At The Edge Of The Ocean

42. The Herd

Meredith stared disconcertedly at the list in her hands. She was stupid to assume she could it. She was a wifey wife for a whole week now but she couldn't do it. It was beyond her capabilities. She couldn't do the shopping alone. Fine, she wasn't alone. Bessie was right beside her, sitting in the shopping cart, her legs dangling through the holes.

Meredith offered to do the shopping since Derek had an early shift and unfortunately they completely ran out of food. At the time, shopping didn't seem like a complicated thing. Mind you, she had done shopping countless times in her more than thirty-year-old life. However... she had usually bought frozen food, edible after 5 minutes in the microwave. She didn't have to worry about her meals during the time in the program and the limited cooking skills she gained under Stacy's watchful eye weren't of much use now. When she prepared mac and cheese or baked a carrot cake, she had all the ingredients at ready, waiting neatly in cups or plates. All that combined, she had now no idea what to choose from the sea of products in the supermarket.

"Mommy!" Bessie wailed impatiently from the cart and tugged at Meredith's sleeve. "Mommy!"

"We're going, Cherry-pie, we're going," Meredith murmured soothingly and her hand moved automatically to Bessie's blond locks. "Mommy has to do the rest of the shopping or we'll starve." The rest, meaning well, everything. She only managed to choose the toilet paper.

Meredith frowned at the mysterious entry Derek scribbled on the post-it note "12 eggs".

"Daddy could've been more specific," she groaned facing rows of cartons. Her head spun as she read the labels... Organic... Vegetarian... Omega-3 enhanced... Vitamin enhanced... Free range... Some were white, others brown-shelled... Hell, and there were even duck eggs and ostrich eggs...

"Daddy won't believe the store has run out of eggs, will he?" asked Meredith.

Bessie shook her head seriously and stuck out her arms towards the shelf pointing at a carton with yellow chickens running in the grass. "This!"

Meredith squinted her eyes and picked up the box, "You think?"

Bessie nodded her head and Meredith didn't wait for further encouragement. Checking the expire date beforehand, she took two boxes. "In any case, I'm blaming my two-year- old for telling me to buy that!"

The next item on the list brought about another dilemma - "flour".

"As if people couldn't do with one type of flour only," grumbled Meredith. "It's not like we eat that powder directly from the bag!"

A young and very cuddly couple passed them and Meredith couldn't help overhearing.

"I think we should by the other one, baby," said the woman pensively.

"Whatever you wish, snookadook," replied the man kissing her cheek.

Meredith felt as if she was going to gag. "Gross," she mouthed to Bessie.

"Ewww," the little girl scrunched her cute face.

Meredith grabbed the first packet of flour at hand and wheeled away. Two hours later, having made several tours around the store, the cart was visibly filled up with different products while Meredith felt more exhausted than after a twelve-hour surgery. They slowly directed themselves towards the check-out passing the section with fish.

"Maybe we should by some trout for Daddy?" Meredith came up with initiative.

"Trout?" frowned Bessie.

"It's a kind of fish Daddy's a bit obsessive about," explained Meredith. "Daddy loves going fishing." And it was a long time since he occupied himself with his favorite hobby fir the last time. He seemed like he utterly forgot about it, caught up with the daddy drama, working on their relationship, moving in with her and Bessie, their wedding... She managed to select so many things from the store so buying trout couldn't be that hard, could it?