DISCIPLE

It was a few weeks after my mother’s funeral. The ache in my heart was still excruciating. I could hardly think of her without tears. I went about my work as a groceryboy in a mechanical sort of way. The owner of the store was away at lunch when the woman and her ill-mannered son arrived.     She flounced in through the front door with her incorrigible offspring at her heels. He made straight for the peanut barrel. In those days, long before lettuce was sold by the pound or steaks were wrapped in cellophane, the grocery store was a homey sort of place that you could enter without an engraved calling card, and where you could stop without having to observe traffic signals as you pushed a chrome-trimmed baby carriage around. I went on about my work of sacking potatoes and left the woman and her son to their own devices.     Suddenly, during a lull in my own operations, I heard a crunching sound. I looked over toward the peanut barrel. That eight-year-old...