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“I’ve got some hot chocolate, too,” she offered. “You could get warm in the van.”

“No,” Tyrone said, turning to leave.

“I’ll bring them out here then,” she called after him. He stopped.

Soon he had eaten three sandwiches and drank two cups of steaming hot chocolate while standing several feet from the van.

“Maybe I’ll see you another time,” Keshia said. “I usually drive around here, and I always have food.”

Tyrone didn’t say anything. He stepped back into the shadow of a building as the van left. He was still cold, and he wasn’t sure if he would go back to sleep in the old building but at least he wasn’t hungry.

Tyrone let a week pass before he looked for the van again. After that, he became sort of a regular, getting a meal a few times a week from the people who drove the Covenant House van. Besides Keshia, there were Jack and Miguel. They talked with him, shared some laughs, and gave him a card with the Covenant House number on it. He told him his first name. Still, he would not enter the van. He couldn’t be sure there wasn’t some trick.