Whatever the reason, Walter nodded without asking any questions.
Evelyn leaned forward slightly.
“Thank you, Mr. Maddox.”
“Vincent.”
“Thank you, Vincent.”
He gave a brief nod and reached for his coffee.
Across the table, Hector studied him with the careful attention of a man watching an old building develop a crack in its foundation.
Hector had served as Vincent's second-in-command for nineteen years. He knew the man's moods, his silences, and the difference between the stillness that meant nothing was wrong and the stillness that meant something inside him had begun to move.
This was the second kind.
“You planning to eat that steak tonight?” Hector asked.
Vincent ignored him.
The meals arrived.
Walter tried to thank Darla again, but she waved him off and hurried back toward the kitchen before he could say anything else. Evelyn wrapped both hands around the mug of apple cider, closing her eyes for a moment as the warmth reached her fingers.
Walter began eating.
At first, he took small bites. He chewed carefully and swallowed slowly, as if his body had learned to distrust food that appeared without warning.
Then hunger overcame manners.
He lowered his head and ate with an urgency that made the table uncomfortable to watch. He finished the potatoes, ate half the roll, and began working his way through the meat.
Every few seconds, he seemed to remember himself and slow down.
Evelyn did not rush him. She ate quietly, cutting her food into small pieces and occasionally nudging something toward his plate.
Vincent watched Walter's hands.
The trembling was gradually subsiding.
When Walter reached for his water, his fingers no longer rattled against the glass.
“Been a long day?” Vincent asked.
Walter swallowed.
“You could say that.”
“Where's your vehicle?”
“About eight miles back on Highway 87. An old Buick. The alternator's been giving me trouble for a while.”
“And tonight?”
“It finally quit.”
“In January.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vincent leaned back.
“You walked eight miles?”
“Two and a half hours, more or less.”
Evelyn lowered her spoon.
“My knees aren't what they used to be,” she said. “We had to stop a few times.”
There was no self-pity in her voice. That somehow made the statement worse.
Vincent looked at her thin coat, the repaired canvas bag, and the boots whose soles had been replaced so many times that the leather no longer sat naturally against her ankles.
“Where were you headed?”
Walter and Evelyn exchanged a glance.
It was brief, but Vincent noticed the conversation contained in it. They were deciding how much of their lives they could afford to reveal to a stranger.
“Nowhere in particular,” Evelyn finally answered.
Vincent's gaze returned to Walter.
“Everybody's headed somewhere.”
“Not everybody has somewhere to go.”
The answer came without bitterness.
That was what made it hurt.
For several seconds, Vincent heard nothing but the wind pressing against the diner windows.
Then Walter put down his fork.
“We had a daughter,” he said.
Vincent knew what was coming before the old man continued.
He had heard that particular arrangement of words before. He had heard it from mothers at funerals, from fathers outside hospital rooms, and from men who stood beside empty beds with their hands hanging uselessly at their sides.
We had a daughter.
Past tense. Two words carrying a weight that whole paragraphs could not lift.
“Her name was Emily,” Walter continued. “She was forty-three.”
“I'm sorry.”
Walter nodded.
“She got sick. Something that could have been treated if we'd caught it early enough. But she lost her job a few years ago, and then the insurance went, and everything got more expensive. By the time she could see the specialists, it was too late.”
Evelyn stared into her cider.
“We tried to help,” she whispered. “We did everything we could.”
Walter covered her hand with his.
“She left behind a little girl. Rosie. She's seven.”
Vincent looked from one to the other.
“Where is she now?”
The change was immediate.
Walter's shoulders stiffened. Evelyn's fingers tightened around his.
For the first time since sitting down, the old couple looked genuinely afraid.
“That,” Walter said slowly, “is a complicated question.”
Vincent waited.
Evelyn reached for the canvas bag beside her feet.
It slipped from her fingers.
The bag struck the floor, and its battered contents spilled beneath the table: a folded sweater, a small plastic medicine bottle, several envelopes, and a photograph in a cracked silver frame.
Evelyn bent to retrieve them.
Vincent moved first, reaching down with a hand large enough to cover the photograph entirely.
He picked it up.
A little girl stared back at him from behind the scratched glass.
Seven years old, perhaps. Brown hair, solemn hazel eyes, and a smile that seemed to have been captured just before someone told her to hold still for the camera.
She wore a red coat and stood between Walter and Evelyn, her small hands wrapped around their fingers.
Vincent turned the frame over.
A name had been written on the back in faded blue ink.
Rosie Harper. Christmas, two years ago.
He looked up.
Walter had gone pale.
Evelyn's mouth trembled, but she did not cry.
Vincent placed the photograph carefully on the table.
“Tell me what happened to your granddaughter.”
Neither of them answered immediately.
Then Walter drew a breath that sounded as though it had traveled a very long way to reach the surface.
“Her mother's funeral was eight months ago,” he said. “And we haven't been allowed to see Rosie in six weeks.”
Vincent's expression did not change.