The supermarket announcement used my dead mother’s name

Dear Delyara, I was buying milk when the loudspeaker said, “Could Margaret Collins please come to customer service?” My mother’s name. She has been dead eleven years. I froze beside the refrigerators. There are thousands of women named Margaret Collins. I know that. Still, for one irrational second, my body believed my mother was somewhere in the supermarket being called to collect a lost handbag or child. I began walking toward customer service before my mind caught up. A woman in a red coat arrived from another aisle. She looked nothing like Mum. She laughed with the employee and left carrying a parcel. I stood near the lottery machine pretending to check my phone. Eleven years is long enough for people to assume grief has become civilized. Usually it has. Then a public-address system says a name and you become thirty-two again, arriving at a hospital too late. I bought the milk and went home. In the car, I said my mother’s name aloud several times. Margaret Collins. Margaret Collins. I think I needed to hear it spoken by someone who knew exactly which woman was meant.