Chapter 10 #2
"You know where everything is," I said.
"I remembered from when we ate raccoon with Scout. Your organizational system is chaotic but I figured it out."
"How long have you been up?"
"A while. The sun comes up early and my car gets hot." She slid a plate in front of me. "Eat."
I looked at the plate. Scrambled eggs, fluffy and golden. Toast with butter. Three strips of bacon arranged neatly.
"Wow. This looks..."
"Amazing? I know." She sat down across from me with her own plate. "I raided your fridge. I'll replace everything."
"You don't have to."
"I will anyway. Eat."
I ate. The eggs were perfect, the bacon crisped the way I liked it.
"These are really good."
"I know." She smiled, pleased despite trying not to be. "I learned from the best."
"Who?"
The smile flickered. Something passed across her face, there and gone.
"My parents. They had a restaurant."
"What kind of restaurant?"
"Korean." She looked down at her plate. "Small place. Family-run. Nothing fancy, but the food was solid."
"Sounds nice. They still in business?"
The door closed. I watched it happen. Her expression smoothing out, her shoulders pulling in slightly. The subject sealing itself shut.
"They don't have it anymore," she said quietly, not meeting my eyes. "It was a long time ago. A different life."
I didn't push. It was just another piece of the puzzle she wouldn't let me assemble.
"Well," I said. "Whoever taught you to cook knew what they were doing."
She looked up, relieved by the exit I'd offered.
"Damn right they did."
We ate in comfortable silence. The morning light came through the windows, golden and warm. Outside I could hear birds in the trees, the familiar sound of something moving through the brush.
"So," Grace said. "I have some news."
"Oh?"
"I got fired."
She said it flat, like it was a mildly interesting fact about someone else.
"What happened?"
"Bullshit happened. The owner's son has been working there for the last few weeks.
He'd been making comments from the start.
Little shit, you know? Like 'you look good in those jeans' or 'I bet you're fun when you're not working.
' I ignored it because I needed the job and ignoring shit is what women do. "
I set my fork down and listened.
"Then the comments became hands. A touch on my back that lasted too long.
A brush against my ass that was definitely not an accident.
I told him to stop. He didn't stop. I told him louder.
Then last night he followed me into the supply closet and grabbed my tits and I slapped him so hard his nose started bleeding.
His mommy fired me right then and there. "
The words came out dry, like she was reading a police report about someone else.
"Jesus, Grace. That's assault. You could file charges."
"Could I?" She looked at me, eyebrows raised. "His dad owns the motel. His uncle is on the county council. Who do you think the cops are going to believe? The respectable business owner's son or the homeless girl living in her car?"
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell her the system worked, that justice existed, that doing the right thing would produce the right outcome. But I'd spent enough time in this county to know better.
"I'm sorry," I said. "What happened was wrong. You didn't deserve it."
Grace went still. She looked down at her plate, then back up at me.
"Thanks," she said quietly. "For saying that. For not asking what I was wearing or whether I led him on or if maybe I misunderstood."
"Anyone who would ask those questions is an idiot."
"You'd be surprised how many idiots there are."
We sat there for a moment, the weight of it settling between us. Then Grace shook her head, physically shaking off the mood. She took a bite of toast and chewed noisily, her cheerful mask slipping back into place.
"So I'll probably be around more now, if that's cool. I want to earn my keep though. I can cook, obviously. And I'm decent at cleaning if you need help with the cabin."
"Grace, you don't have to..."
"I know I don't have to. I want to." She gestured at my plate. "Tell me that wasn't the best breakfast you've had in months."
"It was the best breakfast I've had in months."
"Then let me do it again. I like cooking. I'm good at it. You're not, from what I've seen."
"Guilty. Okay, you can cook. But I'm paying for groceries."
"Deal."
"What about work? What are you going to do?"
She shrugged, the worry flickering beneath her smile.
"Fuck if I know. Maybe Claire needs help on the farm? Except I'm terrible at agricultural shit. I killed a cactus once. A cactus, dude. Those things literally survive in deserts."
"I could ask around. See if anyone's hiring."
"That would be cool. Yeah, let me know if you hear anything. I've got some savings but..." She trailed off. "Anyway. Let me know."
"I will."
I thought about what she wasn't saying. Grace without a job was Grace without gas money. Without phone data. Without the thin margin that separated living-in-your-car-by-choice from living-in-your-car-because-you're-trapped.
"You can park here as long as you like," I said. "No conditions. No timeline."
"Cool. Thanks."
That was all. No big moment. No emotional outpouring. Just two words and a quick nod, because making it more than that would mean admitting how much she needed it.
We finished breakfast. Grace collected the plates and took them to the sink, waving me off when I tried to help.
"I've got it. Go do whatever it is you do."
"I should check on the solar panels."
"Then go check on the solar panels."
I stood in the doorway, watching her scrub my dishes with efficient movements. The morning light caught her face. She looked cheerful but worn, like someone who'd cleaned up on the outside while something had broken underneath.
"Grace."
"Yeah?"
"It's going to be okay."
She paused, hands still in the soapy water. Then she laughed, short and sharp.
"Damn, Thomas. That's the nicest lie anyone's told me in a while."
She went back to the dishes. I went outside.
The clearing was bright with morning sun. The solar panels gleamed in their rows, drinking light, converting it to power. The battery bank hummed quietly in its enclosure. Everything was working. The whole thing was solid.
Grace's RAV4 sat by the trailer, white and dusty, her whole life contained inside it. Beyond the trees, somewhere in the woods, Abner Flint was probably coughing into his hand and struggling just to draw breath.
I stood in my clearing with the sun on my face and two additional worries sitting in my chest where yesterday there had been only contentment.
The helplessness of that weighed on me, different from anything Harlan Foster had thrown at me. Harlan I could fight. I could hire lawyers, find solutions, push back against institutional power with my stubbornness and the help of people who knew how the system worked.
But this? Abner's lungs were failing because of decisions made by people who sent him to war and didn't care what happened afterward.
Grace was trapped by something in her past that I couldn't see and she wouldn't name.
And all I could do was offer them encouragement.
Someone who'd listen. A shower. A place to stay while they figured out what came next.
It didn't feel like enough.
But it was what I had.