Chapter 10
“Ididn’t take anything,” Sophie said.
Rachel kept her voice level. She used that tone during difficult home visits, when a parent was lying about something obvious, and both of them knew it. Her voice stayed calm and patient, with enough silence for the truth to become harder to avoid than the lie.
“I’m not angry. I need to know what we have so we can plan. Please put it back,” Rachel said.
Sophie’s shoulders tightened. “Why?”
“Because we don’t know how long it’ll be before we find more food. We have to ration what we have until we understand the situation.”
“Ration it for whom? You’ll give half of it to the next injured person we meet, or the next family with kids who look sad enough. That’s what people like you do.”
Sophie’s bitterness sounded older than the morning. Rachel had heard it from children who’d watched adults make promises that cost someone else more than they cost the adult. She recognized the pattern, though she didn’t know Sophie’s history with it.
“Helping people doesn’t mean abandoning responsibility. The food belongs to both of us. No one is taking it unless we decide together,” Rachel said.
Sophie stared at her. Her gray-green eyes held steady on Rachel’s face, and for a moment Rachel thought she’d reached the edge of Sophie’s trust. Heat shimmered above the asphalt behind her, blurring the line of stalled cars into wavering shapes. Then Sophie’s mouth tightened.
“Does Hannah think that too?” Sophie asked.
The name hit Rachel harder than she had expected. She hadn’t mentioned Hannah to Sophie beyond a brief reference during the drive. Sophie had remembered it, held it back, and chosen that moment to use it.
“What did you say?” Rachel asked.
“You mentioned her during the drive. Your daughter. Does she think helping strangers matters more than making sure your own kids eat? Because that’s what it looks like from here,” Sophie said.
Rachel started to answer and stopped. The question found the space between the argument she’d left unresolved at home and the choice she was making on the highway.
She saw Hannah in the doorway, her gray sweatshirt on, arms folded, watching the car pull away.
Hannah’s words came back clear and sharp.
You never lose your patience with them. You never tell them you’ll be there and then pack a bag instead.
Rachel opened her mouth to give Sophie the professional answer. It would have maintained boundaries and redirected the conversation toward practical concerns. The words formed and dissolved before she spoke them, because Sophie had already seen through that response.
Shouting rose from farther down the highway before Rachel found a better answer.
Two families had clustered near an abandoned delivery van, and their voices carried in the still morning air.
A man held several bottles of water while a woman argued that her family had found the supplies first. Other travelers stopped to watch, and the confrontation moved toward the moment Rachel knew all too well, when reasonable people decided that being right mattered more than finding a solution.
Rachel turned toward the sound. The shouting scraped across the stalled lanes, sharp enough to pull her chest tight.
Heat rose from the pavement through the soles of her shoes, and the smell of exhaust clung to the back of her throat.
Her body started forward before her mind caught up, and her training pulled her two steps toward the argument. She stopped herself beside the SUV.
Sophie was watching her. Rachel stayed beside the SUV and forced herself to watch the dispute from a distance.
Several adults stepped between the families.
The man with the water bottles spoke to a third person, his free hand moving in explanation, while the woman turned away, her arms folded tightly across her chest.
They resolved it without Rachel. The water was divided, the families separated, and the highway returned to its uneasy rhythm of departure and waiting.
When Rachel turned back, Sophie removed a granola bar from her sweatshirt pocket but kept it in her hand.
Then she reached into the side pocket of her backpack and pulled out a packet of nuts. Those were Sophie’s.
Rachel had never inventoried the girl’s belongings, but Sophie placed them beside the granola bar anyway. She offered something of her own without looking at Rachel, while one granola bar stayed in her hand. She wasn’t hiding it anymore. Her fingers curled around it as she weighed what to do next.
“Can you promise we’ll still have something to eat tomorrow?” Sophie asked.
The question was simpler than the one about Hannah, but harder to answer. Rachel looked at the food on the tailgate, the highway emptying around them, and the girl holding one granola bar as if it were the only certain thing she had.
“I can promise I’ll try,” Rachel said.
Sophie considered the answer, then tucked the granola bar into her backpack without eating it.
By midday, the heat inside the stalled vehicles had become unbearable.
Cars that had sheltered people overnight turned into ovens under the October sun.
Families climbed out with what they could carry, their faces flushed and damp.
The highway shifted from a temporary camp into a departure point as more travelers accepted that staying meant waiting for nothing.
Rachel spread the paper atlas across the SUV’s hood and weighted the corners with rocks from the ditch.
The map showed Ohio in faded greens and yellows, with county lines in thin red and interstates bolded in blue.
She found their position by tracing the highway east from the last town she remembered passing.
The SUV had died somewhere between two exits she could still name.
She placed herself and Sophie there with her finger, then looked west.