Hey, it’s okay.

Are you two lost?”

And the first girl said — and I want to reproduce this exactly, because I wrote it down forty minutes later and it is in the file:

“My sister needs help.

She’s really sick and I need somebody to help her right now.”

It came out flat and slightly too fast, in the specific cadence of a sentence that has been rehearsed.

She had been saying it to herself the whole way, so that she would not lose it when she got here.

I came around the end of the counter, slowly, because you do not move fast at frightened kids.

“Okay.

I can do that.

Where’s your mom or your dad?

Are they parking the car?”

“No.

We came on our own.