My stomach dropped.
“Is Theo hurt?”
“No, sweetheart. He’s not hurt.”
She sounded as though she were crying.
“Please, just come inside. You’ll understand when you get here.”
The call ended.
I didn’t remember putting on my shoes.
I barely remembered locking the door.
All I could think about was Theo standing alone in a place where I wasn’t there to protect him.
When I arrived, I pushed through the automatic doors so quickly that a man near the entrance stepped aside.
And then I saw the scene I described at the beginning.
The crying woman.
The security guard.
The shopping cart.
And my little brother standing beside the checkout counter with a receipt in his hand.
After the woman finished thanking Theo, Denise, the cashier, invited us to sit down.
The manager had temporarily moved the shopping cart away from the checkout line so the other customers could continue paying for their purchases.
