“Existential dread?”
“Joey,” Tyler warned.
“What? I’m being hospitable.”
Rick looked at Joey like he’d never quite figured out how to categorize him. “Coffee. Black.”
“Coming right up.”
They settled into a booth near the window. Rick folded his hands on the table — no briefcase this time, Tyler noticed, which somehow felt worse.
“Something’s off,” Rick said. “I don’t have all the numbers yet, but I can feel it. Traffic’s down. The energy’s different.”
“Three months ago, Margo was here every day.”
“Exactly.”
Tyler looked at his uncle—really looked. Rick was in his early sixties now, gray at the temples, lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there a few years ago. He’d spent his whole life worrying about this family’s finances, trying to impose order on the cheerful chaos of the Shack. It was exhausting work. Tyler could see it.
“You think it’s because Margo stepped back,” Tyler said.
“I think something changed when she did. I’m trying to figure out what.”
Bernie rose from his booth with the slow deliberation of a man whose joints had opinions about movement, and made his way toward them, sliding into their booth.
“Richard,” he said, nodding at Rick.
“Bernard.”
“Couldn’t help overhearing.” He held up a hand before Rick could protest. “Mrs. Patterson was in lastweek. Asked her about her sandwich. She said it was fine.”
“Fine is good,” Rick said.
“Fine is not good. Fine is what you say when you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.” Bernie’s weathered face was serious. “In thirty-seven years, she’s never called Margo’s food ‘fine.’ She’s called it perfect, comforting, like a hug. Now it’s fine.”
He let that sit.
“The recipe’s the same,” Tyler said. “The ingredients, the grill?—”
“I know.” Bernie shrugged. “Maybe that’s not what people were tasting.”
He slid out of the booth. Halfway back to his corner, he paused.
“Margo always knew who was supposed to get which shell,” he said. “Didn’t matter how long it’d been.”
Then he kept walking.
Tyler and Rick sat in silence. The ceiling fans turned. The shells gleamed softly overhead.
Rick watched Bernie settle back into his booth.
“You know,” he said slowly, “in fifty years, there’s never been a stretch where a Turner or a Walsh wasn’t here. On the floor. In the kitchen. Not for more than a day or two.”
Tyler frowned. “So?”
“So people didn’t just come for the food.” Rick’s voice was quieter now, almost wondering. “They cameto be seen. To be remembered. Someone knowing their order. Someone asking about their grandkids.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Bringing shells for Margo.”
Tyler stared at his uncle. In forty years, he’d never heard Rick talk about the Shack like this. Never. It was a side of his uncle he’d never seen.
