Then why can’t we help? Eli's voice rose desperate now. Why can’t we do something to make it fair? Because fair doesn’t exist, Amara said quietly. Not here.
Not for people like us. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying. That doesn’t mean we stop caring. She pressed the bag into his hands. Go, she said.
Go now before he comes back. And tomorrow night, don’t come to the door. I’ll leave something for you. By the dumpster in a bag marked waste. You understand?
Eli nodded, but his eyes were bright with unshed tears. We're going to be smarter about this. Amara continued. We're going to be careful, but we're not going to stop. Okay.
Okay. Eli whispered. Na reached out and touched Amara's hand again. that same gentle touch, like checking to make sure she was real, making sure she wasn’t disappearing. Then they were gone, melting into the darkness like ghosts.
Amara stayed there in the alley for a long time. Her knees ached, her hands were numb, but all she could think about was the look in Eli's eyes, that desperate need to help. That 12-year-old boy trying to carry the weight of the world on shoulders still too small for the burden. She understood that feeling. She'd been carrying her own version of it since the day she left college.
That night, she didn’t sleep. Not because she was afraid of losing her job, though she was. Not because she was worried about money, though she should have been. She didn’t sleep because she kept hearing Uli's voice. Why can’t we do something to make it fair?
And she didn’t have a good answer. Her mother noticed, of course, even through the creaky door of their shared apartment, even while knitting by the weak yellow glow of the hallway lamp. Even though her hands shook more these days, and her breath came harder, Mama always noticed, Amara found her sitting in the old rocking chair by the window, the one that had been in the family longer than Amara had been alive. The yellow yarn in her mother's lap was slowly becoming a blanket, or trying to. Progress was slow now.
Everything was slow now. I don’t want you worrying, Amara said as she helped her into bed, adjusting the pillows under her back, smoothing the worn quilt. It's nothing. You only lie when it’s something, her mother said. Her voice was thin, threadbare as the blanket she'd been knitting, but calm.
Always calm. So tell me. Amara sat on the edge of the bed, and it all came spilling out. the accident, the children in the snow, the food she'd been sneaking them. Barlo's rage, his threats, the impossible choice between keeping her job and keeping her conscience.
Her mother listened without interrupting. Her eyes closed, but Amara knew she was taking in every word. The rhythm of the needles had been slowing these past months, but her mind, her beautiful, wise mind, was still sharp as ever. When Amara finished, the silence stretched between them long enough that Amara wondered if her mother had fallen asleep. Then finally, her mother reached across the narrow bed and took her daughter's hand.