a Chicagoland suburb. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in EX/POST Magazine, DIALOGIST, Hobart, and Shenandoah, among others. She edits for Polyphony Lit, reads for Muzzle Magazine, and tweets @yvannavien. In her spare time, she can be found enjoying nature and thanking God for another day.
