Chapter Twelve S: The Names on the Board
The following morning, Nadia called Emily from the temporary residence with a small piece of good news.
The buses had waited until every family received a destination and a contact number.
No one had been required to board before the information was available.
“Lucia checked the signs herself,” Nadia said.
“She made the driver read the address twice.”
Emily smiled.
“That sounds like Lucia.”
“She also made sure the little boy beside her knew where he was going,” Nadia added.
“He was too young to read the sign.”
Emily looked at the notes scattered across her kitchen table.
There were phone numbers, appointment times, and questions she had promised to pass along.
“Did Maribel move?” she asked.
“Yes,” Nadia answered.
“Tomas and Alma are with her now.”
“And Edwin?”
“He got to his appointment,” Nadia said.
“He complained about the traffic for twenty minutes afterward.”
Emily laughed.
She had not realized how much she needed to hear an ordinary complaint.
After the call, she visited the library to return the notebook she had borrowed from Samuel.
He was standing beside a bulletin board covered with temporary housing notices.
His injured arm was supported in a sling.
“The doctor finally convinced you to rest it,
” Emily said.
Samuel looked down at the sling.
“She threatened to take my cane away if I kept lifting boxes,” he replied.
Emily handed him the notebook.
“I wrote down the questions that still need answers,” she said.
Samuel opened it and read the first page.
“You left spaces beneath each question,” he observed.
“For the answers,” Emily said.
“And for the name of the person who gave them.”
Samuel nodded slowly.
“That will make it harder for people to pass responsibility around.”
“That’s the idea,” Emily answered.
A woman approached the bulletin board carrying a folded sheet of paper.
She searched the notices for several seconds before asking where she could find information about school transport.
Samuel pointed toward a table near the entrance.
“Nadia is helping with that today,” he said.
The woman thanked him and walked away.
Emily watched her go.
“You don’t have to know every answer,” she said.
“You just have to know who can help.”
Samuel looked at her with a familiar expression of amusement.
“I believe somebody said something similar to me when I was trying to stand up in your diner,” he replied.
Emily shook her head.
“I told you to eat your soup before it got cold.
”
“That too,” Samuel said.
They stood beside the bulletin board while the library filled with people arriving for the afternoon meeting.
Emily checked the time and picked up her bag.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Helen asked me to bring my references later this week.”
Samuel smiled.
“Then you should make sure they’re ready.”
Emily headed toward the doors, leaving him with the notebook and the unfinished questions.
She knew the work would continue without her for an afternoon.
That knowledge made it easier to leave.
Before she reached the street, Emily noticed Lucia sitting on the library steps with a book open across her knees.
The girl pointed to a drawing tucked between the pages.
It showed twelve vehicles again, but every window contained a face.
“I forgot some people the first time,” Lucia explained.
Emily crouched beside her and studied the delicate pencil marks.
“You remembered them now,” she said.
Lucia nodded and returned to her book.
Emily stood, adjusted her bag, and walked toward the bus stop as the afternoon traffic passed.
Chapter Thirteen: The Interview
Three days later, Emily arrived at a converted office building with a notebook in her bag.
She had spent the previous night preparing answers to questions about schedules, conflict, and emergency procedures.
The interviewer was a woman named Helen Marr, who wore comfortable shoes and kept a stack of intake forms beside her chair.
“Why do you want this job?” Helen asked.
Emily had rehearsed a polished answer on the bus.
Now she put the notebook aside.
“I don’t know yet whether I do,” she said.
Helen raised her eyebrows.
“That’s unusual.”
“I want to understand what happens when a family arrives frightened and doesn’t trust us,
” Emily explained.
“I want to know what we can actually promise them.”
Helen leaned back.
“We can promise that we will explain our procedures and tell the truth when we don’t have an answer,” she said.
“We cannot promise that every problem will be fixed by morning.”
Emily nodded.
“Then I’d like to learn more,” she said.
Helen led her through the building.
Families waited in a common room while staff members arranged transportation and checked which rooms were ready.
A young father argued at the desk because his daughter had been assigned a room on another floor.
The receptionist called a supervisor rather than dismissing him.
Emily watched the conversation until the family received a room together.
Helen turned toward her.
“What would you have done?” she asked.
Emily considered the question.
“I would have asked why they needed to stay together before explaining the room assignments,” she said.
Helen smiled faintly.
“That’s a useful place to begin,” she replied.
Chapter Fourteen: The Last Booth
Emily received a job offer the following Monday.
The pay was modest, the hours were demanding, and the first month would be supervised training.
She accepted after reading the terms twice.
On her first evening off, she visited the diner as a customer.
A new waitress brought her coffee and asked whether she wanted anything to eat.
Emily ordered soup and bread.
Grant was working the grill himself.
He saw her through the kitchen window but did not approach.
Samuel arrived twenty minutes later, moving carefully with his cane.
He sat across from Emily in the same corner booth where she had first helped him.
“How was your first week?” he asked.
“Harder than I expected,” she answered.
“A woman shouted at me because her son’s medication was delayed, and I didn’t know how to help her.”
“What did you do?”
“I found someone who knew,
” Emily replied.
“Then I stayed until she had an answer.”
Samuel nodded.
“That sounds like work worth doing,” he said.
The new waitress arrived with his meal.
Samuel reached for his spoon and paused when his injured hand trembled.
Emily noticed the movement.
“Do you want help?” she asked.
Samuel looked at the spoon and then at her.
“Yes,” he said.
“I think I do.”
Emily moved his bowl closer and cut the bread into pieces he could manage.
Outside, ordinary traffic passed through the rain.
Inside, the diner remained warm enough for two people to finish their meal.
The End.
