When I handed him the plate he did not take it straight away.
He looked at me properly for about four seconds first.
At my face. Then past me, at the hall behind me — one light on, a child's shoes by the stairs, a coat that has been on the same hook since September.
And then back at my face.
"You look like you've already got enough on your shoulders," he said.
I gave him a small smile, which is the smile I have been giving people since about the April of 2023.
"You don't need to worry about me."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
And then I said the thing that this whole account turns on, and I had no idea at the time that I was saying anything at all.
"Tonight I've got enough for both of us."
Something went across that man's face.
I could not read it at the time. I thought he was embarrassed.
I have had eleven weeks to think about those four seconds and I can read them now, and I will come back to them — because that is the moment the whole of this was decided, on my own porch, and I was standing four feet away holding a plate.
He took the plate.
"Thank you."
I turned to go back in. And he stopped me.
"Ma'am?"
I looked back.
"What's your name?"
"Nessa."
He nodded, slowly, twice. Like a man putting something somewhere he would be able to find it again.
"Thank you, Nessa."
I went inside.
I checked through the window twice before bed. Once at about half past nine and once at about eleven.
Both times he was there under the porch roof, wrapped in that blanket, with the backpack beside him and one hand resting on it.
The second time he was asleep sitting up, with his back against the wall of my house and that bag under one arm.
And I stood at that window for about four seconds and felt extremely good about myself, and went to bed.
I woke early the next morning. Junie was still out.
I put coffee on and made a simple breakfast — four eggs, because I was going to do him a plate.
And I poured a second cup, and I remember being pleased with myself about the second cup, which is a thing I would now give quite a lot not to have felt.
