The glass door of Henderson's Diner closed behind Leo with a soft sigh, and the sudden coolness of the air inside felt almost like stepping into shade after a long walk in the sun. The smell hit him first, warm and thick and almost too much to bear after a day of hunger: coffee left too long on the burner, grease from the grill, toast browning, and something sweet underneath it all, like syrup that had dried on a counter and been warmed again. Leo's stomach twisted, not with the painful knot he had carried since yesterday morning, but with a sharper, more urgent ache, the kind that comes when food is suddenly close enough to smell. He swallowed hard and tried not to stare at the plates on the other tables,
Reaper walked ahead of him, his boots heavy on the worn linoleum, and chose a table by the window, where the late afternoon light fell in a broad, dusty band across the Formica. It was a public table, open to the whole room, where Marty Henderson could see them from behind the counter and where any neighbour who came in for coffee could see them too. Reaper did not slide into a booth in the back, did not find a corner, did not do anything that would hide the boy. He pulled out a chair with one big hand and nodded at it, and Leo sat down carefully, as if the chair might be taken away if he moved too fast. The vinyl was cracked at the edges, and the table wobbled slightly when Leo rested his hands on it, and he pulled them back at once, afraid of making a noise, afraid of doing something wrong in a place that suddenly felt too clean and too bright for him.
Marty Henderson came over with a menu in his hand and a dish towel over his shoulder, and he looked at Leo first, not at Reaper, and his face softened in a way that made Leo want to look away and also want to stay. Marty knew Leo by name. He had seen the boy come in before, sometimes with Diane, sometimes alone, counting coins on the counter with a seriousness that belonged to a much older person. Now he set the menu down in front of Leo and said, in a voice that was ordinary and kind, "Take your time, son. Kitchen's still hot." Leo nodded, though he did not need time. He knew what he wanted. He wanted everything on the menu, and he knew he could not say that, and so he stared at the printed words until they blurred, until Reaper's low voice cut through his confusion.
Get the boy the special, Reaper said. "Eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes. And a glass of milk. And whatever pie you've got left, Marty, if there's any."
Marty wrote it down without fuss, without making it a big thing, and went back toward the kitchen, and Leo sat with his hands folded in his lap, the rag still clutched in one fist, because he did not know where else to put it. Reaper looked at the rag, and then at Leo's face, and then out of the window at his own motorcycle, which stood in the lot with its chrome catching the sun in a way that made it look almost white. The fender Leo had cleaned shone clean and bright, and the headlight housing gleamed, and the leather seat looked dark and cared for, and Reaper let out a slow breath through his nose, like a man who had just seen something he had not expected to see.
You did good work out there, Reaper said. His voice was lower now than it had been on the steps, and it did not shake the dust from the awning anymore. It was the voice of a man talking to another person, not shouting at a stranger. "That bike's been dusty since Bakersfield. I meant to clean it myself. Never got around to it. You got around to it."
Leo shrugged, a small, embarrassed movement of his shoulders, and said, "It wasn't hard, sir. Just dust. I didn't scratch it. I was careful. I promise I was careful."
I know, Reaper said. "I looked. No scratches. Just shine. A man can tell when work's been done with care."
The food arrived before Leo could answer, and for a moment he forgot everything else. The plate was warm against his hands, and the eggs were yellow and soft, and the bacon was crisp at the edges, and the potatoes were browned and salty, and the toast was buttered all the way to the crust. Leo picked up his fork and then stopped, because he was afraid of eating too fast, afraid of looking greedy, afraid of the way his hands were shaking. He cut a small piece of egg and put it in his mouth and chewed slowly, deliberately, the way his mother had taught him to eat when there was little enough that it had to last. But there was so much on the plate, more than he had eaten at one sitting in longer than he could remember, and after the third bite he could not keep the slowness up anymore. He ate steadily, not wildly, but with a focus that shut out the rest of the diner, and the milk was cold and sweet, and the toast crunched, and the warmth spread through him like sunlight coming through a window after a cold night.
Who's waiting for you at home, kid? he asked. "Somebody's got to be wondering where you are."