understand that none of those stories was right. The meal was for a son who had left twenty-three years earlier and had never come back. Grim didn't know whether he was alive, whether he had children of his own, or whether he would recognize his father's face if they stood on opposite sides of a street.
The boy at the door was about twelve, with wet dark hair pasted across his forehead and hazel eyes too alert for someone so tired. He surveyed the exits before taking another step, looking toward the restrooms, the kitchen, the register, and the glass front door. His little sister stayed so close that her cheek brushed his sleeve whenever he stopped. Water had soaked the cuffs of her jeans and made the canvas bag hang like a stone from her shoulder. She was seven, and the tremor running through her arms was no longer entirely from the weather.
Danielle, the youngest waitress, reached for two menus, but the boy shook his head. "We're not ordering," he said in a voice that sounded practiced and embarrassed at once. He looked from table to table, past a retired couple near the window, a trucker at the counter, and two college students sharing a basket of fries. Then his gaze reached Grim's booth and fixed on the untouched steak. The second plate, gleaming under the overhead light, might as well have been a beacon.
"Don't," Danielle whispered before she could stop herself. She had worked at Millie's for four months and knew enough about the man in the corner to fear him, though not enough to understand him. The boy either did not hear her or could not afford to listen. He took the little girl's hand, crossed the room, and stopped at the end of Grim's table. Water dripped steadily from both pairs of shoes.
Grim finished cutting a piece of meat before looking up. His eyes moved first to the boy, then to the little girl whose fingers had twisted into the loose hem of her brother's jacket. He saw a split seam on the boy's left sneaker and a deep yellow bruise just above his wrist. He saw the girl's effort to remain upright without leaning too obviously against him. He also saw that the boy was frightened, and that the fear had not kept him from approaching.
"What is it?" Grim asked. His voice was rough and low, not raised in challenge. The boy swallowed twice, and Millie watched his Adam's apple move. He seemed to assemble his words in his head before trusting them to the air. "Sir," he said, "could me and my sister have whatever you're not going to eat?"
No one moved. The trucker stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth, and one of the college students slowly lowered his hand from the salt shaker. Danielle held a coffeepot so still that steam rose in an almost straight column. Millie felt an old, familiar warning in her chest, the instinct that told her a room was approaching a moment that would be remembered. But Grim looked only at the children.