Tessa had six spaces on the relief roster and three workers to fill them.
One belonged to a driver who had to return to paid work. Another required a person trained to handle the equipment at a temporary ward. The rest looked simpler until she put the actual routes beside them: stairs, restricted passages, a cold-stock deadline and two shelters whose receiving hours overlapped.
Iona, one of Mira’s former supply volunteers, offered to take the riverside deliveries. She knew the steps and the people who had keys to the side gates. Tessa wrote her name in pencil and asked what hours she could actually commit.
“Until evening. Then I go to my mother.”
“Every day?”
“Today and tomorrow. Ask again after that.”
Tessa marked two days. She did not fill the week because a willing person had appeared in front of an empty column.
By midday, the roster was posted beside a message thanking the river rescue volunteers. Someone had added the network’s depot name in large handwriting beneath the thanks. The paper had not come from Tessa’s desk, but it hung close enough that a reader could reasonably see one announcement.
