"Hey," Daniel said. He sat down and took Hank's hand, the one with the burn scars from twenty years of grill work, and held it.
"They tell me my ticker threw a fit," Hank said.
"It threw a scare. You're still here."
"For now." Hank's eyes were wet, and he did not care who saw it. "Listen to me. I need you to say something back to me, and mean it."
"Anything."
"The diner." Hank's grip tightened. "You keep it open. No matter what. You hear me? No matter what."
"It's open, Hank. It's doing fine."
"No matter what," Hank said again. "You promise me. For the next hungry kid."
Daniel looked at him, and something cold ran down his spine. "Don't talk like that. You're coming home this week."
"Promise me."
"All right," Daniel said. "I promise. For the next hungry kid, and the one after that, and as many as come. The doors stay open. I swear it."
"On what?"
"On the key," Daniel said. "On everything."
Hank let out a long breath and closed his eyes. "Good. Then I can rest a minute."
"You rest," Daniel said. "I'll be right here."
Marge came in after that and read him the riot act for scaring her half to death. Pete stood at the foot of the bed and said, "Knee looks good, boss," and Hank said, "Shut up, Pete," and everybody laughed, and the laughing made Hank cough, and the nurse told them all to go home.
He came home three days later, with his leg in a brace, a bottle of pills, and a list of doctor's orders as long as his arm. Less grill time. No lifting. Therapy twice a week. Rest.
Hank read the list at the diner's kitchen table while Pete hovered and Marge hovered harder.
"Less grill time," Hank read aloud.
"Doctor's orders," Marge said.
Hank folded the paper, put it in his shirt pocket, and looked at Daniel.
"Doctors don't know pie," he said.
"They know knees," Daniel said.
"They know pie neither." Hank patted his pocket. "I'll rest when I'm dead, and not a minute sooner. Now who's got something on the grill?"
Nobody did, because Pete had the grill covered and Pete's burgers were holding steady, and Daniel said so, and Hank grumbled about it all through lunch, which was his way of saying he was glad to be home.
Chapter 19: The Next Hungry Kid
The October rain started around supper and never let up. By nine o'clock it fell in sheets over Millbrook, Ohio, drumming the flat roof of the Blue Plate and rattling the awning over the back alley.
Daniel wiped the counter in slow circles and listened to the rain try to get in.
"Slow night," Marge said from the register. "Even the rain won't stay for my coffee."
"Rain's got good sense," Daniel said.
Hank laughed from his chair by the window. Pete worked the grill in his place, quiet as ever.
The bell over the front door stayed silent. The stools stood empty.
Then the back door rattled.
The door rattled again, a hard little shake, like somebody working a handle that wouldn't turn.
"Wind," Marge said.
"Wind don't knock twice," Daniel said.
He pulled the back door open.
Rain blew in sideways. Under the awning stood a girl, half hidden behind the dumpster.
She couldn't have been more than eight. Skinny, hair plastered to her forehead, sneakers soaked through, her hand frozen on the handle.
"What are you doing?" Daniel said.
"I wasn't stealing," the girl said fast. "I was just looking."
"Looking at what?"
"The door. It was closed."
Wet clean through. Eyes too old for the face.
"What's your name?"
"Lucy."
"You live around here, Lucy?"
"Sort of."
"That ain't an answer."
"It's the one I got."
She stood there getting wetter, like she had nowhere drier to be.
"When'd you eat last?"
"Yesterday. Maybe."
"Get in here, kid," Daniel said, opening the door wider.