Kimchi jjigae. Braised mackerel with radish. Seafood pancakes.

Mario, who must have been only eighteen or nineteen years old, worked with her almost every day now. He said hello, smiled more often. But he still always seemed distracted, running from one task to the next. He meticulously stuffed purchases into plastic bags, went off to help lift or carry something, and appeared just in time to bag items for the next person in line. He had a whole system for how he would manage his job most efficiently. All the other baggers in the other aisles, whom Mina had met several of, seemed to have similar routines. Occasionally, they would stop and say something to each other, joke, but only for a few seconds before they plunged back into work again.

During the slower hours, Mario spent his time organizing and restocking items up front, while Mina restocked and tidied the smaller items on display by the registers—the drinks and candies and snacks. She sometimes saw Hector and Consuela, either at the back of the store or at the registers as they came forward to do go-backs or grab last-minute items for customers. They still greeted each other with a nod, a smile, or an hola, but now never spoke to each other beyond that. The camaraderie had been lost.

She said hello to the other Korean cashiers in the store, but they rarely talked as well. All of them seemed bored and unhappy, checking in to do their job and checking out, perhaps running home to their families. Perhaps her life was easier, not having to run around all the time, cooking, cleaning, dropping kids off at and picking them up from school, disciplining them, hugging them, kissing them. Perhaps her life was easier, but she couldn’t help but feel an emptiness as she thought of the lives her coworkers might have. The fullness that she missed.

Whenever a little girl at the register reminded her of her own lost daughter, Mina’s body trembled with a mix of terror and exhilaration. Her eyes welled up, but she always caught herself before she actually cried. Gripping the sides of the counter, she steadied herself as much as she possibly could. Staring at the stream of items to enter, the cash to collect and return, she did not make eye contact with any customers. She spent the rest of the day trying not to think or feel at all.

Once, a girl about her daughter’s age with a father, who looked so much like her husband with his long and sensitive face, arrived at the checkout stand. Was Mina imagining this, or were they back again, like specters from the past? She almost ran around the counter to throw her arms around them. Maybe God was giving her one more chance.

But as soon as the little girl said something to her father in English, Mina realized they were nothing like her own family. They were not the same people at all. The father was much taller and younger than her own husband. The little girl had a different face entirely.

During her bathroom break, she ran into a stall where she sat on the toilet and cried. She tried to be as silent as possible but couldn’t help the occasional sob escaping from her mouth. She held her face in her hands, gripping it with the pads of her fingers. She couldn’t stop. She knew she had to go back up front, but she couldn’t control herself. The pain in her stomach and chest overwhelmed her, as if she was being stabbed with sadness itself.

After blowing her nose, she pressed her palms together and whispered, “Please, God, help me. Please, God. Please. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. I promise. Please help me. Help me, please.” She did not want to admit this to Him, but secretly she was asking God to keep her from ending everything, from throwing herself in front of the bus, which she thought about sometimes. As the bus pulled to a stop in front of her, she wondered what would happen if she stepped out in front of it. Only the fear of hell kept her alive.

Soon after burying her husband and daughter, she stood on the roof of her apartment building, wondering if it was high enough to die if she jumped. As a teenager at the orphanage, after she had been beaten by one of the nuns, she thought of all the places she could hang herself. But she never quite had the courage to do it. She was too scared of the pain she might feel before dying. Wondering what it would feel like, she would sometimes grab a shirt or a pair of pants, and in the restroom that she shared with the other girls, she’d try to choke herself, but she never got close enough to blacking out. It hurt too much. She couldn’t stand the pain.

When she was younger, she didn’t even care if she had gone to hell. But now she cared. Now she wanted to survive. How else could she see her daughter again?

Those tiny fingers. That perfect face. The high clear voice. The near-black eyes.

When she emerged from the restroom at work with her face red and eyes swollen, Mr. Kim, who had taken her place at the register after she had been gone longer than usual, dropped the closed sign at her register. Mario pretended not to notice and instead busied himself by preopening several of the plastic bags to ready them for the next customers.

Mr. Kim touched her arm, pulling her aside. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing. Nothing. Sorry I was gone for so long.”

“Do you need to go home?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“I can take you home. You don’t look good.”

Strutting by in his white polo, khaki pants, and visor as if he was coming from a day of golf, Mr. Park asked, “Something wrong here?”

“Nothing, nothing. Everything’s fine.” She didn’t want Mr. Park to see her face. At the register, she removed the sign and waved at a customer waiting in another line. Mr. Kim stood by her side. As soon as she was done ringing the woman up, he asked, “Can I get you something?”

“No, no. Really, I’m fine.”

Hours later in the back of the market, she went to her storage basket, where she kept her snacks, jacket, and spare shoes. Unexpectedly, she found a plastic bag full of fruit—bright tangerines, a soothing green Granny Smith apple, a honey-colored pear—topped with two packages of ramen. One of the tangerines wore a little leaf like a hat. The dimpled flesh was clean and bright and sweet under her nose.

Who had left the bag for her?

She didn’t see Mr. Kim for the rest of the day.

As she stood in front of the stop watching the bus approach, she recognized the driver, the woman with the round face and neat bob. The bus slid a few feet past her with a rush of hot air, kicking up dust and leaves, before it halted to a dramatic stop.

Showing her bus pass, Mina asked, “You all . . . right?” The words surprised her as if they had fallen out of her mouth.

The driver laughed to herself. “Eh. I’m all right. You?”

The exchange calmed Mina. She spent so much of her day ignored, an anonymous face behind a cash register, a person who handled items and money, scanned, punched in numbers.

As she sat on the bench seat, she held the bag of groceries with the fruit and the ramen close to her. She closed her eyes, repeating the words in her mind, You all right? Are you all right?

In the kitchen, beneath the glow of a single overhead light, yellow and soft, Mina stared at the shiny green apple, the perfection, the evenness of its skin. And without thinking, she grabbed a knife, winding away its flesh, an undressing. She remembered how, after dinner, she would arrange the slices on a plate for her daughter, who with her small hands and mouth would take her time eating each piece. The bright fruit would fade into brown. So much like everything in nature. The color of the fallen leaves that had died, curled on the grass, sweeping the surfaces of their tombstones in the wind.

Mina dropped the knife in the sink, steadying herself on the counter.

She bit into the half-peeled fruit. She filled a pot with water.

Sitting in the breakfast nook, she slurped on the long ramen noodles, comforted by the salty broth, which soothed her even on a hot day with the air stagnant and dense. She parted the curtains and opened the window next to the nook, staring out through the security bars into the darkness. Would she ever forget her husband, her daughter? Would they wait for her? Remember her in heaven? What was the point? She wondered but felt numb from all the crying. She remembered Mr. Kim and imagined how her face must’ve looked to him, red and swollen.