by Tia Lewis
“It’s not your fault,” I heard Dawson murmur from across the room.
“You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know that he didn’t want people to know,” he said. “Do you want to hear about it, or do you want to keep blaming yourself?”
I sighed, my shoulders dropping a little. “What is it you have to tell me?”
He took a deep breath before speaking. “I only knew because I came here to find out what was wrong. He hadn’t been around the diner in a while and nobody knew what was happening with him, so I came looking for him, and there was no use in lying. He was sick—very sick. That was only three weeks ago.”
“Jesus,” I whispered. “How long did he know?”
“A couple weeks. It was all so fast.”
“What kind of cancer?”
“Pancreatic. It was too late by the time the doctors found it. He decided against treatment.” I let out a whimper, squeezing my eyes shut as tears hit my hands. My poor, sweet Craig.
“Does anybody else know?” I asked in a clogged whisper, thick with emotion.
“I don’t think so—he had a partner at the practice, and maybe they know, but he made it a point to keep his illness from as many people as possible. You know him.”
“He hated attention.”
“That’s right,” Dawson agreed. “And in a small town…”
“It’s amazing he managed to keep it quiet,” I finished.
“Well, he was good at keeping things to himself.”
“Case in point,” I muttered. A hand was squeezing my heart, on and on, until I was sure it would explode. Why wouldn’t it just explode already and put me out of my misery? I had just lost everything. There was nothing left.
A noise came from the living room as the front door opened and closed. It was the coroner, I realized with a sick feeling. They were taking him away.
“You want to say goodbye one more time?” Dawson murmured. I only shook my head, scrolling through photos of Craig and me together. I didn’t want to see him like that anymore, all shrunken and shriveled. I wanted to see him smiling and healthy and alive.
“You can go in if you want to,” I offered.
“No, thanks. I’ve seen enough.” He leaned against the far wall, and I watched as his head dipped down until his eyes were on the floor. There was fatigue in every line, every muscle of his body.
“Thank you,” I suddenly said.
“For what?”
“For being here with him. I’m so glad he wasn’t alone.”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t not be. Besides, it’s not the first deathbed I ever sat at.”
His statement cut through the grief for just a second. “What do you mean?”
“Oh,” he muttered. “My mom.”
Of course. She’d been sick even years earlier. “I’m sorry. That was an insensitive question.” I felt like we were locked in an awkward dance. He would take a step, then I would—and we would step on each other’s feet and apologize and start again.
He shrugged again. “Anyway, it was the least I could do for him. I didn’t want him to be alone any more than you did. And up until yesterday, he was still talking whenever he had the strength. We sort of caught up and got back to the way we used to be.” He let out a snort. “A little too late, but that’s how it sometimes goes, right?”
“I guess so.” How sad. It took death to bring people together. Well, clearly, since there was no other situation in the world that could’ve gotten Dawson Holmes and me back in the same room.
Once the body was gone, and the nurse came in to confirm she was leaving, and that the hospital bed and equipment would be moved out later in the day, Dawson looked at me. “Where will you go?” he asked.
I looked around me. “I guess I’ll stay here if you think that’s okay. Somebody has to get the place put together for sale.” There was so much to think about, and I didn’t even know if Craig had a Will. The least I could do for him would be to take care of things, but there wasn’t exactly a roadmap for where to start. Then, another thought—what about work? “It’ll only be a few days, maybe a week,” I amended. “Maybe I can hire somebody to come out and help with the odds and ends I can’t get to.”
He nodded, wordless. I could feel him judging me, and his judgment stung. “I do have to get back to work at some point,” I reminded him. “I don’t have limitless time, though I wish I did.”
“Nobody said you should.”
“I just feel like you think I should handle everything.”
“No, I think you think you should handle everything,” he replied. “I don’t have an opinion.”
How did he know just exactly how to make me want to slap the face off his head? Even then, when all I wanted was to hear Craig’s voice again and tell him I loved him, I wanted to punish Dawson just as much. Maybe a little more. I chalked it up to high emotion and told myself to shake him off.
“With that in mind,” he continued, sighing, “I have to get to work. I don’t have limitless time, either.” He gave me one last look before turning to go. “I’ll see you around.”
The closing of the front door was the loneliest sound I’d ever heard.
4
Dawson
The diner was crowded as always when I pulled up in my truck. It was late in the lunch hour by then, and most of the tables were getting their checks when I walked in. I nodded and waved at my regulars—and they were just about all regulars.
“Thanks for holding down the fort,” I called out to Debbie as I took my spot behind the register to ring out a few customers. Funny how it didn’t take long for me to fall into my usual rhythm, even when I had hardly slept. Even when I had held my friend’s hand as he died just hours before that. Funny how old training seemed to kick in—I couldn’t let it get to me when a buddy fell on my tours, either. There was a time for emotion to come in, and it always did, but I had to control it until that time came. The diner wasn’t exactly a bombed-out village in some remote desert, but it wasn’t the time or the place, either.
“Where’ve you been all day?” Frank, the owner of the garage around the corner, grinned at me from under his greasy ball cap as he handed over his check.
“Whatever happened to the days when a man took his hat off indoors?” I asked instead of answering his question. That got a laugh from everybody in the immediate vicinity and was enough to make him forget what he’d asked. He pulled off the hat, revealing his bald dome before running a hand over it.
“Someday, when you look like me, you’ll understand,” he said with a good-natured wink.
Debbie happened to be walking by with a pot of coffee. Her free hand patted his round stomach. “Honey, he’ll never look like you.” That got an even bigger laugh—and Frank laughed loudest, as always. I couldn’t help but like a man who knew how to laugh at himself.
One by one, all of the lunch customers filtered out while the busboys wiped down their tables and carried full bus pans to the kitchen. I looked around the sleek, chrome-trimmed place with a feeling of pride. It might not have been mine. I might only have been the manager. But one day, that would change. And for the time being, it felt like mine. That was enough.
I wiped down the counter and stools as Debbie, Bailey, and Maureen told me about the breakfast and lunch shifts. “Busy as hell, but that’s nothing new,” Debbie explained as she put her feet up in a back booth and began counting the wad of tip money she pulled from her apron. “Oh, my aching feet.”
The other two, I noticed, were still full of energy. They hadn’t been waiting tables for over thirty years the way Debbie had. There wasn’t a time I could remember her not being there, and my family had taken two or three meals a week at the diner when times were good. I was pretty sure she came with the building. She didn’t know it, but when I owned the place, I planned to make her the manager. She deserved it—and nobody knew more about making it run than she did. Not even me. Hell, she’d taught me almost everything I knew.
Bill was in back, washing dishes. He was a quiet man, so the smile and nod I got from him as I passed through the long kitchen were as much as I was going to get. I’d gotten used to that, just as I’d gotten used to finding Al and Mike, my morning cooks, out back with a cigarette in between busy periods. They were vets like me and a little rough around the edges. But they could both make the kitchen sing even when we were in the weeds—nobody handled pressure like a veteran. I shot the shit with them for a few minutes before heading back inside. They followed me inside and got to work turning the kitchen over for night service while we got a list of specials together.
It was hard work, never-ending, but just then it was what I needed most. I had to drown out everything going on inside me. There were a time and place. Or was there? Would there ever be a time or a place to think about her? No, she was a different story. There was no good time to process Amanda.
I sat down across from Debbie once things were a little more settled. Bailey and Maureen both had new tables, and I let them get to work while I sucked down a cup of coffee in the back booth. I leaned against the padded back, the vinyl creaking a little as I did. My eyes were so tired, itchy with the need for sleep. Maybe the need to let out a little emotion, too, even though it had been a very long time since I last cried before today. That last firefight. The night I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. The start of the Very Dark Days.
“Are you ever gonna tell me what’s going on?” Debbie’s eyes, rimmed in dark eyeliner I was pretty sure she hadn’t left the house without wearing since she was old enough to wear makeup, bored holes into me. “And don’t bother telling me nothing’s going on, since I’ve known you way too long to buy any of your bullshit.”
I smirked, but only half-heartedly. “I’m pretty tired,” I admitted.
“You look it. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
“Maybe I haven’t. I’ve lost track of time.” I rubbed a hand over my face, ending at the stubble that covered my cheeks. I should’ve stopped home to shower and shave before going in, I realized. I must’ve looked like something the cat dragged in. One of Debbie’s favorite sayings.
“What’s going on that you lost track of time?” she asked. She had no problem asking personal questions. She thought of herself as my surrogate mother. As everybody’s surrogate mother, really.
I looked around to make sure we were alone before leaning closer to her. “Can I tell you a secret? I mean, it won’t be a secret for long, but you’ll be one of only a few people who know.”
“Of course.”
And I believed her. “It might come as a bit of a shock.”
“What is it, already?”
I took her hand. “Craig Miller passed away this morning.”
She covered her mouth with her free hand before resting it on her chest. “Oh, no. And you two were so close.”
“We used to be,” I admitted. “I guess we were again by the end.”
“Jesus, I don’t believe it. Such a young man, too.” She shook her head mournfully, eyes sparkling a little with unshed tears. “What happened?”
I gave her the brief rundown. “I guess he didn’t want anybody to know until it was already over,” I concluded. “I’ll never know.”
“The poor thing. I guess the news will come out today or tomorrow morning. I’m glad you told me—everybody will be talking about it here,” she reminded me. Craig had been the town doctor for almost ten years, ever since finishing his residency at some big-city hospital miles and miles away. Why he came back, he had never told me. He could’ve been a hot shot at some big hospital, making millions. Instead, he had treated broken bones and flus in our no-name town in the middle of nowhere. Still, he was an important person in the community. Maybe that was all he’d ever wanted. Not the fame or fortune, which was never his style, anyway.
“That’s true. They’ll all gather here to talk about him.” The diner, the only one in town, was where people tended to gather whenever something major happened. The place had been packed beyond capacity on 9/11 and the days following. Right before I joined the Navy. No coincidence in the timing, either.
She got up with a heavy sigh. “Well, we’ll all miss him. He was a good doctor and a nice man. I’m sorry you lost your friend.”
“Thank you.” I looked up at her with a small smile.
“Nobody would think any less of you if you took a little time off, you know.” I could tell from the tone of her voice that she knew her words were falling on deaf ears, but she needed to try.
“Not likely,” I grinned. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.” I stood, too, intending to get another cup of coffee and maybe something to eat. A thought had crossed my mind before I made it to the kitchen, and I turned back to where Debbie did side work behind the counter. “Do you remember Amanda Greenley?”
She smiled. “Of course! The three of you were as thick as thieves when you were kids.”
“She’s back in town. She got here this morning.”
“You don’t say.” She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “And how do you feel about that?”
“What do you mean?” I shrugged off her question. “I don’t feel any way about it. I just thought I would bring it up since she’ll probably be in. She’s hanging around to clean up the house and that sort of thing.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What’s that mean?”
“What?”
“I know you’re holding back something you wanna say when you do the ‘mm-hmm’ thing.”
“I just think it’s interesting, you needing to bring that up. I mean, I’m not the one who was crazy over her. That was you.” She shrugged her deceptively thin shoulders. Her body was small, slight, but I had seen her haul fully-stacked trays on those shoulders without so much as a grunt.
“Thanks for that, but it was a long time ago,” I reminded her sourly. “I was just making conversation, Deb.”
“Sure, sure.” The bell above the door chimed, and I heard Debbie chuckle as it did. “Well. Speak of the devil.”
I turned from the coffee maker to find Amanda stepping through the door.
5
Amanda
I was the last person he wanted to see. That went double for me. He had mentioned the diner, hadn’t he? Something about going there because he didn’t have limitless time. I hadn’t made the connection. So he worked there, judging from his position behind the counter.
It was like stepping back in time, walking from Craig’s to the diner for something to eat. Once again, the stress eater in me was roaring her ugly head. I wanted a stack of pancakes. Maybe half a pound of bacon. A milkshake. Something to make me feel better because not much in the world would erase the pain that had taken root in my core. My feet knew the way, and I hadn’t had to think much about anything other than keeping them moving as I made my way down familiar-yet-foreign streets, past landmarks I knew like the back of my hand.
Like the diner. Oh, the milkshakes and fries and coffee once we were old enough. The late nights spent there with Craig and Dawson, then mostly with just Dawson as we got older and friendship turned into something else. Holding hands, smiling at each other from across the table. Our first kiss had taken place right there in the parking lot, under a neon sign.
So of course, why wouldn’t I walk inside to find him standing there like he was waiting for me to arrive?
“Hello,” I murmured, tucking a strand of freshly-washed hair behind one ear. I’d taken the liberty of showering at the house, telling myself Craig wouldn’t mind. He might even have expected it—there were extra towels on the bed in the guest room and fresh linens. How much of my visit had he planned in advance? Just that little bit of inexplicable thoughtfulness had brought tears to my eyes.
“You changed,” Dawson said, and I didn’t know if that was an observation or an accusation.
I chose to take it as the former. “Yes. I didn’t think pajamas were apropos for public.”
A familiar figure rushed out
from behind the counter, arms out. I recognized Debbie almost immediately and couldn’t believe she still worked there. Then, I completely believed it. Why wouldn’t she? Time had almost stood still while I was gone. Twenty years and so little had changed.
She ushered me to a booth and thrust a menu into my hands. “You take your time, honey,” she murmured. “I’d love to catch up on what you’ve been doing all this time if you’re up for it.”
“Of course,” I replied without thinking. It was just the sort of thing people said to be polite. Of course, you can ask personal questions about my life even though you didn’t know me outside of serving my food throughout my childhood. Of course, I’ll sit here and pour my heart out to you even though it’s breaking. Why not? There isn’t much else to do in this town, anyway.
Once alone, I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater—I was glad I had thought a little about my outfit before leaving the house, knowing Dawson was there to see me. A girl didn’t want to look like hell when she faced the guy who first crushed her heart.
He was pretending not to look at me, I could tell. He thought I didn’t know him. I turned my attention to the menu instead of allowing myself to indulge in thoughts of him. I felt so heavy, so tired. Wrung out. I didn’t need him in addition to everything else I was going through. Funny how something that had happened so long ago could feel so fresh. I could still remember the shock, the stinging pain, weight in my chest. The cold look on his face when he told me to leave, that we meant nothing to him.
A cup of coffee slid across the table. I knew without looking who’d delivered it—I could smell his cologne, faint but present, and the masculine sort of essence he carried on his skin, his clothes. “Thought you could use it.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, eyes scanning the menu but no longer seeing anything.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. My head dipped lower, almost hanging between my shoulders. “I see,” he replied to my non-verbal response.
