CHAPTER ONE
June Caldwell blinked at her closet like she’d never seen it before.
She didn’t have time for this, but her brain simply wasn’t working the way it needed to. She often felt this way after a particularly challenging day at work, and today she had cleaned two houses, then done a full eight-hour shift at the Main Street Diner. That was a sure recipe for brain soup… something they fortunately didn’t serve on the menu at the diner.
Right. Clothes.
She could do this.
June quickly swapped her diner uniform, which was covered in the usual smudges of condiments and coffee that a long shift always brought with them, and put on a sweater and a pair of fitted jeans that always made her feel as though she was more put together than should be possible, given how comfortable they were after being washed and worn about a thousand times.
She glanced in the mirror on the back of her closet door. The outfit wasn’t bad. She wouldn’t win any fashion awards, but she felt cute, and that was what really mattered.
Her hair though…
Well, there wasn’t much to do with her shoulder-length blonde hair that wasn’t taking a shower and starting from scratch, and she didn’t have time for that, so she just pulled the top half back with a clip and called it a day.
She frowned at her reflection, considering, then decided that she looked pretty good, considering that she had worked two jobsandbeen on single-mom duty all day.
Indeed, as soon as she emerged from her bedroom, her seven-year-old son, Benjamin, sat up from where he’d been slumped on the couch.
“Wow, Mommy, you look pretty!” he said.
She smiled at him, her heart swelling in the way it always did when she looked at Benjamin… even though it twisted at the same time when she saw the shadows under his eyes and the way he dropped back into the cushions of the couch only moments after he’d sat up.
Benjamin had recently been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and mother and son were still figuring out how to navigate the new medical condition that had taken over their lives.
Or, at least, that was how it felt most days.
Today had been one of them. Benjamin had been coming along to June’s shifts at the Main Street Diner since he was a little boy, long enough that he had his own “regular spot” in the back, close to the kitchen. He was usually so patient. He’d sit there, doing his homework, coloring, or reading a book while June waited tables.
But since shortly before his diagnosis, Benjamin’s energy had been beyond low. This had been the first sign that something was wrong, the thing that had sent June to seek a doctor’s opinion in the first place. And Benjamin’s doctor had assured her that once things stabilized, he would find a way back to being his old self, but in the meantime…
He was uncharacteristically cranky. And June couldn’t even blame him. He had been forced to handle a major, permanent upheaval to his life. And this wasn’t even the first time in his short life that he’d been asked to contend with such a thing.
“Thank you, baby,” she said to Benjamin, who was snuggling up against Miriam Landers, June’s friend and one of Benjamin’s favorite babysitters.
Miriam, who was a sprightly and stylish seventy, leaned her silver hair with a neat pixie cut against Benjamin’s far more unruly mop.
“Your poor fashionable mom is going to have to go out and do something boring, and she’s not going to get to do any of the cool, fun stuff we have planned.” Miriam, who had more spirit in her little finger than most people did in their entire bodies, gave Benjamin’s hair a playful ruffle. “Stinks to be her, huh?”
Benjamin giggled, although there were still several clear signs of weariness in his expression.
June hesitated. Should she stay home? Would it be better if she was here?
But then Benjamin looked at Miriam with the adoration that he always showed the older woman, both before and after his diagnosis.
“Yeah, we have to watch the next episode!” Benjamin said excitedly. “It’s beenforeversince you were here to watch with me.”
June felt her anxiety lessen at his childish exasperation, not to mention the blatant exaggeration. Miriam had been here a week ago, but that was a long time for a kid who wanted to watch the next episode of some show about cartoon dogs that Benjamin insisted he couldonlyconsider watching when Ms. Miriam was over to babysit.
Miriam agreed evidently, as she leaned back to look down at Benjamin.
“You didn’t watch without me, did you?”
“No,” Benjamin protested, looking insulted that she’d even asked. “It’sourthing.”
“Of course,” Miriam said apologetically. “My mistake.”
