Gathering these things in secret and hiding them (in my most Boo Radley of moves, I ended up using the rotted-out portion of a tree trunk that wasn’t too far off the path to the lake) made me feel important and useful and just really good. It was kind of incredible, the little thrill I’d get from stuffing something else into the plastic bag I’d wedged into that tree trunk. Those small acts made our escape seem real in a way that it hadn’t before.
