“What? I’m elderly and nutritionally bribed. My tongue is beyond law.”
I sit on a crate near the heater coil while people eat. The warmth licks against my damp jeans. Above us, the city rumbles, a deep vibration through concrete as a freight platform passes overhead. The tunnel feels grim, yes, but not empty. Someone has hung old festival lights along one stretch of wall. A child’s drawing is taped to a pipe. A cracked speaker plays quiet music near a row of sleeping pallets. People have made a life here out of scraps because life insists on itself even where no one invited it.
Doreen lowers herself beside me with a groan. “You bake all this?”
“Most of it. Darlene did the potatoes, so she’ll want a statue.”
“She deserves one.”
“Don’t tell her. She’ll charge admission.”
Doreen smiles faintly. “Kauss talks about you.”
Kauss goes motionless on the other side of the table.
I try not to look delighted. “Does he?”
“No,” he says.
Doreen ignores him. “Not with words, maybe. But he brings food from your place and glares at anyone who calls you bakery girl.”
Al points his spoon at Kauss. “He also fixed his coat before coming topside yesterday.”
“I removed a tear.”
“With needle and thread,” Al says. “Like a maiden before a dance.”
Kauss’s voice drops. “Do you want more soup or do you want silence?”
Al considers. “Can I have both?”
“No.”
“Soup, then.”
I laugh, and several people look over. Not suspiciously this time. Curiously. Like laughter is allowed down here but unexpected from visitors.
Maren sits across from me with her son asleep against her lap after eating half a roll and hoarding the chocolate in his pocket. “Kauss doesn’t bring people down.”
I look at him.
He is watching the tunnel entrance, but I can tell he hears every word.
“I bullied him,” I say.
“That sounds right.”
“He exaggerates the danger.”
“No,” Maren says quietly. “He doesn’t.”
The correction lands gently but firmly.
I nod. “Then thank you for letting me come.”
Maren strokes her son’s hair. “He trusts you.”
Kauss turns his head. “Maren.”
