Chapter 8
I was on my thirty-minute break and I had not left the restaurant's orbit in days. That was the point.
I was back on the floor at Il Verano full-time, doubles whenever they'd give them to me. I kept my phone on silent in my apron pocket and I didn't check for his messages until I was on the train. I ate lunch at the diner two blocks from my apartment because it was cheap and fast and no one there knew whose kid I had held while he fell asleep.
It was a little after one on a Thursday. The diner smelled like coffee and grease and rain coming in off the sidewalk every time the door opened. I had my white shirt half untucked, apron folded over the back of the vinyl booth, a grilled cheese going cold on the plate. I was looking down at the check when the bell over the door rang again and I felt that shift in the air where you know someone is looking at you before you look up.
Ricardo stood just inside the doorway without a coat. No suit jacket either, just a black shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, his hands in his pockets. No men behind him. No watch catching the light the way it did in the restaurant. He looked smaller there under the fluorescent lights, or just out of place.
He didn't wave. He waited until I nodded.
"You can sit," I said.
He slid into the other side of the booth. The waitress came over and he asked for black coffee and then looked at me like he wasn't sure I would stay.
"You came here alone," I said.
"I drove myself," he said. "I parked in your lot. I didn't want to bring anyone into your place."
His coffee came. He wrapped both hands around the mug the way Leo had held that glass. He didn't drink.
"How is Leo?" I asked.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and set it flat on the table between us. "He doesn't sleep again."
I didn't reach for it.
"He asked for you last night for two hours," he said. "I recorded this this morning because I didn't think you'd believe me if I just told you."
He pressed play.
The audio was thin and small through the phone speaker, the sound of a car in the background, a morning routine. Leo's voice, raspy from crying. "Where Clara? I want Clara. Milk glass where?" Then a pause and a hiccup. "Clara come?"
Ricardo's thumb hovered and then stopped it. His jaw tightened.
"We took it away," he said. "The glass. Mrs. Donnelly said a big boy should use the blue plastic cup. She put the glass on the top shelf. He knocked a chair over trying to reach it."
He finally looked up at me. His eyes were tired.
"I told her to do it," he said. "I told her we needed structure. A schedule he couldn't argue with. I thought if I was firm enough he'd stop asking for things you did."
The diner door opened and a kid in a school backpack ran in with his mom. I watched them for a second so I wouldn't have to watch Ricardo's face crack.
"It's not about the glass," I said. "It's about what the glass means."
He frowned a little. "It's milk."
"It's predictability," I said. I kept my voice low. The booth next to us was empty but the cook could hear everything. "For a kid who's lost his mom, the world went completely unpredictable. So he looks for something that stays exactly the same every time. Same glass, same half-full, same hand holding it, same chair. It's not a habit to break. It's an anchor. When you move it, you tell him nothing stays."
He stared at his coffee. "I thought I was helping him get over it."
"Grief doesn't work on a schedule," I said. "He doesn't need a tighter schedule. He needs a few things that don't change, so he can handle the things that do."
He nodded slowly, like he was memorizing it. Then he said, "Will you come back? Even for an hour a day?"
I had rehearsed this. On the train, in the supply closet at Il Verano while I folded napkins. I knew if I didn't say it now I would just say yes to whatever he asked because Leo's voice was still hanging in the air between us.
"I can," I said. "But not how it was."
"Name it," he said.
We got up and I left cash on the table for my grilled cheese and another dollar for his coffee he hadn't touched. Outside the rain had started, light and cold. The parking lot behind the diner was half empty, oil stains dark on the asphalt, my apartment building visible across the street with its fire escape gray against the brick.
We stood by his car, an older black sedan this time, not the SUV, rain spotting his shirt.
"First," I said, "I keep my job at Il Verano. I don't quit to work for you. Three afternoons a week, that's it. I clock out there and then I come. If I'm needed there, I stay there."
"Three afternoons," he repeated. "Which days?"
"Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Four to six. You pick him up from preschool, I meet you at your kitchen. Same glass, same spot, same goodbye. No surprises."
He nodded. "Done."
"Second, I'm not there to discipline him. If he's screaming or hitting, I won't punish him and I won't let anyone else do it while I'm there. I'll stay with him until it passes. If you can't live with that when I'm not there, tell me now."
"I can live with it," he said. "I was wrong about that."
"Third," I said, and this was the hardest one, "you write it down. What we agreed. Hours, pay, what I'm not. So when Mrs. Donnelly or someone else tells you I'm doing it wrong, we have what we said."
He actually smiled a little at that, tired but real. He popped his trunk and pulled out a small notebook and a pen. He flipped to a blank page, shielding it from the rain with his hand. His handwriting was small and blocky, ink bleeding where the drops hit.
He wrote: Clara - Mon Wed Fri 4-6. Restaurant job stays first. No discipline - comfort only. Glass stays. Then he looked at me. "Pay?"
"Same rate you paid me before," I said. "No extra for coming back. I don't want you to think you bought a yes."
He added: Same rate. He signed the bottom and handed me the pen. I signed under his name. The paper was already damp.
He tore the page out and gave it to me. He kept the notebook.
"Thank you," he said.
I folded the paper and put it in my apron pocket. "Bring the glass back down before Monday. Wash it and leave it where he can see it."
May you like
"I will," he said.
We didn't shake hands. He got in his car and I crossed the parking lot back toward the diner to get my bag, the rain steady now on my shoulders, the paper warm against my hip through the fabric.
