Forgiveness

In the fall of 2021, I ran into my ex-best friend at Trader Joe’s. I was surprised to see her; I had moved back to Los Angeles and she still lived on the East Coast. We’d met as undergrads at Spelman College and, while I was in graduate school, I’d lived briefly with her and her husband, but we hadn’t spoken for more than a year.

I was pushing my cart through the dairy section, searching for vanilla yogurt, and then there she was. We stared at each other, then, at the . . .