Chapter 8 - Hot Chocolate at the Diner
Sarah had said yes fast enough that I knew she was tired. She stood in her doorway with the trash bag from Christmas still by the stairs and told Maya to grab her coat and be good for Uncle Caleb. Maya didn't ask where we were going until we were already backed out of the driveway.
"Can we just drive?" she said.
We drove. It was the day after Christmas and the town looked picked over, the lots at the grocery store half empty, the trees on the curbs already losing needles. I kept it to side streets so she could look at the houses that still had lights up. She pressed her thumb into the window and left a small fogged print.
"I told Mom you like hot chocolate," she said.
"I do like hot chocolate."
The diner was on Main, between the hardware store and the empty storefront that used to be a video rental place. Inside it smelled like grease and coffee and cleaner. The lunch rush was gone. A waitress I recognized from high school nodded at us and pointed to a booth by the window.
Maya slid in and took off her gloves finger by finger. She was wearing a gray puffy coat over jeans and pink sneakers, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail. She looked smaller without the red dress. She folded her hands on the table and then unfolded them.
The waitress brought two menus even though we both knew. Maya ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream. I ordered coffee and a hot chocolate for her. The waitress smiled.
"Two hot chocolates, one coffee," she said. "Got it."
While we waited, Maya spun the napkin holder around. The slow turning seemed to settle her. She looked out at the parking lot where a plow had pushed the snow into a dirty bank.
"You don't have to tell Dad we came here, right?" she said.
I kept my voice even. "This isn't a secret. I told your mom."
She nodded, but her shoulders stayed up. The waitress set the mugs down. Maya wrapped both hands around hers and blew on the whipped cream. She got a little on her upper lip and wiped it with the back of her hand.
For a while we just talked about nothing. School starting again. Her teacher's cat that had kittens. Whether the snow would melt. She talked with her mouth and her hands at the same time, and twice she laughed, a quick sound that surprised her. It felt like watching ice shift on a pond.
I didn't ask anything. I drank my coffee and let her lead.
Then she looked down into her mug and went quiet. She stirred with her spoon until the whipped cream dissolved.
"It was after dinner," she said.
I didn't move too fast. "What was, sweetheart?"
"The time I got scared. It wasn't Christmas. It was before." She glanced up at me. "The lights were still on the house. Dad had them up early."
I did the math in my head. Mark always put the lights up the weekend after Thanksgiving. So sometime in December. Before Christmas. After dark.
"At your house?" I asked.
She nodded. She picked at the paper from her straw. "I was supposed to be asleep."
I waited. The diner door opened and a man came in stomping snow off his boots. The bell over the door rang.
Maya lowered her voice. "Are you going to tell him I told you?"
It was the same fear as Christmas night in the doorway, just in a different light. No tree behind her now, no family at a table. Just the hum of the drink cooler.
"I promised you I wouldn't tell him you told me," I said. "I remember."
"But Mom?" she said. "If you tell Mom, she'll tell Dad. She tells him everything when he's mad so he won't be mad at her."
That hit me harder than anything she'd said by the tree. I thought about Sarah in her doorway that morning, tired, quick to say yes, and how careful she'd been at dinner to laugh at Mark's jokes.
"I don't want him to be mad," Maya said. Her voice got thin. "He said if I told, he'd be really mad. He said you wouldn't believe me anyway."
I felt my hand tighten around my coffee mug. I made myself loosen it.
"I believe you," I said. "I'm right here."
She studied my face like she was checking for a trick. Then she took another sip and some color came back into her cheeks. She asked if we could share fries. I said yes.
We split an order. She salted them herself and ate them one at a time, legs swinging under the booth. She told me about a movie she'd watched at her friend's house. The fear didn't leave, but it moved to the back seat for a little while.
On the drive back, she fell quiet again. The sky was getting dark early. The streetlights were coming on along her street. I pulled to the curb a house early so we wouldn't have to rush the goodbye.
"Thank you for the hot chocolate," she said. She was holding the empty to-go cup I'd gotten her like it was something to keep.
"Anytime," I said.
She unbuckled but didn't get out right away. "You won't tell, right? You promised."
I looked at her there in my passenger seat, gray coat zipped to her chin, ponytail flat from the headrest. I had a piece now. After dinner. After dark. Lights up. Before Christmas. Supposed to be asleep. It was more than I'd had, and it still wasn't enough to take to Sarah without handing over Maya's exact words and breaking the one thing holding her to me.
"I keep my promises," I said. "And I keep you safe. Both."
May you like
She seemed to accept that for now. She climbed out and walked up the sidewalk, turning once to wave. I waited until her front door opened and closed before I pulled away.
All the way home I ran through what I could say to Sarah. I have a timeframe wasn't the same as I know what happened. And if I told Sarah even the timeframe, she'd know Maya had talked, and Maya would know I'd passed it on. The promise I'd made crouched in that doorway was doing exactly what promises do. It was keeping Maya close to me and keeping me from getting her real help.
