She grinned at him with toast in her hand, and he felt something in his chest crack clean through, quiet as a plate breaking in another room.
Chapter 4: The Last Breakfast
The news came at supper, between the meatloaf and the peas.
"Sadie, honey," Marcy Tillman said, and Sadie knew before the rest of it, because nobody started a sentence that way unless the sentence was going to hurt. "Miss Boyd called this afternoon. They found you a new placement."
"Where?"
"A group home in Tucson. Saint Rita's. The ladies who run it are kind, and there are other girls your age."
"When?"
Marcy hesitated. "Day after tomorrow."
Sadie stared at her plate. She was nine, and she had lived in four houses in three years, and she knew what two days meant. Don't get comfortable.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No. Oh, baby, no." Marcy covered Sadie's hand with her own. "It's just beds. One opened up and they have to fill it fast. It's nothing you did."
That night Sadie lay in the bottom bunk with the turquoise stone in her fist. Gus had given it to her the first morning she walked into the Blue Coyote, when she tried to pay for stew with bottle caps and he fed her anyway. Keep it in your pocket, he'd said. When the world gets loud, you hold it and remember somebody in Juniper Flats believed in you.
The world was loud tonight. She held the stone till her thumb went numb, then held it some more.
She got up before Marcy and walked the six blocks to the Blue Coyote in the blue light before sunrise. The brass bell rang, and coffee and green chile wrapped around her like a warm hand.
Gus stood behind the counter in his stained old apron. Rosa was wiping down the booths. Big Sal sat in his corner with his coffee. For one second Sadie let herself pretend it was every other morning.
Then Gus looked up, and his face changed, and she knew Marcy had called him.
"Morning, kiddo."
"Morning." She climbed onto her usual stool.
Rosa set orange juice in front of her without being asked. "The usual, mija?"
Sadie nodded. Her throat had closed up between the door and the stool.
Gus cracked eggs onto the griddle. The spatula scraped. Nobody said anything for a while, which was fine. The Blue Coyote had always been a place where quiet was allowed.
"Marcy called me last night," Gus said finally.
"I figured."
"Group home in Tucson."
"Day after tomorrow."
He flipped the eggs. "That's soon."
"That's what I said."
Rosa drifted to the far end of the counter, giving them room.
"You knew this was coming," Gus said. Not a question.
"The twins are five and there's four other kids besides me. I heard Miss Boyd tell Marcy the house was over capacity."
"Kid listens at doors."
"Kid learns things."
He slid the plate in front of her: two eggs, toast, green-chile stew in a little bowl on the side, exactly the way she liked it. "Eat."
She ate. The food tasted the same as always, which seemed wrong.
"Gus, was there ever a place you didn't want to leave?"
"My granddad's ranch, summers. Cried every August when my dad came to fetch me."
"Did you go back?"
"Every summer till sixteen. Then I bought my own truck and drove myself."
Sadie pushed toast through the yolk. "Tucson isn't a summer. It's just where I'm going."
"I know."
"Miss Boyd says the ladies are nice."
"Miss Boyd is paid to say that."
A laugh startled out of her, small and wet. "Gus."
"Sorry. Eat your eggs."
The bell rang and Mrs. Abernathy came in with her canvas tote, and Rosa refilled Sadie's juice, and Big Sal waved her over for the peppermint he always saved her. It was all so ordinary that Sadie wanted to scream. She didn't. She ate her breakfast and laughed at Big Sal's joke about the coyote on the mural.
When the rush thinned, Gus came around the counter and sat on the stool beside hers, which he never did during breakfast hours. His knee cracked going down.
"Listen. Tucson is two hours by car. That's nothing. That's a sneeze."
"I won't have a car. I'm nine."
"Details." He nudged her shoulder with his. "You got my address. You write me letters."
"Will you write back?"
"Rosa will write them and I'll sign my name real big so you know it's me."
Sadie took the stone from her pocket and set it on the counter between them.
"You gave me this. Maybe I should give it back. For the next kid."
Gus stared at it a long moment, then pushed it back with one scarred finger.
"No. That one's yours. It was yours the day I handed it to you."
"What if I lose it in Tucson?"
"Then you'll lose it knowing it was yours to lose." He pressed it into her palm and closed her fingers over it. "Keep it in your pocket. Same rule as always."
The tears she'd held back since supper came then, hot and fast and silent, dripping onto the counter.
"Hey," Gus said softly. "Hey, kiddo. Look at me."
She did. His eyes were wet too, and he wasn't hiding it, and somehow that made it worse and better at once.
"I don't want to go," she whispered.
"I know."
"I'll come back for you."
Gus held her gaze. "I'll be here."
He pulled her into a hug, awkward around the stools, and held on till her breathing steadied. Then he stood, cleared his throat the way he did when he was done feeling things in public, and rang up her breakfast like always.
"On the house," he said. "Don't argue."
"I wasn't going to."
The bell rang behind her as she pushed through the turquoise door. On the sidewalk she stopped and looked back through the glass. Gus stood at the counter watching her, one hand raised. She held the stone high so he could see it, tucked it into her pocket, and walked toward Marcy's house to pack.