The Merrimack Review - Spring 2015 - Issue 3

minutes from home when she looked in the rearview mirror and demanded to know where the wad of candy in his mouth had come from. Ten minutes later he was sobbing in front of the stone-faced Pathmark store manager, confessing his sins at his mother’s insistence. Then there was the time in third grade he snatched a $20 bill from his father’s wallet and took it to school, where the cafeteria’s vending machine wouldn’t accept it. When Omar tried to sneak it back into his father’s pants that night, he got the whooping of his life.

“I mean…I’m not a master thief or anything…but I can handle it.”

Megan wrinkles her face, but said nothing.

The highway stretches on. Storefronts begin to give way to more and more trees on either side. Where is this place?

They pulled into a parking space when they arrived, and Omar shut off the engine. They stared at the store’s entrance in silence. No one came in or out. The whole plaza looked empty.

Megan unfolds her crumpled syllabus, looks it up and down, and drops her hands into her lap.

She sighs, “You really don’t have to do this, you know.”

Omar braced. He began to feel his hands shaking. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and took slow, deep breaths. “No, I want to. I want to. Just pick out what you need and I’ll take care of it.” ❖ One last thing: a set of charcoal sticks. Megan taps twice on the little black box and kneels to rifle through another stack of notebooks. Omar looks at it and exhales a bit, relieved at its size. He walks by Megan and quickly slips the box into his sleeve without stopping. He pauses at the end of the aisle, fakes an itch again, and scopes out the area before turning to face Megan. She grins and mouths, “That’s everything,” before getting up and walking toward him, a !34