“The navi Hoshea. Can you imagine, Mama. He had a body, he lived and walked these hills, and here he rests”
The soup kitchen is no longer a haven.
Ever since she gathered the children together, clapping her hands and asking a sweet, round-faced boy to strike a pot with a ladle until they all quieted down. Ever since she had led them all outdoors, up the hill toward the wool factory and explained that…
Leonora closes her eyes. How, exactly, did she explain it? As a game? An obligation? A threat? She sifts through her memory, but does not find it.
She only knows that when she sits down to eat now, the children do not continue their games around her, tossing pebbles and stacking cups into towers and stepping up and down on the benches to the intricate rhythms that sound in their heads. They watch her when they think she is not looking. Even when she focuses on the stew in her bowl, she feels their gaze.
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