Chapter 13: Soup on the Hall Floor

I was out of the car before I had decided to move.

Cora sat on the bus stop bench with her duffel between her feet and both arms wrapped around her stomach.

"What did you eat?" I asked.

"A pretzel. From the machine by the gym." She didn't look up. "I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I was so hungry I didn't read it."

"Get in the car."

She got in without a word.

We made it two miles.

"Pull over," she said.

I pulled onto the gravel shoulder, and she got the door open in time.

I knelt beside her in my navy suit and held her hair back, the way I had done a hundred times, and I said nothing.

When it was over, she sat on the curb with her head down, shaking.

"Don't be nice to me," she said.

"I won't."

"And don't say I told you so."

"I wasn't going to."

"Then why did you say it in there?" Her voice broke. "You told them I did it. You said I should answer for it."

"You did do it."

She flinched.

"And they let you carry it alone, both of them," I said. "I won't let you carry it alone. That's not the same as pretending it didn't happen."

She stared at the gravel.

"Dad just drove off," she said. "She just drove off."

I handed her the water bottle from my console.

"Come home tonight," I said. "You don't have to decide anything."

She nodded at her knees.

In the kitchen, she stopped in the doorway and looked at the clean counter.

"There's nothing to eat here."

"There's ginger and rice," I said. "I bought them Monday and didn't know why."

I stood at the stove while the pot simmered, and she sat at the island with her cheek on her arm and watched me.

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