A truck stop. A little cafe, somewhere off the Great American highway.
The waitress is bustling between tables. She’s an older woman. Maybe mid-seventies. Salt-and-pepper hair. More salt than pepper.
She puts food on my table. Two eggs, sunny. Hashbrowns. Black coffee.
“Anything else, sweetie?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Ketchup for your hashbrowns?”
“How’d you know?”
She smiles. “Just a hunch.”
She produces the bottle like a magician pulling hankies from his sleeve.
Then, I see the woman walk outside. The bell on the front door signals her exit. I see her through the large window. She sits on a bench. Removes a carton. She’s smoking a cigarette now. And something tells me she’s earned it.
A car pulls up. Old car. A Honda. Rusted fenders. The car used to be blue, now it’s beige There’s duct-tape on the windshield.
The driver hops out. He hugs the waitress. Together they remove a fold-up wheelchair. Together, waitress and man lift a little boy from the backseat.
They place the child into the chair. The woman hugs the kid. The boy is rail thin. She bathes him in her kisses and the
kid returns the favor.
They share a long embrace. The Honda leaves, then the woman wheels the kid inside the cafe.
She parks the kid’s chair in the corner and deals with her workload. She checks on her other customers. They all need something. More napkins. Refills on tea. Plates need to be cleared.
She’s warming up my coffee when I ask who the kid is.
“That’s my neighbor’s boy,” the woman says. “And that was his uncle who dropped him off.”
“You two must be close.”
“We are. Sort of. I’m raising him. He’s about to be legally mine in a few weeks. Once I sign the papers.”
I’m looking at this woman, and I’m thinking that she is a little long in the tooth to be raising a child.
“His…