“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.” She nods, her head bobbing a little too vigorously.
As our server sets our plates before us, Seda rubs her hands together eagerly. My girllovesFrench toast.
“Thanks,” I say as I pick up the syrup and drizzle a generous amount over my pancakes.
A day like this, spent with Seda, is exactly what I need after a rough week. Sometimes I question my profession, or at least my specialty. I prefer my quiet life here in Hawthorne Mills—even if it gives my overbearing mother more access to me than I’d like—but I do what I do for the families I can help. If I stopped, the guilt would consume me. How many families wouldn’t receive the proper help? Sure, there are other attorneys in Boston, but I’m good at what I do. It would be a disservice to so many if I gave it up.
But I’m too young to feel so weary. I’m not quite thirty, yet somehow, I feel closer to fifty.
Once we’re finished, we step into the sunshine side by side. It’s a beautiful summer day in Hawthorne Mills. Itmay only be seventy now, but it’ll be eighty by the afternoon.
Seda starts toward my car, but I shake my head and grasp her arm. “I need coffee first.”
The coffee at the diner is always too bitter and slightly burned-tasting, and the single cup I had first thing this morning isn’t enough.
Seda scurries along beside me as I head down the sidewalk, a happy pep in her step. “Can I get coffee?”
“No,” I say, just like I do every time she asks.
“When I’m older?”
“Yeah, when you’re older.”
She peers up at me as we cross the street. “Like next year?”
“Mm,” I hedge. “Maybe a little longer.”
She sighs, her steps turning heavier. “But that’s forever from now.”
“It’ll be here before you know it, trust me.”
I never believed my parents when they said that time flies, when they told me to enjoy things and not rush life. But somehow, I blinked and my newborn baby girl turned into a ten-year-old.
Seda steps in first, and I follow. There’s a short line, and behind the counter, Halle works. Her brown hair is pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, a few stray hairs escaping from beneath her baseball cap.
Frazzled doesn’t even begin to properly convey how she looks.
“Uh.” She blinks at the person standing across the counter. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Darren.”
“Right.” Sharpie in hand, she takes a cup off the stack, but he clears his throat, and she freezes. “Is something wrong?”
“I ordered an iced coffee. Not hot.”
Halle slowly lowers the paper cup. “Right. I knew that.”
She pulls a plastic cup next, then scrawls the man’s name and sets it on the counter. “That’ll be four dollars and seventy-five cents.”
The man pays and moves to the side to wait, and Halle takes the next order.
When I finally step up to the counter, Halle lets out a frustrated groan. “How long have you been here witnessing my misery?”
“Long enough.” I bite back a smile.
“What can I get you, then?” Halle asks, fingers shaking slightly against the touchscreen.
