Chapter 11: Britt's Bargain

By the hundred-and-twentieth day of the rain, my lettuce had gone to seed and my chickens were laying.

I ate scrambled eggs on my tiny porch and watched the hallway on my phone.

Every morning at eight the thirty-first floor lined up for bread.

Britt stood at the head of the line with a stack of supermarket loaves and a sleepy smile.

She touched each one and made it enormous.

Declan's mother stood beside her with a clipboard and a pen.

"Name," she would say. "Apartment. Number in your household."

She wrote each one down, and she handed out the slices herself.

Anyone who spoke back got a thinner slice.

An old man with a bad cough asked for a little extra, and she wrote his name on a second list and gave him the heel.

Britt saw it.

She said nothing.

That afternoon, I watched Declan come out of his door with his shirt open at the collar.

He smiled at my sister, and he took her by the hand.

"You're tired," he said gently. "Come here."

He led her to the corner by the stairwell, and he kissed her.

It was a long kiss, and the whole hall could see it.

Britt's knees nearly gave out.

She clung to his shirt with both hands.

When he let her go, she was crying a little.

"You really do care," she whispered.

"Of course I do," he said.

I watched his thumb brush her cheek.

I watched him glance over her shoulder to see who was looking.

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