I Thought I’d Be Eating Dinner Alone… Until She Walked In And Said, “Can We Sit Here For A While?”

Judgment quiet.

The kind of quiet small towns do best when someone poor, scared, and desperate steps into a warm place and asks for mercy.

I looked up from the second plate of food sitting across from me.

Anna’s plate.

Steam still curled from the steak. Gravy was sliding down the mashed potatoes exactly the way she used to like it. For three years, I had paid for that meal every Friday and taken it home untouched.