She looked at the bags.
Then at him.
“You didn’t take them.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re not mine.”
She was quiet.
For a long moment, she studied him the way people in business meetings used to study a proposal when the first page told them the numbers were interesting but not enough yet.
“How long?” she asked.
“How long what?”
“On the streets.”
Tobenna looked away.
“Fourteen months.”
She absorbed that without comment.
“What is your name?”
“Tobenna Toby.”
“Zara,” she said.
She extended her hand.
Formal.
Direct.
Even sitting against a tree on a deserted road with a wound in her side.
He shook it carefully.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” he said. “There’s a village about seven kilometers back.”
Zara looked at the bags.
“We can’t leave those.”
“I know.”
He emptied his plastic bag without ceremony.
His clothes.
The small Bible.
The notebook.
The pencil.
He packed the split bag’s contents into his plastic bag, every note, every bundle, moving methodically. He checked the road, counted the bags, tied what needed tying, and arranged the load so he could manage it.
Everything accounted for.
Nothing left visible.
