“She needs more than longer hours, Paul,” Dan said. Not harshly, but directly. “She needs food and sleep and the chance to just be a kid. Right now she’s planning evacuation lists.”
Paul ran both hands through his hair. He sat down at my kitchen table because his legs seemed to require it.
“Her mom died two years ago,” he said quietly. “I promised I’d keep her safe. I didn’t want her to see me fail at that.”
“She’s already seeing it,” I said, as gently as I could manage. “She’s just been protecting you from knowing that she is.”
The kitchen was very still.
Dan pulled out a chair across from him. “So. What do we do now?”
The Night Ended With Phone Calls and Plans — and None of It Was a Miracle, but All of It Was Something
After Paul left with Lizie — who hugged Sam at the door with the fierce grip of someone who has not been held very much recently — I started making calls.
The school counselor first. Then my neighbor Carla, who volunteers at the county food pantry and knows how to navigate that system without making anyone feel like a charity case. Then, with Dan’s coaching, a call to Lizie’s landlord.
Dan drove to the grocery store with food vouchers we had been holding. Sam baked banana bread with Lizie the following afternoon, the two of them filling our kitchen with flour and noise and actual laughter.
