I went back to the booth, and Becca sat down. She didn’t wait for her break this time. She just slid the white envelope across the table.

“Harold came in here,” Becca whispered, her voice cracking. She was looking down at her apron, wiping a tear away with her thumb. “It was two weeks before he went into the hospital.

He could barely walk, Linda. He had to lean on the counter just to stand up straight. He asked to speak to Greg and me.”

My chest felt incredibly tight. “What did he say, Becca?”

“He told us he was leaving soon,” she said. She reached out and placed her hand over mine. “And he said his biggest worry wasn’t dying. It was that you would stop going out. He said you would look at the budget, decide you couldn’t justify spending twelve dollars on yourself, and just sit in that empty house until you faded away.”

I looked down at the envelope. I opened the flap. Harold’s messy cursive stared back at me. It was written on a sheet of paper torn from his yellow legal pad.

“For my Linda,” the note began. “Every Tuesday until the money runs out. I sold the old John Deere tractor to Miller’s boy down the road. I told him to pay Greg directly. If Becca is still there, tell her I kept my promise. She’s your girl now.”

I sat there in that noisy diner, with the smell of fried chicken and maple syrup all around me, and I couldn’t draw a proper breath. I don’t even know why I remember this part, but I looked out the window and noticed how the sun was hitting the gravel parking lot. It was so bright. It felt like Harold was right there, sitting next to me, telling me to stop being silly and eat my lunch.

“There’s more, Linda,” Becca said softly. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small black ledger. “He didn’t just prepay the meals. He paid me, too.”

I frowned, my eyes still wet. “What do you mean?”

“He gave me a separate envelope,” Becca confessed. She looked incredibly embarrassed, her cheeks turning a bright pink. “There was fifteen hundred dollars in it. He told me it was my tip for the next five years, on one condition. He made me promise that no matter how busy the diner got, I would always take my break on Tuesdays at noon and sit in this booth with you. He said you needed someone to talk to who didn’t look at you with pity.”