And Utah 117 ran straight through its bloodless heart. Driving it was my job. In rare, charitable moments I thought what I did might be important. I’d been doing the job for so long I didn’t know anything else. And maybe I didn’t want to.

I turned and looked up at the windshield of the truck and thought of my passengers. Maybe Ginny had a point. Belle was safer with me on 117 than in her crib, or just as safe. For all I knew the same was true of the boy. I knew it was true for me. I felt safer in a natural world no matter how treacherous and unforgiving, without promises or illusions, than at home in my crib.

4

Except for random patches of ice, the ten miles to The Well-Known Desert Diner were trouble-free. The locals had long ago nicknamed the place The Never-Open Desert Diner. The diner was always my first stop, and sometimes my last, even when I had nothing to deliver to Walt Butterfield, its owner. As usual, I parked my rig on the gravel apron. The Closed sign hung from the front door and the place, while never open, seemed more closed these days than in times past. The two antique glass bubble pumps were just homeless old men who had run out of conversation. A frozen lace of spiderweb reached across one corner of the door. It was a beautiful and lonely addition, caught as it was in the early sunlight.

If Walt was still Walt he’d been up for hours and was already tending to his collection of vintage motorcycles in the 50 × 100-foot Quonset hut behind the diner. He knew I had arrived. Even at eighty years old that extra sense of his that alerted him to the presence of visitors was just as keen as ever, which only served to give him warning there was someone around who might require ignoring, or dismissal. It occurred to me on the drive, during a moment of irresponsible cowardice and desperation, to ask Walt if he would take care of Belle for the day. Most likely I wouldn’t, no matter what excuses I came up with. The probability Walt would say yes was the textbook definition of a long shot. Walt could be full of surprises and there was always a chance he might surprise me and not be an asshole.

With Belle swinging from her car seat and the diaper bag slung over my shoulder I walked across the gravel toward the diner. A little gust of wind kicked up and fluttered the spiderweb and swept some dry snow off the roof. Call it habit or superstition, I always peered through the window for the little taste of reassurance or, since Claire died, the sad welcome, provided by the interior of the diner.

It was all there in its timeless glory, as it must have been when the diner was first built in 1929. Back then it was the Oasis Café. Walt and Bernice, his Korean War bride, bought the place in 1953 and changed the name. She chose the name Bernice. He was only twenty. She was just sixteen and spoke no English.

I let my eyes wander and linger over the spit-polished linoleum tiles and chrome-lined counter, lime-green vinyl chairs, and stools.