"How long have you been in town?"
"Bought the house when I came out of the service. Five years."
"Did you come here on purpose?"
"I came here because Danny told me about it before he died. Said it was the quietest place he knew."
She doesn't turn her head, but I see her hand tighten on the strap of her bag.
"He was right," she says, after a beat.
"He usually was."
Neither of us adds to it for the last few miles into town.
***
I park across from the Rusty Anchor. The pickup her brother-in-law owns is in the lot, and a wagon I don't recognize next to it. The bell over the door jingles when we come in. Lou is behindthe counter with flour on the front of her apron, her steel-gray braid down her back, the faded anchor on her left forearm visible to the elbow where her sleeves are rolled.
"There she is. Honey, you came." She comes around the counter and pulls Callie into a hug, flour and all. "Kane, you brought her. Sit at the booth by the window. I have coffee for you and a plate is coming."
"I'm here to work, Mama Lou," Callie says, bright. "Put me wherever you need me."
"Apron's on the hook, sweet pea. Wash up. I have the apples peeled and the dough is resting."
Callie hangs her tote, washes her hands at the sink behind the counter, ties the apron over her shirt, and joins Lou in the prep area behind the bar.
Lou sets me in the booth with a mug of coffee, a plate of bacon and eggs, and a slice of freshly toasted bread. From the booth I can see the whole prep area, and I take the chance to watch Callie move around it. She's lit up by being out of the house and having a purpose, even if only for a few hours.
Lou is sweet with her, all honey, sweet pea, baby girl. The questions come gentle and steady: studies, home, what she ate growing up, who taught her to bake, why psychology. Callie answers it all: the small town in the midwest where she grew up, the university two states over, her grandmother's kitchen on Sunday afternoons, Danny home on leave between deployments. None of it sounds sad in her telling. Just far away, and worth missing. Lou keeps her hands in the dough and her eyes on Callie's face the whole time. When the stretch about Danny ends she doesn't say a word, just lays a floury hand on Callie's wrist for a beat before turning back to the rolling.
Two hours go by. Callie crimps eight pies to Lou's four, and the trays go into the oven three at a time, the kitchen filling with apple, butter, pastry browning. I sit in the booth with the mug Lou keeps refilling, watching the back of Callie's neck where her hair is up and the line of her shoulder under the apron strap. I haven't taken my eyes off her since she tied the apron on.
A woman comes in around eleven with her kid in tow, takes the counter, and gets served. The boy stares at me until his mother tells him to mind. I'm used to it.
By noon two more walk in, then four after that. Lou shifts gears for the lunch rush, and Callie keeps making pies behind the bar without being told.
At one Lou comes over to my booth.
"Take her home, Kane. She did a day's work in three hours."
"All right."
"And Kane."
"Yeah."
"That girl's a treasure. You'd have to be blind not to see it." She laughs, low and warm. Then the laugh fades. "Be patient with her."
I look up to find the joke gone out of Lou's face.
"Yes, ma'am."
What I don't tell her is that I'm not blind. I see every inch of Callie, and that's exactly the problem.
I pay her over her protest. I leave a hundred under the saltshaker when she isn't looking.
Callie washes up and hangs the apron back on the hook. Lou wraps her in both arms and makes her promise to come back, while tucking a brown paper bag into her hand.
