By Andrea Lingle

“Hungry?” a voice at her hip asked. She looked down to see a small boy holding a small basket full of half loaves of bread and figs! Where had he gotten figs?

“Yes,” she replied, her face lighting with an unconscious grin, “but I need to go pass out this bread.”

“Don’t forget to break it,” the boy said solemnly. “It’s very important.”

“I won’t,” the woman intoned, matching his gravitas.

Spread out before her were clusters of people gathered on a slapdash array of cloaks and scarves. Some had spread out mats they had brought along and others unwound everything from prayer shawls to head scarves to lay on the ground for the impromptu feast. Carefully, broken loaves of bread were arranged in front of grandfathers with cloudy eyes, shopkeepers, squint-eyed fishermen, women with strong arms and water jars in tow, children with ragged-eared dogs, and even a few soldiers. She approached one of the groups with her absurdly light basket and set it down behind a trio of women whose faces were so elaborately wrinkled that she could not determine if they were asleep or awake.

“Hungry?” she asked. She could feel her cheeks heat up as she bent to fetch the single loaf of bread from the bottom of her superfluous basket. She broke the bread, and handed one half to the first of the three women.

“Thank you, my dear,” the woman said in a voice like the creaking planks of a weather-beaten fishing boat. The woman took the half loaf of bread and passed it to the woman next to her. The murmured thanks dusted the improvised table as the bread was broken and rebroken around the circle. The woman stared. The half-loaf of bread she had brought with such reluctance, with such doubt, didn’t run out. As it was broken and passed, it was enough. In the small circle, one of men, a tidily dressed middle-aged man, pulled some olives out of a bag and passed them around, another found a small jar of oil which smelled of garlic and herbs when each person poured a little on their bread, and another passed around a pad of goat cheese.

As the woman turned to leave, a voice called out, “Don’t forget your bread.” She turned back to the circle of happy diners and received half a loaf of bread.

Without a word. Without a breath. She placed the bread in the basket and the basket on her hip.

Two half loaves seemed a little weightier than one whole loaf had been.