“She looks happy,” Hannah said.

“She was,” Ruth answered.

“And stubborn.

If she heard Nathaniel had finally taken a day off because of a little girl he met at a diner, she would be pleased beyond words.”

Nathaniel looked toward the photograph.

For a second grief tightened his expression.

Then Sophie approached holding a drawing made from Ruth’s craft supplies.

It showed the diner, a bowl of pancakes, and a man with gray hair sitting at a table.