THE CONFIRMATION
The pharmacy was on the next block.
A small independent place — not a chain, just a narrow shopfront with a green cross above the door and a window display that hadn't been updated since sometime in the last decade. A bell announced me when I pushed through the door. The man behind the counter looked up briefly and looked back down at whatever he was doing, and I moved through the aisles alone.
I found what I needed on the third aisle.
I took it to the counter without looking at it directly — the specific avoidance of someone who knows what they are buying and does not need the packaging to confirm it. The man rang it up without comment. Eleven dollars and forty-nine cents. I paid in cash. He put it in a small paper bag, folded the top, and slid it across the counter.
