Advertisement
He reached down, lifted the heavy plastic bags from the ground, and set them gently onto the rusted steel fender of the roll-off container.
“There is a twelve-ounce ribeye steak in there,” Arthur said, pointing to the container. “A baked potato, green beans, and four warm buttermilk biscuits with honey butter. It has been sitting in insulated containers for twenty minutes; it is still steaming hot. And there are two slices of Dutch apple pie with two pints of cold milk for your daughter when she wakes up.”
Advertisement
The young woman stared at the white plastic bags.
The aroma of roasted beef, brown butter, and warm cinnamon apples began to drift through the tear in the tarp, cutting through the damp, metallic stench of the rusted container.
Her lower lip trembled.
A single, hot tear broke from her lower eyelid, tracing a slow, clean path through the road dust on her cheek, followed immediately by another. Her fingers, still locked around the handle of the small pocketknife, began to shake so violently that the steel blade clattered against the iron rim.
