By two o'clock on Thursday, at the end of her early shift, Mara had dispatched a woman to an appointment, found a driver for a man whose bus had been canceled, and answered three calls from people who believed she could make a car appear where none was available. Her own car remained in the lot. She left it there and walked to the community center. Alma had asked her to see the changed rear entrance without coming through it.
Nita met Mara on the public side and told her the old code was disabled. Alma had watched facilities finish the work.
Alma was helping a child fasten a coat. She looked up, gave Mara a brief nod, and finished with the zipper before coming over.
“They did it,” Mara said.
“I watched them.” Alma tucked a pencil behind her ear. “I watched the desk staff test the public desk too. A stranger can ask for me there. They won't tell him whether I'm on.”
“Does that change your Friday close?”
“I haven't asked them to change it. I need those hours.” Alma saw Mara's face. “I know what June would say.”
“I was about to ask whether you wanted somebody to meet you afterward.”
“You can ask. A person can say no.”
“Do you want somebody?”
“I want to finish the shift and have Nita walk to the bus with me. She goes that way. If the answer changes, I'll tell Ren.” Alma looked toward the children by the bulletin board. “I want the day to keep having other things in it.”
Mara nodded. Her car was still in the lot; she would walk back for it.
At Tess's flat for a late lunch, the kitchen counter held a loaf of bread, two plates, and the folded list. Tess had put the case away. Mara liked that the bread took more of the counter than the list.
“Jo left soup,” Tess said. “I found the bread in the back of June's freezer.”
“You brought food from her house?”
“I took what I could carry. You said you'd clear the rest tomorrow, before it became a science project.”
Mara cut into the loaf. June had baked this kind with more salt than the recipe needed. As children they had eaten the heel while she stood at the sink washing a stranger's borrowed pan. Tess always waited for the crust; Mara ate the soft middle too soon and burned her mouth.
“You used to hide the heel for me,” Tess said.
“I thought you didn't know.”
“I thought you wanted me to think I didn't know.” Tess took the uneven slice Mara handed her. “Once she came home after midnight and found us both awake. She made toast, and I was furious because I wanted to be furious when she arrived.”
“She let you be.”
“She went upstairs before I could finish.”
Mara remembered a different part: June had stood at the bottom of the stairs with her hand on the banister for a long minute, listening to Tess move in her room. Mara had not told Tess. She did now.
“Why didn't she come up?” Tess asked.
“I don't know. She might have been waiting for you to ask.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She could be kind in a way that left the last step to someone else.”
Tess spread butter on her bread with the blunt end of a spoon because she had forgotten a butter knife. Mara almost corrected her. The old impulse was so absurd that she laughed.
“What?” Tess asked.
“I was going to tell you how to eat bread.”
“You're out of practice. You used to tell me how to be grateful.”
“I did.”
The laugh passed. Tess looked at the folded list. “Nell says June kept her waiting for money, food, rides. I believe some of it. I also believe Alma when she says June wouldn't listen about staying.”
“I believe them both,” Mara said.
“Do you believe Nell gave Owen access?”
“I think she knows more than she told you. I don't know how much she gave him.”
“Neither do I.” Tess tore off a piece of crust. “Don't offer her another route.”
“I haven't.”
Mara had not intended to. Yet she could imagine Nell asking for a lift to a station, a borrowed room for one night, a fare under a name that wouldn't be questioned. The imagined requests arranged themselves in Mara's mind with the ease of a dispatch board. She put her knife down.
“What are you thinking?” Tess asked.
“That I don't want Alma paying for June's plan, or for mine.”
Tess let the answer stand. They ate the soup while the afternoon light moved across the counter. Mara had missed the ordinary sound of Tess scraping a bowl. She could not remember the last time they had eaten without June somewhere between them, either present or being discussed. Tess asked for another slice, and Mara passed it.
Before she left, Mara checked her phone. A message from an unsaved number read: I need somewhere Owen won't think to look tonight. You know why. Nell had not signed it, but Mara recognized the tone from the courier's earlier calls and the number Tess had shown her. She did not answer in Tess's kitchen. She put the phone in her coat pocket and told Tess she had an early shift.
Outside, Mara stood by her car, reading the message again. She could call Ren. She could tell Nell to find her own way. She could go back upstairs and show Tess. Instead she wrote: Let me get home and call you. The message went before she had decided what help would mean.