Instead, you say, “You can stay on the couch. One night. Then in the morning, you tell me where you need to go.”
The girl studies you as if kindness is a language she once knew but has forgotten how to trust. For one second you are sure she will refuse on principle alone. Then thunder rolls low over the rooftops, and something in her face gives way.
“Okay,” she whispers. “One night.”
You walk half a pace ahead of her the whole way home, not because you do not trust her, but because you want to make sure no one is following.
Your apartment building smells like detergent, old pipes, and fried onions from the downstairs unit. The hallway light flickers like it is trying to stay alive out of spite. You unlock the door as quietly as you can, step inside, and motion for her to follow. She enters with the wary silence of someone used to beautiful houses and ugly people.
The apartment is small enough that honesty lives in every corner.
A worn gray couch. A table with one chair that wobbles. Crayon drawings taped to the refrigerator. A stack of overdue notices under a chipped ceramic bowl. Your daughter’s pink rain boots by the door. Nothing in the place is expensive, but everything is clean, patched, maintained, loved into usefulness.
The girl looks around, and something unreadable passes across her face.
“You live here with your kid?” she asks.
“With my daughter.”
