Caleb had no answer to that. He went back to the stove, added another log, and listened to the clock over the kitchen door, whose uneven ticking had been driving Diane mad for years.
Outside, a gust struck the building so forcefully that the old windows rattled in their frames. Ben flinched, and his grandmother drew him closer, telling him they were inside now and the storm could not take away the warmth of their soup.
At eight twenty, the diner lights flickered. Caleb switched off the decorative strands, checked the emergency lanterns beneath the counter, and tried dispatch again, managing to report that all three travelers were indoors and responsive before the connection began to crackle.
A tired operator confirmed that a sheriff’s vehicle was checking the abandoned car at mile marker nineteen. “Stay where you are,” she instructed. “Do not send them back onto the road. The sheriff may come to you if conditions allow.”
Caleb wrote the message on a receipt and showed Henry, who released a breath he had apparently been holding since the car stopped. Ben asked whether the sheriff would be angry because they had abandoned their car on the road, and Caleb said a car was replaceable in a way people were not.
Diane called at eight thirty-one, her voice strained by static. She wanted to know why the security system still showed the front door unlocked and why the motion detector had sent several alerts.
“There’s a family here,” Caleb told her. “Two grandparents and their grandson. Their car died on the pass, so I fed them and called dispatch.”
A pause followed. “Caleb, the county told us to shut down. If someone gets hurt in the building—”
“If they go back outside, they may freeze before anyone can reach them.”
“I understand that. I just need you to understand that I can’t lose the diner.”
He looked around at the stained booths, the worn floor, and the stove that had kept the room warm through many bad winters. “Neither can I,” he said. “But I can’t lose somebody on my doorstep, either.”
Diane made him promise to keep the stove vent clear, use the emergency lanterns if power failed, and call if more people arrived. Before hanging up she asked, very quietly, whether the boy had enough blankets.
“Yes,” Caleb said. “He’s drawing a house.”
“Then tell him I hope it has a chimney,” Diane replied, and the line went dead.
When Caleb returned to the booth, Henry had pushed his empty bowl aside. The old man reached into the inner pocket of his olive coat and drew out a gold pocket watch, worn smooth at the edges, its chain broken and a small dent visible near the winding crown.
He laid it in Caleb’s open palm. “I don’t expect you to take this as payment,” he said. “But I want you to see it.”
The watch was heavier than Caleb expected. The white face was protected by glass scratched in several places, and the hands had stopped just after eleven forty, though the second hand had settled between the marks and was almost impossible to see.
Caleb felt an unpleasant little rush of familiarity. Somewhere in the back of his mind was an image of a man in an orange work coat, kneeling beside a kitchen table, opening a watch to show a small boy how a spring could hold the promise of time.
“What is it?” Ruth asked, seeing his expression.
Caleb turned the watch over. There were three tiny stars scratched into the back, not arranged with a jeweler’s precision but in the crooked line a child might have drawn with a sharp nail.