If you looked at my life on paper, it would resemble a list of losses.
I wake up at 4:30 every morning in a house that makes all the wrong noises. It’s too big for one person and too important to sell. The third room down the hall still smells of strawberry shampoo and innocence.
If you looked at my life on paper, it would be a list of losses.
I can’t open the door without feeling like I’ve been hit in the chest with a brick. My daughter’s trainers are still lying next to the bed, the laces tied as if she had just taken them off after school.
But she won’t be back. Eliza will never come back.
My husband used to leave the light on in the hallway, just in case. After the accident, he stopped opening that door. Then he stopped coming home altogether. Grief pushed us apart, and we became strangers to each other, passing silently in the same space.
Then he stopped coming home altogether.
One afternoon, he left a note on the kitchen table next to the sunflower and an unfinished shopping list.
The divorce papers were tucked underneath, already signed.
So yes, my daughter is gone. My husband is gone.
And the only thing I have left is the diner.
My daughter is gone. My husband is gone.
It was small; not in the cosy, charming way people talk about when they discuss ‘hidden gems,’ but rather in the way that your knees creaked when you sat down on the bench and the seats hissed beneath you as they exhaled.
The floor creaked in places that no amount of cleaning could hide. The linoleum had a round burn mark where my grandfather had once dropped a whole tray of roast chicken and tried to pretend that the floor had always looked that way.
The coffee tasted like memory and burnt edges — strong, bitter, and familiar enough to feel like home.
But it was mine.
My grandfather, Henry, opened this place when the neighbourhood still smelled of bread and motor oil, when you knew every family three blocks away, and you could shout out the window to call the kids in for dinner.
He always stood behind the counter in his stained apron and smiled.
‘We don’t just feed people, kid,’ he would say. ‘We feed their hearts.’
But it was mine.
Then he would wink and place a plate of pancakes on the counter as if he were dealing cards in a casino.
When he died, I stood in the empty diner for a long time before deciding to buy it outright. It seemed crazy, but at the same time, it felt like love.
‘I don’t know if it’s smart,’ I said to my best friend Susan as I filled out the paperwork. ‘But I know it’s right.’
‘You’re staying true to your roots,’ she said, looking at me with that same half-smile. ‘That means something.’
And it did. At least for a while.
Then came the condominiums, the chain cafés. And $15 toasts. Then came the bills, which didn’t care whose name was on the paper. They had to be paid.
The rent went up. The price of eggs rose. The electricity company sent warnings in bold red letters. I even maxed out my credit cards.
I skipped my lunches and cleaned the kitchen myself because I could no longer afford staff.
They had to be paid.
I was drowning. I wasn’t proud of it, but it was the bitter truth. So I called my broker. And for the first time in a long time, I wondered if love was enough to keep a roof over my head.
And then that night came.
It was cold, so cold that it didn’t just settle on your skin, but penetrated your bones and stayed there.
The city outside the window moved faster in such weather — everyone with their heads down, their coats zipped up, rushing from one warm place to another, with no time to stop.
I wondered if love was enough to keep the roof on.
The diner was dead quiet.
The bell above the door hadn’t rung in hours. The neon OPEN sign buzzed by the window, casting a tired pink light on the empty benches, as if trying to convince even itself that we were still in business.
‘Laura, what should we do?’ I asked myself aloud. ‘We can’t keep this place going any longer…’
I sat behind the counter, absorbed in the silence, pretending to take inventory. But I wasn’t. I was just writing meaningless numbers to feel like I was doing something useful.
‘We can’t keep this place going anymore…’ I said.
Then the phone rang.
It was such a simple sound—almost cheerful—but it made my heart skip a beat, as if I had been caught doing something forbidden.
Just that morning, the estate agent had come to view the property. He was younger than I expected, wearing a neat shirt and a polished watch, calling me ‘Miss Laura’ as if we were already finalising a deal that hadn’t even begun.
And now he was back.
‘Don’t worry, there will be offers,’ he said. ‘Location is gold right now. And developers love old buildings.’
Old buildings. That’s what he called them.
I nodded, hugging my arms, pretending not to remember every greasy tile and scratched corner, as if I would never see them again.
When he left, I spent an hour rehearsing how I would greet the buyer.
‘Don’t worry, there will be offers,’ he said.
Smile. Offer coffee. And don’t cry.
I didn’t want to part with the diner. I really didn’t. But there was no other way to survive. I couldn’t offer my house as collateral because it needed too much work… and I couldn’t lose it — it was the only home my daughter had ever known.
And so, when the bell rang again, I bit my lip.
Smile. Offer coffee. And don’t cry.
Please let it be a buyer, I thought.
But it wasn’t.
An old man stood in the doorway. He looked uncertain, as if he had lost his way and didn’t want to be a burden. His coat hung on him like a coat hanger, the sleeves were too long, and one trouser leg was turned up, as if it had been put on the wrong way round.
Next to him was a tiny dog with multicoloured fur and ears that were too big. It looked like a creature assembled by a child from old toys and dreams.
‘Good evening, madam,’ the old man said quietly. ‘What’s the cheapest thing on the menu?’
He was already counting the money in his head. I could see it.
And then I heard my grandfather’s voice: ‘We feed people, kid. Not empty wallets.’
‘What’s the cheapest thing on the menu?’ he repeated.
I came out from behind the counter and smiled.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ I said. ‘I’ll make you something nice, I promise.’
‘I don’t want charity,’ he said, his eyes darting around the room. ‘I have a little. I can pay something.’
‘It’s not charity,’ I said, wiping my hands on my apron. ‘You can pay me with your company. It’s been a very slow day.’
He froze. His fingers twitched towards his pocket, but stopped. Pride flashed in his eyes, but he nodded.
‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘Pickles and I just wanted to take a break…’
I went back to the kitchen and moved as I had before, when my daughter was still alive — as if food mattered, as if it would make someone part of the house. I made a meat casserole, as my grandfather had taught me, with onions and a little ketchup on top.
‘Pickles and I just wanted to take a break…’
I mashed the potatoes by hand, added real butter and milk, and sautéed the green beans with garlic. I even toasted a few slices of bread and put a pat of butter in a bowl.
I hadn’t done this in months — not since I stopped believing in ‘special moments.’
Before serving, I set aside a small piece of meatloaf and a couple of slices of leftover sausage on a small plate. It was for Pickles, that silly little dog.
When I brought everything to the table, I placed a full plate in front of the old man and put the saucer with the dog food next to it. Pickles looked at me as if I were a magician.
‘For me?’ asked the old man, his voice trembling slightly.
‘For you,’ I replied with a smile. ‘And this is for him.’
Pickles licked the plate as if it were the best thing he had ever tasted.
‘And this is for him.’
We talked, or rather, I talked. He asked gentle, open-ended questions.
‘How long have you had this place?’
‘Do you cook everything yourself?’
‘Do you live nearby?’
And somehow, these simple questions opened the floodgates for me.
I told him about the day my daughter died. I told him about how my husband left and how I held my grandfather’s old mug tightly, whispering into the kitchen air, asking what I should do next.
He didn’t interrupt or offer solutions.
He just nodded, saying softly, ‘That must have been painful’ or ‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that.’
When he got up, he took a few crumpled banknotes out of his pocket.
‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You’ve already paid. I told you, your company is more than enough.’
He slowed his pace, his gaze searching for mine.
‘Thank you, dear, for the meal… for letting Pickles in. And… for seeing me.’
Then he turned, called Pickles, and stepped out into the cold. The bell rang again behind them.
And I thought that was the end of it.
Closing the snack bar was harder than usual that night. The key creaked in the lock as if it didn’t want to turn. I stood on the pavement for a while, wrapped in my coat, watching my breath melt into the cold air.
The street was empty — empty in the way it is when you feel like you’re the only living person in the world.
The silence followed me home.
I thought it was the end.
I left the lights off when I entered the house. I didn’t need them. The layout hadn’t changed in 20 years. I threw my keys into the bowl, took off my shoes and went into the bathroom.
The water took a long time to heat up. I stood there hugging myself while the pipes rattled behind the walls. When the steam rose, I stepped under the stream, and it burned me.
And then I cried.
‘Grandpa, help me,’ I whispered through the water.
And I cried.
These were not gentle tears. I sobbed until I fell onto the tiles, clinging to the edge of the bath as if it were my salvation. I sobbed as I hadn’t cried since my daughter’s funeral, and I sobbed until there was nothing left but the pain in my chest and the sound of water hitting the porcelain.
When I turned off the water, I wrapped myself in a towel and walked down the hallway.
I opened her room. Everything was as it had been before.
I lay on her bed, curled up on the blanket.
‘Please…’ I whispered. ‘I need something good.’
The next morning, I arrived early. The streets were still dark, and the sky hung low and lifeless, as if it couldn’t decide whether to rain or snow.
My boots echoed on the pavement as I walked to the diner, my head down, still thinking about Pickles from the night before.
‘I need something good.’
I was about to get my keys when I stopped.
There was a white envelope on the window, its corners crumpled from the weather. My name was written on it.
I turned it over and saw that on the back, in uncertain handwriting, was written:
‘From Henry.’
My heart skipped a beat. My fingers trembled.
Henry was my grandfather’s name.
‘From Henry.’
I carefully removed the envelope from the window and brought it inside. The heating hadn’t been turned on yet, and my breath fogged the air as I settled down by the window, at the very table where my grandfather loved to sit while I drank hot chocolate from a cup twice the size of my hand.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a ten-pound note, and underneath it a letter.
The heating still hadn’t come on.
“Dear Laura,
I hope you don’t mind me writing. My name is Henry…”
I didn’t ask his name that night. Now, realising this as I read his words for the first time, it seemed to me that I had missed something important, as if I had left the story unfinished.
He wrote about everything. About the accident at the factory that took his leg. About the cancer that took his wife, Marie. About the addiction that took his son.
‘I hope you don’t mind me writing.’
He wrote about the loneliness that took everything else. He wrote about feeling invisible, about how the world kept moving, forgetting that he was still there.
‘You reminded me that I still matter, dear. Not as a burden, but as a person. Please don’t stop being you. You filled two plates and two hearts. That’s no small thing.’
I taped his letter to the receptionist’s desk.
‘You reminded me that I still matter, dear.’
Later, when the estate agent called to discuss the next steps, I answered.
‘Arum,’ I said. ‘I’m not ready to sell. I think I need to stay. I’ll sell my wedding jewellery. I’ll manage.’
