Page 49 of Trusting Mr. Sterling
“You’re looking at me like we aren’t.”
“I can’t help it.”
She laughed, low and surprised, and drank her coffee.
“Tell me something,” he said.
“What?”
“What do you carry in that bag? Besides the food.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You noticed.”
“I notice everything about you.”
“Water bottles. Hand wipes. Sometimes sandwiches if I’ve time to make them. Socks in the winter.”
“Socks.”
“People forget about feet. Being cold from the ground up is different from being cold from the wind.”
“How do you know that?”
“My mom told me. Before things got better. There was a winter we couldn’t afford heat. She said the worst part wasn’t being cold. It was feeling it seep up through the floor. Throughyour feet. Into your bones.” She took a sip and set the cup down. “So I carry socks for when it gets cold, in case someone needs them.”
He held still. Anything he said would’ve been the wrong thing.
“What should I carry?” he asked.
“Why?”
“I want to learn. What else should I have in my bag?”
She stared at him.
“I mean it.”
“You don’t have to do what I do. It’s part of my mission.”
“I want to.”
She searched his face. He didn’t know what she found.
“Protein bars,” she said finally. “The kind that don’t crumble. Water bottles with caps that seal. Nothing made of glass. Hand wipes if you can—hands get dirty fast in a city.”
He memorized every word. “So protein bars, water, and hand wipes. Anything else? A tent? A small generator?”
She laughed, and the sound loosened something in his chest. “Start with the protein bars. Work your way up to disaster relief.”
“Why do you want to do this?” she asked. “Carry supplies. Learn my system.”
“Because you asked me if I had ever been hungry, and I said no, and I want to understand.”
“You can’t understand hunger by carrying snacks.”
“No. But I can understand you.”
Her hand stilled on her cup. The silence stretched, and she didn’t fill it.
