“You’re supposed to be in the employee break room.”
“I was helping Mom.”
Mom.
My pulse changed.
Coryn looked embarrassed.
“Her mother works checkout. School closed today for teacher training and childcare fell through.”
The girl frowned at him.
“You were making him leave.”
Coryn’s face tightened.
“This is not your business.”
“He was hungry.”
“He was bothering customers.”
“He asked for food.”
“Ellie.”
She looked back at me.
“Sit down before you fall.”
The way she said it.
That tone.
Direct.
Unimpressed.
Lorna used to speak to me exactly like that.
I had a sudden, irrational need to know everything.
“What is your full name?”
The girl hesitated.
“Why?”
Fair question.
“My name is Arden.”
She looked at the beard.
“Just Arden?”
“Arden Vale.”
Her expression changed.
Not recognition.
Something else.
Then she looked toward the checkout lanes.
“Mom!”
A woman turned from register six.
She was perhaps thirty-eight.
Dark hair tied in a low bun.
Tired face.
Blue cashier vest.
