Elena had been on her feet since dawn. The diner, though small, was the sort of place where truck drivers, construction workers, and lonely regulars came to refill their cups and complain about the weather or the government or whatever else gave them something to talk about. By the time the clock pushed past nine, Elena was already thinking about the short walk back to her tiny apartment above the old hardware store, imagining a bowl of canned soup and the quiet relief of pulling off her shoes. She reached for the rag again, running it slowly across the glass of the front window, and that was when she noticed them.
At first, they were only shapes behind the fogged glass—four small figures huddled together beneath the diner’s flickering sign. The rain had plastered their hair to their faces, and their clothes hung loose in a way that suggested those garments had belonged to someone else long before they belonged to them. Elena leaned closer to the window, squinting past the reflection of the diner lights, and suddenly the shapes became children. Four girls, no older than perhaps twelve at the oldest and maybe six at the youngest, standing shoulder to shoulder as if the wind might scatter them if they dared move apart.
She froze with the rag still in her hand.
Children didn’t wander Brookdale’s streets alone this late, especially not in weather like this. For a moment she thought perhaps their parents were nearby, maybe waiting in a car or sheltering beneath the awning of the closed pharmacy across the street. But the longer she stared, the more obvious it became that no one was coming for them.
The smallest girl rubbed her arms and leaned her head against the shoulder of the taller one beside her. The tallest of the four—thin as a twig and trying very hard to look brave—kept glancing up and down the empty road as if expecting something that never arrived.
Elena felt something twist sharply inside her chest.
She pushed open the diner door, and the wind immediately shoved a sheet of rain against her apron. Within seconds her hair clung to her cheeks and the cold soaked through the thin fabric of her shoes, but she barely noticed as she hurried across the short stretch of sidewalk.
“Hey there,” she called gently, kneeling so she wouldn’t tower above them.
The girls stiffened.
