He sat a moment, just sat. His phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out. Unknown number, Tennessee area code, but not local. Nashville exchange.
He looked at it for 4 seconds, then turned the screen face down and slid it back into his pocket. Not now. Whatever it was, it could wait. The gray pickup pulled in beside him. Engine cut.
He heard the passenger door open, heard the particular sound of Ren getting her bearings after a long sleep. A small grunt of orientation that she'd been making since she was 4 years old and had never grown out of. She came around the front of the truck, her dark curls half tangled, her brown skin catching the early light as she blinked herself awake. She looked at the town the way she always looked at new places, quiet, methodical, like she was building a file in her head that she'd consult later. She had her mother's eyes, dark and steady against her warm brown skin.
He'd never quite gotten used to seeing them in his daughter's face, even after 3 years of Callie being gone. It wasn't painful exactly. Not anymore. It was more like a reminder, a gentle recurring one. Smaller than Louisville, Ren said.
Most places are. She looked at the diner, then the barber shop, then up at the water tower where a painted raven spread its wings above the words Mil Haven High. Ravens, she said. Apparently, she was quiet a moment processing. Then I'd guess cheerleaders for the Ravens are somewhere in this town.
I'd guess so. She nodded once, filing it away. Boon wanted to say something useful then. Something a father said when he was moving his daughter to her fourth town in 6 years, when he was 59 years old and finally finally trying to put down roots in ground he hadn't already poisoned. What came out instead was, "You hungry? " She looked at him.
One corner of her mouth lifted. Always, she said. Inside Callahanss, the smell hit them before anything else. Coffee and bacon grease and something baking biscuits. Probably the kind of smell that doesn't apologize for itself or try to be anything other than what it is.
Four people were already seated at this hour. Two older men at the counter, not talking, comfortable in their shared silence, the way men get when they've been sharing silences for 30 years. A woman in a postal uniform reading her phone with the focused expression of someone catching up on something she'd been waiting on. A man in muddy work boots staring at his eggs like they'd said something he found personally offensive. The woman behind the counter was somewhere in her mid60s.
Big framed glasses, gray hair pulled back in a knot that was practical rather than styled. An apron with a faded rooster stitched on the front. She moved between the coffee station and the counter with the ease of someone who had done that exact sequence of movements 10,000 times, which she had. She looked up when Boon and Ren came in. She didn't stare at the leather jacket.
Didn't miss a beat. Two of you, two of us. Corner booths got the best light in the morning. Take it if you want it. They took it.
Boon ordered black coffee and eggs over easy. Ren ordered orange juice and a short stack with extra butter. The way she'd been ordering pancakes since she was 9 years old and had no intention of changing. The woman brought the drinks herself, set them down with practiced efficiency, no wasted motion. Then she looked at Boon, not with suspicion, not with alarm, just looked.
The way a person looks when they're deciding whether someone is who they appear to be. You're the one taking over the old Larkin Street garage, she said. Not a question. Boon raised an eyebrow. Word travels fast.
Word doesn't travel in this town. She said it teleports. She refilled a coffee cup at the counter without looking. Heard you were coming about a week ago. Charlie Mills mentioned it at the hardware store.
She wiped the counter. You came from Louisville? Long drive, took it slow. She glanced at Ren, who was applying an unreasonable quantity of butter to her pancakes and hadn't noticed she was being observed. Your daughter?
She's starting at Mil Haven High Monday. The woman nodded. Something moved across her face for a half second. Not concern exactly. More like the expression of someone who knows a thing and is deciding whether it belongs to them to share.
She decided it didn't. Not yet. Biscuits in about 10 minutes. She said, "I'll bring some over. " She went back to the counter. Boon watched her go.
He'd spent 37 years learning to read people. Not as a party trick, but as a survival skill that had over time become something quieter and more useful. A way of paying attention to the world. This woman had something behind her eyes. Information held long enough that it had become part of her.
He filed that away and drank his coffee. Ren ate her pancakes and looked out the window at Main Street coming to life. A delivery truck. An old man walking a hound dog who was sniffing everything available to him with absolute dedication. A teenager on a bicycle backpack on moving like he had somewhere to be and wasn't happy about going there.
Dad. M. Is this the one? He looked at her. She was still watching the street.
The one what? He said, "The one we stay in. " She said, "It's simply no drama in it, just the question stripped down to its bones. I need to know if it's worth unpacking the boxes this time or if I should just keep living out of them. " Boon set down his coffee cup. He thought about the 14 boxes in the bed of the pickup, mostly Ren's books. A box of trophies from the gymnastics she'd done until she was 12.