Sixty-Five and Change

CVS Pharmacy #4417 is open twenty-four hours. On December 24th at 10:47 PM, somebody went in. The receipt tells you what they bought: one box Plan B One-Step, a balsam cedar candle, a pack of Breathe Right strips, a single Lindt truffle. Sixty-five dollars and seventy-six cents. The holiday music was playing. There was tinsel in the family planning aisle.

This song stays with her in that fluorescent light — the particular quality of being alone on a night designed to remind you that you're not supposed to be. Not falling apart. Just doing what needed doing, buying what she needed, and driving home through the cold. She lit the candle. She ate the truffle before she got back inside. There's a kind of grace in the practicality of that, in the way some nights just ask you to get through them without a story that makes it mean something.

[Spoken – dry, close-mic'd, no music] CVS Pharmacy, number forty-four seventeen. December twenty-fourth. Ten forty-seven PM.

Plan B One-Step … forty-nine ninety-nine. Balsam cedar candle … five ninety-nine. Breathe Right strips … eight forty-nine. One Lindt chocolate truffle … one twenty-nine.

Subtotal: sixty-five seventy-six. Thank you for shopping CVS. We wish you a happy holiday.

[Verse 1] The parking lot was empty but for one shopping cart drifting slow through the cold The Muzak through the speakers played a song about a child and some bright star of old I walked the family planning aisle at midnight past the tinsel hung above the shelf I read the back of every single package like it might explain something about myself

[Chorus] Sixty-five and change on Christmas Eve a candle and a decision and a box The checkout girl was seventeen, maybe she didn't look, which I was glad of

The doors slid open to the parking lot I sat down in my car and didn't cry There were carolers on the radio or something I turned it off and watched the snow go by

[Verse 2] My mother used to say the holidays will swallow you alive if you let them I lit the candle when I got back home Balsam, cedar — that's December The Plan B box I left out on the counter like a thing I didn't need to hide I ate the chocolate truffle in the driveway before I even made it back inside

[Chorus] Sixty-five and change on Christmas Eve a candle and a decision and a box The checkout girl was seventeen, maybe she didn't look, which I was glad of

The doors slid open to the parking lot I sat down in my car and didn't cry There were carolers on the radio or something I turned it off and watched the snow go by

[Bridge] I've done harder things than this I've done softer things too I've sat in hospital parking garages at two in the morning with nothing to do But this was mine, this was only mine just a woman and a twenty-four-hour store on a night when everybody else was home and I didn't need anything more

[Verse 3] In the morning I threw out the receipt but I remembered every line of it Forty-nine ninety-nine for peace of mind is what you call a reasonable fit The candle burned all night beside the window cedar smoke against the bedroom cold Some nights there is no story to redeem you some nights you just pay and go home

[Chorus] Sixty-five and change on Christmas Eve a candle and a decision and a box The checkout girl was seventeen, maybe she didn't look, which I was glad of

The doors slid open to the parking lot I sat down in my car and didn't cry There were carolers on the radio or something I turned it off and watched the snow go by

[Outro] The parking lot was empty but for one shopping cart drifting through the cold Sixty-five and change … sixty-five and change …

Some nights you just pay and go home Some nights you just pay … and go home