growing into. He had very clear gray eyes and the easy look of a man with all the time in the world. His cowboy boots were dry, because he'd parked right at the curb. He smelled like Brut, like half the boys in Astoria in 1982.
"Mrs. Hakala," he said. "Hey. I didn't know you worked nights."
"I don't usually," I said. "We're short." My voice sounded ordinary. I was amazed by that. I'd been afraid it wouldn't.
"Well, hey," he said, and slid onto the stool right in front of me, and folded his hands on the counter. "That's lucky for me, then." He looked up at the menu board, and then down the room, the booths, the window, and I watched his eyes go along the row and stop, for just a second, at booth five, and come back. "Boy, I haven't been in here in years," he said. "Since I was a kid. You know that? My gramma used to bring me."
"Is that right," I said.
"Every Sunday. After church." He grinned. "Pancakes. I was crazy about the pancakes. And there was this waitress used to give me extra whipped cream. Called me Captain." He tipped his head and looked at me, smiling, with those clear gray eyes. "I always kind of wondered if that was you."
I had the coffee pot in my hand. I don't remember picking it up. I set it down on the warmer very carefully.
"I couldn't tell you," I said. "I've worked here a long time. That's a lot of whipped cream."
He laughed. He had a good laugh, easy, warm. "I bet," he said. "I bet it is." He turned his cap around in his hands. "Say, that's actually sort of why I came by. I don't want to make a big thing. But you haven't seen my gramma today, have you? Little old lady, about yea high, white hair? She'd have had on my old work coat, probably. She likes to wear it."
"Your grandmother," I said.
"Yeah." His face changed. It went sad, and tender, and a little embarrassed, and it did it so smoothly it was like watching a man shift gears in a good car. "She took off this morning before I got up. Darigold driver says he gave her a lift into town. She's been — I don't know if Jodie's said anything. She's been getting kind of confused lately. Forgetting things. Saying stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense. Doc says it might be little strokes, or it might be, you know. The other thing. She gets an idea in her head and she just goes. And she gets kind of —" he made a little circle with his finger next to his temple, gently, almost apologetically — "she says things about people. Thinks people are stealing from her. Me, mostly." He laughed again, but sadly this time. "Which, you know. That's hard to hear. When you've been taking care of somebody. But it's not her fault. It's the sickness."