“Tiffany?”

“Michael?”

We stare at one another, hardly knowing what to do besides breathe. I realize that the orange I had been judging has been squeezed into a pulp in my fist, the juices running down my fingers and dripping to the floor. Her knuckles, in turn, have turned white against the handlebars of the grocery cart she had been pushing.

“So.”

“So, how you’ve been.”

She looks like she’s going to be ill. I can’t blame her; my stomach is also beginning to twist, because I know what’s going to come next.

“Mommy, I don’t want apple juice, I want grape juice, so…”

He pauses, looking at his mother then at me. “Who’s this?”

“No one,” we say at the same time.