Bullies Targets The Wrong A Waitress — Unaware She's A Karate Black Belt Working Part-Time
Chapter 17
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"You said you barely knew him.""I said we crossed paths," Marcus said. "People remember things differently depending on which side of the path they were standing on."He walked them to the door himself, polite to the last, shaking Dotty's hand, though she barely returned the gesture.Outside on the sidewalk, Dotty exhaled slowly, like she'd been holding her breath the whole meeting. "He knew your grandfather," she said. "More than he's letting on.""I noticed that too," Joe said."I don't like not knowing what that history is," Dotty said. "Not when it's sitting on top of everything we're about to lose."They walked a while without talking, the afternoon sun warm on their shoulders, the town moving around them the way it always did, unaware of anything unusual happening at all."Do you think Grandpa knew this day might come?" Joe asked eventually. "That something from his past might end up tangled with ours?""Your grandfather believed in doing the right thing in the moment he was standing in," Dotty said. "He didn't spend much time worrying about moments he couldn't see yet. I used to think that was wisdom. Some days I think it just means the rest of us are left to handle what he couldn't.""That's not fair to him," Joe said gently."No," Dotty admitted. "It isn't. Grief makes you unfair sometimes, even to the people who deserve it least."They walked back toward the diner in silence, both turning the conversation over in their minds, though neither of them yet had all the pieces to put it together.That evening, after the dinner rush thinned out, Walt Higgins lingered longer than usual in his booth. He waited until the last few customers left, until Dina had gone home, until it was just him, Joe, and Dotty closing up."Can I talk to you two for a minute?" he asked. "Somewhere quiet."Dotty set down her rag, something careful in her expression. "Of course, Walt. What's on your mind?"He sat with them at the counter, hands wrapped around a cold cup of coffee he hadn't touched in twenty minutes. "You went to see Marcus Whitfield today," he said. Not a question; small towns carried news fast."We did," Dotty said."How'd that go?""He knew Gus," Joe said. "More than he wanted to admit."Walt was quiet for a long moment. Something in his face had gone somewhere far away—thirty years or more. "There's something I should have told you both a long time ago," he said finally. "I never found the right moment. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe I just kept telling myself that so I didn't have to say it."Dotty reached over and put her hand over his. "Just say it, Walt. Whatever it is."He nodded slowly, gathering himself. "About thirty years back, before either of you would really remember, Marcus Whitfield was a young man just starting out. Worked construction mostly, trying to build something for himself. His father had just passed, left him almost nothing—a pile of debt and a bad reputation to go with it."