Richard had no training for this. He was just a delivery man, a man who brought food to doors and counted coins and wrapped his knees before dawn. But he knew something about loneliness. He knew the sound of pain when it had become too large to speak in ordinary words.
“Where do you live?” he asked gently. “I can help you get back.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t want to go back there tonight.”
Richard looked at the empty road, the expensive car, the dark city beyond, and then thought about his mattress, his tiny room, his last portion of rice. He thought about his rule.
Then he said, “There’s a place nearby. It’s not much, but it’s safe. You can stay until morning.”
She studied him, measuring something in his face. Whatever she saw was enough.
“Okay,” she said.
The ride to his apartment was short and silent. She held onto him carefully on the motorcycle, like someone who had never trusted a stranger this much before. When he opened his door, he suddenly saw the room as she must see it: the mattress, the bare bulb, the gas burner, the clean floor, the jacket hanging on a nail, the cracked boots lined up by the door.
“I’m sorry it’s small,” he said.
“It’s fine,” she answered, and she meant it.
He boiled water and made tea with the last two tea bags he had been rationing for a week. He put his final small portion of rice on a plate and set it beside her. She sat on the edge of the mattress and looked at the food as if eating were something from another lifetime.
“When did you last eat?” he asked.
She thought for a moment. “Yesterday, I think.”
Richard said nothing. He moved the plate closer.
