Hazel watched us with wide eyes, then stepped forward and started helping, small fingers carefully holding cookie boxes.
“Daddy,” she asked, voice soft, “who are we giving it to?”
“To people who need it,” I said, brushing hair off her forehead. “People who don’t have a home to go back to tonight.”
She nodded, serious, like she was filing the information away as something important.
We loaded the boxes into Uncle Silas’s pickup and my old car. Then we drove into Rockford’s downtown, where the streets changed from quiet suburban lanes to the harsher geometry of people just trying to make it to morning.
Hazel squeezed my hand when she saw the line of men and women sitting against a brick wall, bundled in worn coats. Her voice trembled.
“Daddy… why don’t they have a house?”
I knelt beside her, looked into her eyes, and spoke gently. “There are a lot of reasons, sweetie. But what matters is we can help them tonight.”
Ivy and Aunt Lillian started handing out meals. Grandpa and Silas moved through the crowd with a calm steadiness that made everyone relax. Hazel hung back at first, shy, then slowly stepped forward and offered a box of cookies to an older man with gray stubble and tired eyes.