Beneath it, she wore a dark silk blouse that clung to her shivering frame. She hugged her arms across her chest. "Take your shoes off," Abelardo said, keeping his voice low as he carried Melissa toward the bedroom. "Leave them by the mat. I'll get you a towel. " He laid Melissa down in her twin bed, pulling the floral comforter up to her chin.
He carefully unlaced her small boots, kissed her forehead, and cracked the door so he could hear her if she woke. When he returned to the living room, the woman had removed the broken heels. She was standing perfectly still, staring at a stack of unopened envelopes on the kitchen counter, mostly Bill's final notices. Abalardo walked past her to the tiny bathroom and grabbed a clean, albeit threadbear, towel. He handed it to her.
"Here. " Thank you, she murmured. She took it, wrapping it around her shoulders. She didn't dry her hair. She just stood there looking completely unmed. I am Abolardo, he said, moving to the kitchen area.
He filled a small aluminum kettle with tap water and set it on the stove. The sleeping kid is Melissa. Chia, the woman said. Well, Chia, I'm making tea. It's just generic black tea.
You want a cup? Yes, please. She moved toward the faded blue sofa and sat down gingerly as if she expected the cushions to collapse. Abalardo struck a match, lit the gas burner, and leaned against the counter. He watched her.
She wasn't acting like someone who was habitually on the streets. There was a rigidity to her posture, even shivering, wrapped in a faded green towel in a run-down apartment. She sat with her spine completely straight. "Tough night? " Abalardo asked quietly. Chia looked up.
Her eyes met his, and for a fraction of a second, the vacancy vanished, replaced by something hard and incredibly angry. Then the exhaustion swallowed it back up. "You could say that," she said. "I found myself locked out of everything. " Abalardo nodded. He didn't pry.
In his experience, people who ended up on the street with broken shoes and no phone had either made a catastrophic mistake or someone else had made one for them. It happens more than people think. The kettle whistled, a low sputtering sound. Abalardo poured the boiling water into two mismatched mugs, dropped in the tea bags, and carried one over to her. He set it on the coffee table.
"I'll get you some dry clothes," he said. "Sweatpants and a t-shirt. They'll be big on you, but they're dry. He retreated to his own room, a space barely large enough for a mattress on the floor, and grabbed his clean laundry. When he came back, Chia had both hands wrapped tightly around the mug, staring into the dark liquid as if searching for an answer at the bottom.
"Bathroom is down the hall on the left," Abalardo said, setting the clothes beside her. "I'll grab a blanket for the couch. " 10 minutes later, Chia emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing his gray sweatpants rolled up three times at the waist and ankles and a faded band t-shirt. Her wet clothes were bundled in her arms. "Well, "Put those over the radiator," Abalardo instructed, pointing to the cast iron unit clanking in the corner.