The kid is standing on the diner window seat with his whole face mashed against the glass. She's got one hand on his back and she's looking at the menu. Hair down today. Green shirt. Different than she was on the trail, less braced, almost smiling at whatever he's doing against the glass.
Then she looks up at the door.
Clocks the room. Looks back at the menu.
Does it again two minutes later.
I pay for my rope. Go to my truck. Sit there. Boots is in the back seat, her legs folded and belly up, completely asleep.Lucky.
I know what I'm looking at. People land in Silver Ridge running from things and that's their business, not mine. Except she has a four-year-old and she's checking the door of a diner on a Tuesday morning like she's waiting for something bad to walk through it.
Maple texts while I'm sitting there.Stuck window in room 4, no rush.
I look at the message for a while. I don’t remember how exactly I got looped into being the hotel’s handyman, but it’s been a thing for a while, and I don’t have the heart to tell Maple no.
I go to fix the window. It takes ten minutes. On my way out, the kid, Theo, is on the lobby floor with a pinecone and three pebbles arranged in a row, some system that makes sense to him.
He looks up. "Hi."
"Hey."
He goes back to his pebbles. I look down the hall.
Hallie at the desk in the alcove, back to me, one knee up, pen stuck through her hair. She reaches up to push it more securely into her hair without looking away from whatever she's reading. Just that. Just her hand going up, finding the pen, pushing it in.
I leave before she turns around.
Back in the truck Boots puts her nose on my arm.
"I know," I say.
She keeps her nose there.
I sit in the hotel parking lot longer than I need to, Boots warm against my arm, and think about a woman watching a door and the particular kind of tired that means you've been bracing for a long time.
Whoever she's bracing for is going to have to come through me first.
three
Hallie
We'vebeenhereaweek and we have a routine now. Juniper's every morning, same corner booth. Theo gets the window seat and conducts his ongoing negotiations with the magpie, who shows up every day and sits on the sill judging us. I get coffee. We're both better than we were seven days ago and I'm trying not to look at it too hard because every time I thinkmaybe this, something in me goesdon't.
The afternoons we walk. Main trails only. I check the map at the trailhead every single time, out loud, so Theo can see me doing it, because apparently we're both still learning. He's collected eleven pinecones, two rocks, and a blue jay feather he keeps lined up on the windowsill. I asked once what the system was. He looked at me like I'd asked why the sky is blue.
Fine. Some things are just known.
I come back from the bathroom one morning and there's a toy truck sitting next to Theo's plate at the diner.
Old, diecast metal, most of the paint knocked off, a dent along one side like it rolled off something at some point. Wheels still turn. Theo is holding it with both hands wearing an expression I can only describe asfinally.
"Where did that come from?"
Darlene tops up my coffee without looking at me. "Left at the counter."
"By who?"
"Mm," she says, and goes to check on another table.
