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Aaron's headache begins to peak under supermarket lights more evil than bright. Last night he and Wendy celebrated paying off their mortgage, with champagne, wasting one of three bottles in a christening against a corner of the house. "To ownership," they toasted into a starless night. A remarkable feeling, no one able to take away the land beneath your feet. It was especially satisfying that he'd earned it himself, targeting the right companies and pitching the resonant note. After Wendy got Max to sleep they'd listened to The Grateful Dead, finished off the champagne, plus some cognacs for him, and made love in front of the fire. On top of Wendy, Aaron felt on top of the world. Somehow, today he's back on the ground floor, or maybe it's the dirt floor cellar.

His nine-month-old, Max, feeling heavier than normal, is pouched on his back in a new state-of-the-art kid-sack. Max babbles obliquely, way too close to one ear, as Aaron squints at the shelves of tinned fruit then back at the list in his hand. Mandarin oranges from Taiwan not China. Smelling booze and wondering if it is dribbling out his pores, he turns around to see some old guy, dressed in a raincoat and toque, standing behind him. Pinned at a rakish angle to the breast of his raincoat is a large, circular button that reads: "Jesus Loves Me." The letter o in the word Loves is drawn in the shape of a heart. What about me? thinks Aaron, watching the man stare past his shoulder at Max. The old man's jaw hangs slack, his breath pouring forth hot sour wind. He shifts his whole head to study Aaron's face next.

"Can I help you?"Aaron offers with a smile. The smile causes the pains in his skull to root deeper.

The drunk rearranges his head to look back at Max, who reaches wiggling hands in the man's direction.

"Sure hope he looks like the mother," the guy says, shaking his head in a kind of figure eight.

Dumb to a response, Aaron forces a laugh, which spikes pain through one eye.
The man grunts and walks on.

Fine, Aaron says to himself and turns his attention back to the rows of canned fruit. He picks up a tin of mandarins to read the label and his vision goes fuzzy. His mother's words, when she saw her grandson that first time, are suddenly loud in his ears.

"Sure doesn't look like any of my babies. Must take after Wendy's side."

He didn't think anything at the time. His mother never liked Wendy much. "Such a ready smile," was the one compliment she'd afforded his wife.

But it was curious how blond Max was. And those sea-green eyes, nobody on either side had green eyes. Of course, his own father was adopted, so there lay a few unknowns. But Wendy was a blue-eyed brunette and Aaron's hair was even darker, a shade lighter than his eyes. The question, long unasked, suddenly rang in his head like a bell. Was Max even genetically feasible?

"Excuse me," comes a clipped voice, "your cart is blocking the aisle."

"Sorry," he says, shifting his cart aside.

The woman keeps her eyes sternly on her hands till she can push past.

"You're welcome," he mumbles, then returns to the can in his hand. Taiwan, reads the label. He puts it into the grocery cart.

Even the nurses in the delivery room exclaimed over the baby's colouring, come to think of it.

"Where'd that hair come from?" one had said. "All that chlorine in the tap-water," joked the other.

He should ask Tim, the doctor on his old-timers team, what the odds are. No: what would such a question imply? I'm not sure if little Max is mine? Ridiculous, they've been married only four years. It's a good marriage. Extremely good. In all ways. Aaron uncrumples the list from an unconscious fist. Spartan mineral water (sodium free), "President's Choice" rice cakes with millet (unsalted), bananas a touch green ... Jesus. Off in the mall, snowsuit shopping for Max, Wendy's to meet Aaron at the checkout in another twenty minutes.

At the wall of rice cakes there are three, no four brands but none with millet. Maybe she slipped off to the sperm bank when, after three years trying, he didn't produce. Isn't there definitive blood typing you can do? He spies the old drunk by the cheese section slipping a pound of butter inside his raincoat. Jesus love you now? thinks Aaron and hopes the guy gets caught.

"Nama, nama, nama," Max spouts in his ear.

"We'll see mama soon, little guy." Aaron reaches behind and gives Max a pat on his chubby leg. "Just hang in there, little buddy."

Aaron didn't care for the name Max. His son was born the day the Great One played his last game and Aaron wanted to call him Wayne. The little spitter looked just like a Wayne. Everyone had a kid called Max these days and Aaron loathed trends. Wendy, on the other hand, found great comfort by being in the know. She could tell a car's year by colour alone and seemed to own the same clothes as people on TV. Max's new snowsuit will probably be silver-green to match their millennium mini-van. Aaron pushes on a spot under his eyebrow to try and relieve a thorn of pain.

Down the cereal aisle, he sees Gretzky's picture on the Cheerios box.

"My boy, Wayne," he says, holding up the box for Max to swat at. Though not on the list, he throws it in the cart.

Oatmeal, large flake, not Quakers, says the list. He grabs whichever bag of oatmeal meets his hand. Wendy, relax already.

Wendy was particular, needed things a certain way at a certain time. This was the source of both her vulnerability and her strength. She was petite, five-foot-one, her tidy figure already exercised back to its size-five wardrobe, her shoulder-length hair always cut and combed to linear perfection. She'd probably be less bossy if she were taller. Aaron was six-two and had to hunch to kiss her. With no patience for surprises, zero tolerance for variables, she had to know all her Christmas, birthday and anniversary presents ahead of time. She refused to see a movie she hadn't seen the trailer for. Chose her job for its pension plan. Had so many ultra-sounds when pregnant, the doctor cut her off. But ... if this child was, say, his buddy Charlie's, or that new hot-shot lawyer's in her office (what's his name?) then she'd be racked with unknowns. Which is maybe why she had all those ...

He locates the mineral water, reads the price and refuses to buy it. Wendy, drink it out the tap like the rest of us. Max begins to whimper and Aaron jiggles the pack. He digs in his pocket for the rubber caterpillar Wendy gave him for emergencies.

"Okay, big guy?" he says, handing back the toy. "Chew on this."

Come on, he silently pleads, take it. His shoulders crimp at the thought of a wailing baby on his back. At this stage of the game, Max is consoled by one thing only: his mother's tit. That nice palm-sized tit with the buoyant nipple. So like her, those breasts, compact and alert. Aaron pictures just how her back arched in pleasure last night, those breasts hungering for his hands, arching even higher for blond hands? It could have been her old boyfriend, Richard, his hair's so blond it's almost white. Richard Kurtz. Aaron took to calling him Dick behind his back. Dick Kurtz. She never really got over Dick, the pilot, who probably flies into town every third week or so. Aaron's headache begins an even pulsing in a circle around his brain. He can almost hear it.

Max takes the caterpillar, squeezing out a sickly squeak. The next second its neon-green rubber body is belly-up and mute on the linoleum floor. Aaron bends to pick it up and blood hurtles to his forehead. With a firm grip on the cart, he rights himself, blows on the caterpillar and hands it back to Max.

"Do you think that's sanitary?" says a young woman over hip rectangular glasses.

Trying to re-balance his head on his neck, Aaron's having trouble looking at her. Squeezed between shame and anger, he's afraid of what he might say and keeps his mouth shut. He wheels away.

Relieved to be out of the centre aisles, Aaron's made it to Produce, his mouth suddenly sickeningly dry. So dry it's hard to swallow. He visualizes his dehydrated brain at half its normal size and wishes he'd grabbed some of Wendy's fancy water after all. There's the old man again, on the other side of the banana table. Aaron picks out a yellow bunch with brown spots. I happen to prefer ripe bananas, Wendy. He sees the old guy take an apple and slip it down the deep outside pocket of his coat. God, what else has he planted on himself?

"Filling up with food, are we?" Aaron says.

The guy glances up with glazed eyes that appear not to register him, eyes that could care less, and, without responding, he moves along to the oranges.

Aaron looks around the corners of the ceiling. Don't they have security cameras in this place? Is this guy really getting away with this? He's so obvious. Maybe the Jesus button is his cover. No one suspects the Jesus guy. Aaron wants to yell the man's crime to the lady behind the bakery counter, just to shake him up, see what he'd do. But even the thought of yelling makes his headache swell. Maybe it's equally obvious to some people that Max isn't really his. Maybe all those fatherhood jokes in the dressing room were more pointed than he thought.

"Don't even think about sex after baby."

"Just make sure there was sex before." Knee-slapping guffaws.

Maybe Wendy thought he wasn't capable? Not reproductive material, but would make a good provider, be a pay-off-the-mortgage sort of guy. She was pretty frustrated after two and a half years of taking her temperature every morning then buying that expensive little computer gadget and having to pee on a stick. Maybe she just gave up. Her clock was set and she couldn't take the unpredictability of it all. She had talked about going the in vitro route but, knowing how her friend Sandy had suffered, never pursued it. Funny how she was pregnant not long after that final option was dismissed. Pregnant and so happy, both of us. But did they even have sex that month? Wasn't he in Toronto during March's 'window of fertility'? He'll check the dates with his secretary.

He wheels out of Produce and sees Wendy waiting at the checkout, a bundle of smart cuteness. She smiles and waves him over to Checkout 4. What man could resist that face, that peach-shaped bum and spunky confidence? She was an entirely different person in bed, softly wild, a lynx or a mink, and uncharacteristically spontaneous.

At the sight of his mommy, Max lets go a shriek in Aaron's ear that feels like permanent damage.

"Here," instructs Wendy, "take my purse, my discount card's in the front pocket, I'll go feed Maxi."

Maxi. Always makes him think of maxi-pad. Aaron bends nearly in half to let Wendy undo the Kidpack's safety strap and lift out a now whimpering and desperate Max. In his mother's arms, Max instantly quiets. If Aaron was the real father, maybe he'd be able to soothe the kid himself? Maybe there's a pheromone thing that recognizes its own kind.

Aaron unloads his cart onto the counter and notices the old guy one checkout over, in the nine-items-or-less aisle, a mere three or four items in his red basket. Probably ten more on his person, Aaron thinks, looking around for a security guard, one of those idle "shoppers" that never accumulate any groceries. There's a guy standing by the exit door, hands jammed in the pockets of a beige zippered jacket, wearing a ball cap and looking idle enough. Could be he's waiting to stop the guy just outside the store, avoid a scene. Under the shadow of his visor, the security guy is staring hard at something. Aaron follows his gaze to where Wendy sits on a bench against the windows, discreetly nursing Max. Security is staring at his wife's tit.

"You have a discount card today, sir?"

"What?" Aaron stops shaking his head and tries to register the face who just addressed him.

"Your discount card? Have you signed up for one yet?"

"Yeah," Aaron looks down at the purse in his hands. "It's my wife's, in here somewhere."

He feels around for her wallet, pulls it out. It holds a dozen cards and carefully folded receipt slips but no Superstore card. Looking from the guard to Wendy and back to the purse, he pulls out tissues, comb, mirror, lipstick, green tic-tacs, baby wipes and piles them on the counter. The guard's eyes haven't moved from where Max is latched on to his wife. And now the old drunk with his measly bag of groceries is walking right towards them, his backside protruding as if a turkey's shoved down his pants.

"It's green," says the clerk, suppressing a smile.

"Hey, stop," Aaron yells, waving in the direction of the door. Wendy and the security guard simultaneously turn in his direction. " Jesus," he stutters as the old man slowly exits the store.

"Is there a problem?" asks the clerk.

Wendy has put her sucked and ogled breast away and is striding over.

"Aaron, the card's not in my wallet," she says irritably, seeing half her purse strewn over the counter. "What are you doing? Give me my bag." She holds out her hand.

"No." Aaron jerks the bag away, surprising even himself, the rest of its contents spilling onto the person's groceries stacked behind his. His headache extends beyond him now, to include the evil lights, the tabloid stars perched in magazine racks, the waiting hum of the cash register.

Max starts to cry at some impossibly high pitch that makes Aaron swoon before he spies Wendy's pink diaphragm case astride his neighbour's eggplant. What? He lunges for it and hoists it in the air.

"Dick Kurtz!" he yells, triumphant.

"Take the language home, buddy," says the man in line behind him. "Let's move it."

"Well you can take it and -"

Aaron reels around, his shoulder knocking the man back against the magazine rack. The enemy is grey-haired and feeble, his father's age. Aaron's jaw grinds in check. The entire store goes quiet, people standing back to give the crazed husband room. The security guy, no longer idle, is poised and ready at the end of Checkout 4. Max has worked his soprano-like cry up to the hiccup stage.

Aaron re-hoists the diaphragm case, though not quite as high.

"Explain this!"

Wendy's frozen glare comes into focus.

"You know what it is, Aaron." Her voice is composed, eerie, and awfully public in its bid to be heard over Max's crying. "And you know what we did last night at two-thirty in the morning. And I had a meeting with Jane, early this morning. And I had to remove it at her house."

She turns to leave. Aaron watches her peach-shaped bum walk away, Max's blond arms clinging to her neck.

"I'll be in the car," are her last words.

The automated door opens for her and she's gone.

The sound of his own breathing plunges back and forth in his head. His hand shakes as he removes the green card from the pocket of Wendy's empty, flaccid bag. He hands it to the cashier and glances around. Blond men, black-haired men, a red-headed guy avoiding his eye. They sympathize, he tells himself, they've been here. He takes a breath. Tomorrow he'll be back on top.