She gets down off the stool, walks over, and takes my face in both her hands.
“Caleb,” she says, trying it out. “Thank you. For trusting me.”
I'm bending down to kiss her when her phone buzzes.
She checks the screen and her face changes. “It's June's care home. They only call if…” She answers fast. “Hello? Yes, this is Taryn Denton.”
She grabs my forearm and squeezes, mouthingshe's okay, she's good.
“That's wonderful,” she says into the phone. “No, that's... six weeks? No, of course. A discharge plan. An address, sure. I understand. Can I call you Tuesday? Thank you. Thank her for me. Tell her I love her.” She hangs up.
“June's ahead of schedule,” she says brightly. “Walking with a cane already. They're talking about discharge in six weeks. Isn't that wonderful?”
“It is.”
"It's wonderful," she says again, and smiles at me, but it’s not her real smile.
She folds the news away somewhere I can't see, kisses my cheek, and asks what a girl has to do to get a pottery lesson around here. I let her ruin two bowls and laugh till she's wheezing.
But all day, under everything, it’s like there’s a clock ticking.
Chapter Nine
TARYN
The days after the party are busy and happy.
Every day, I run the kitchen at Marvin’s diner, which is busier than ever. At night, more often than not, Hawk’s truck is idling out back to pick me up, and I fall asleep wrapped around him in bed after spectacular sex.
Grandma June is charming the physical therapists, asking when she can have a proper kitchen again instead of having to drink “this dishwater they call coffee.”
“We'll need her discharge plan in writing within the month,” Mrs. Oakley says. “Home address, living situation, ground-floor sleeping arrangements or a stairlift, who'll be with her during the day for the first while. Outpatient therapy twice a week, so somewhere with transport. It's all very standard, dear. You'll have it sorted in no time.”
I write it all down on the back of an order pad.
“And Taryn?” Mrs. Oakley’s voice softens. “June talks about you every day. Whatever you're building out there, she can't wait to see it.”
I hold it together until she hangs up. Then I stand in the dry-goods cupboard trying to breathe until the lunch rush saves me.
During lunch a man comes in. He’s wearing pristine hiking gear that looks expensive. He doesn't order. He asks for Marvin by name, hands him a thick cream-colored envelope, and leaves a business card on the register like a tip.
Marvin opens it right there at the counter.
“They want to buy the building. Rotmere. The whole block, it sounds like. I have a month to accept.” He laughs, except it sounds bitter. “That's a whole lot of zeroes for a diner my grandma opened with her egg money.”
The whole counter goes quiet. Lila stops with the coffee pot mid-pour and old Mr Garmello turns up his hearing aid.
“You’re not selling,” Lila says. It isn't a question.
“Course I ain't selling!” Marvin folds the letter back into the envelope with shaking hands. “But that money… it could do a lot.”
I scrape the flat-top so hard my elbow aches. Weeks ago this diner was getting by, invisible, safe. Then a tour bus stopped, and the specials started selling out, and people started driving over the pass to visit. Hawk's word floats up at me from the boathouse story he told me.Rotmere keeps track of everything that does well in this valley.The diner did well because of me. I made it shine, and they noticed.
At the counter, Lila's little girl is parked at the end of the counter with a coloring book, the way she is most afternoons after school while her mama works.
That night I sit cross-legged on the bed in Viv's blue room with an envelope and a pencil, and I try to make the math work.
What June needs, within the month: a ground-floor bedroom. Someone home during the day, at first. Transport to therapy twice a week. An address that will still be an address in six months’ time.
