Chapter 3: Paperwork
The bell over the door rang at ten past two, and Gus knew before he looked that it was nobody regular. Regulars never pushed the door open like they were walking into a government office.
A woman in her fifties, brown blazer, canvas tote bag. She sat at the counter with the folded hands of someone explaining a rule.
"Mr. Malone," she said. "I'm Ruth Ann Boyd, with the county. I handle placements for the district."
Gus wiped his hands on his towel. "Coffee?"
"Just water, please."
He poured it. Rosa had gone very still at the far end, which meant she was listening with both ears.
"The Quinn girl has been eating here," Ruth Ann said. "Every morning before school."
"Sadie," Gus said. "Her name is Sadie."
"Sadie. Yes. I'm glad she's getting fed. But keep this within bounds. She has a placement. There's a structure to these things."
"I'm not trying to mess with your structure. I make eggs."
"I know. Marcy Tillman speaks well of you. But I wanted to be straight with you about something."
Gus set the glass down. "Straight about what?"
"You called the office last week," she said. "About fostering."
He had made that call Tuesday night from the apartment phone, Elena's photograph staring at him like it was waiting for an answer.
"I did," he said.
"I looked at your situation. You're single, you're fifty seven, and you live in a one bedroom apartment above a commercial kitchen. The state requires a separate bedroom for a foster placement. You don't have one."
"I have a couch. The room is big enough for a wall."
"It's not about the couch." Her voice was not unkind, and that made it worse. "A foster child needs her own room with a door that closes. It's the law. I'm sorry, but the answer is no."
Rosa's shaker went quiet.
"I feed that girl every morning," Gus said. "She comes in hungry."
"I know. And we're grateful. But feeding her breakfast doesn't make you her guardian."
"She's nine years old and she's got nobody who picked her. Marcy Tillman has four other kids in that house. The woman is running a bus station."
"Marcy Tillman is a licensed, trained foster parent," Ruth Ann said, steel under the politeness. "Being stretched thin is not the same as being unfit."
"I didn't say unfit."
"You said it, Mr. Malone. Just not in those words."
Gus turned to the grill and flipped a burger nobody had ordered. The grease popped in the quiet.
"Is that all?" he said.
"The human answer is that I understand why you asked." She stood and picked up her tote. "You lost your wife twelve years ago. You run a café where everybody's kid is sort of your kid. But the state can't place a child in a one bedroom above a diner with a man who works fourteen hour days. It would fail review in a week."
"I'm not asking for a review," Gus said. "I'm asking for Sadie."
"And I'm telling you no." She set a card on the counter. "If you're ever in different circumstances, call me. I mean that."
The bell rang when she left, and it sounded like a lid coming down on a pot.
Rosa came over. "Boss."
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
Rosa read the card and set it down. "She's not wrong about Marcy, you know. Marcy loves those kids. She just doesn't have enough of her to go around."
Gus scraped the grill. "I also know Sadie ate three eggs this morning and asked if she could take toast for the bus. You know what Marcy's mornings look like with five kids and one stove?"
He stopped. The burger was burning. He moved it off the heat, hearing Elena laugh from some memory he couldn't place.
"You okay, boss?" Rosa asked.
"No. But I'm fine."
That afternoon he drove out to Marcy Tillman's house, because sitting still was worse than knowing. Two bicycles lay on their sides in the yard. She opened the door with a toddler on her hip.
"Mr. Malone. Sadie's at school. Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine. I just wanted to ask how she's doing at home."
"She's a good kid. Quiet. She helps with the little ones without being asked." She shifted the toddler. "Sorry if she's been a bother at the café."
"She's no bother. She can come every morning for the rest of her life."
Something flickered across Marcy's face. "Ruth Ann called me. About your application."
Gus looked at the bicycles. "She did, huh."
Marcy's voice dropped. "I've got five in a three bedroom. I do my best. But some mornings I can't look at Sadie and not see she's the one who needs the most and gets the least of me."
"You're doing fine," Gus said, and meant it. "That's not why I asked."
"I know," she said. "She talks about you. The café, the regulars. She said you gave her a stone."
"Just a rock."
"It wasn't just a rock to her."
He nodded and didn't trust himself to say more.
On the drive back he thought about the apartment above the café, the one bedroom with the couch that wasn't good enough for the state of Arizona.
The next morning Sadie came in at seven fifteen and climbed onto the corner stool.
"Morning, Gus," she said. "Can I have the scrambled kind today?"
"You can have whatever kind you want," he said.
He made her eggs and toast and watched her eat, and he did not say one word about Ruth Ann Boyd or the application. Some things a nine year old didn't need to carry on top of everything else she was already carrying.
"You eat slow," he told her. "The bus can wait thirty seconds."