Hope and Harry were on their way to a new beginning.
Gladys, the case worker visited the apartment and begrudgingly approved it, she liked the new house better and so the paperwork for full legal guardianship were signed and witnessed.
Harry watched the entire process with curiosity but acted shy again in the car ride back to the flat.
"You alright Harry?"
"M' fine."
"You sure?" Hope asked again, but Harry only nodded and tucked his face into the bookbag in his lap. "I'm a little surprised you haven't got any questions. You know you're allowed to ask me anything, right?"
'Uh huh." Harry replied, voice muffled through the canvas. A minute later he spoke up, "All that stuff you signed… does it. I mean, can you… I can really stay with you?"
"Yes. I'm your legal guardian now, and you can stay with me as long as you want."
"What if, what happens if I…" Harry started, then paused and hid his face again.
"If you want or need a new guardian, then arrangements would be made." Hope's voice and heart dropped as she thought of it.
"What if you want a different boy, what if you have a real son someday, and then you wouldn't need…"
"Harry," Hope interrupted softly. "Nothing can make me change my mind, nothing and nobody will ever make me want you to leave."
Harry waited with Salty in the diner's kitchen, while Hope gave her notice. Mr. Jacobs was not happy, and he let it be known, but Hope didn't seem rattled by the shouting and cursing, answering him firmly that she had made her decision, she was going and she didn't need his endorsement to do it.
A fulltime job with the bookstore wouldn't quite equal what she'd been earning from the diner, but Dot reassured her that there were plenty of simple odd jobs the elderly community would be happy to pay for. The only downside was the lack of a school. The few families that remained in Deelmuth usually sent their older students to a school more than fifty kilometers away where they boarded for the week, taking the train home on weekends.
"We'll just have to see what we can do ourselves." Hope had said when, from the deepest recesses of the hall closet, she extracted a dusty stack of primary school workbooks. "These are old, but do what you can, we'll go through them together when you're finished, see where to go from there."
Harry carried his bookbag, filled now with the primers and the sketchbook to the diner for Hope's next shift, and when the salt and peppers had been properly distributed and the sign flipped in the window, he bent to his task. The first pages were not blank as he had expected.
A ruler lined page with examples of letters to practice was marked with a name and a date at the top.
TyleR W Nov 2 1982
The alphabet letters started strong, following the dotted lines carefully, but the lines veered and the pencil faded to nothing around the letter M.
Harry turned the page.
TyleR Wnov 8 82
Lowercase letters fading into misshapen lines around the w, and finished with the barest pressure at the very end.
Another and another, Harry walked through the struggles of a boy who'd been there before. Here and there a blue pen corrected an error or added a little smiley face next to something done particularly well.
"Ready for breakfast?" Hope asked, startling him. He fumbled the book and dived for it as it slid off the table, bumping Hope's tray.
For a moment it looked as though the sausages, toast and tea were falling, the tray tilting at an irretrievable angle, aimed at the same place on the floor that Harry knelt, scrabbling for the edges of the booklet he'd been entrusted with. The thick and heavy plates were at the edge, tea and apple juice already spilling. He raised his arms to shield himself.
And then everything was set right again. Drips of tea and apple juice on the table remained as the only sign of impending disaster.
"Oh goodness," Hope said, setting the tray down suddenly as though it had come to life, "terribly clumsy of me. Are you alright Harry?"
"Yeah." Harry answered quickly, sliding back into his spot in the booth. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, I think I startled you," Hope chuckled, her nerves still on edge. She slid in beside him and shifted the tray nervously. "Looked like it was going to get away from me there for a minute."
"But it didn't." Harry said, strangely defensive.
"Well, no, I suppose not." She contemplated the tray for another long moment and slowly lifted the mug of tea to her lips, nudging the rest of the tray towards Harry. "Breakfast. Did you get a start on your book?"
Harry ducked his head anxiously, pressing the cover shut with both hands.
"What's wrong?"
"This isn't mine, someone else already started it."
"Ah." Hope sighed, easing the book out of Harry's hands and opening it. Her fingers paused on the name, swallowed heavily and turned the pages until she found an empty page. "Start here."
"But what if Tyler wants to finish it?" Harry asked, sounded more petulant then ever.
Tears muddled her vision and Hope gulped for air. Several sips of tea restored her equilibrium and her voice. "He doesn't need this book anymore, and he wouldn't be upset with you for using it."
Harry shrunk further into himself as she dabbed at her eyes and rose with the sound of the door chimes.
"What can I get you sir?" She asked the newcomer as he sat.
"Tea." The voice answered gruffly.
Harry picked at his sausage, uninterested until he spied Salty watching him from the kitchen. Then he ate quickly and determinedly until the plate was empty. He offered a thumbs up when the concerned face reappeared and noticed a bearded man watching him from a booth at the opposite end of the diner. Self consciously, Harry ducked his head and began to work in earnest.
The final week at the diner was uncomfortable. Whether it was the huffing disgust of Mr. Jacobs, puffing at cigarettes in his office, the new job applicants coming in for interviews, or Hope's patient attempt at training her replacement, there was an unquestionable atmosphere of anxiety. An atmosphere not improved by the now daily addition of strange men. They wore different coloured caps, the jacket was sometimes brown, tan or black but it always had the same collar, the same scuffed cuffs. Always sitting alone with their back to the door, where Harry could see the man flipping through a newspaper or humming over the crossword.
"Can I get you another coffee John?" Hope was asking one of her regulars, a veteran whose pale skin was peppered with liver spots.
"Oh no, that's quite alright lass, I should be getting on now." He rose on shuffling feet, nearly falling against the observer of the day, a tall man with dark scraggly hair to his shoulders and a heavy 5 o'clock shadow. "My apologies young man," turning back to Hope, "Well Hope, my love, I wish you and your boy the best of luck for the future, wherever It may take you."
Hope took the man's hand, steadying him as the stranger slipped past them into an empty booth. "Thank you, John."
The elderly man kissed her hand gallantly and left with one final wave at Harry.
The stranger was the only other customer in the shop and he was apparently absorbed in a book, sipping at his tea.
Salty passed Hope a fresh order of cheese toasties with extra sausages and the stranger watched her carry the plate to Harry, setting it on his table and ruffling his hair gently.
"Got time for a snack?" She asked, leaning against the edge of his booth and looking over the sketchbook Harry had been working in since noon. "You're lines are getting so clean; all that practice must be paying off."
Harry chewed on a crust and cast a critical eye over his most recent attempt at sketching the salt and pepper shakers he had chosen for his models. "It's easier with how you showed me to hold the pencil."
"Soon you'll write a prettier script than I do, more legible at any rate."
Harry huffed a laugh at her self-deprecating quip and gave her one of those rare but dazzling smiles that seemed to slow time.
The strangers book drooped an inch and piercing black eyes peered over the rim at the pair.
Nearly five and the stranger didn't move as Hope began to prepare for lockup one last time. She was growing worried with the way his eyes seemed to follow Harry as he gathered the shakers, so she stepped between them, arms crossed and a firmly polite mask on her face.
"I'm sorry to bother you sir, but we're closing." She swept the shakers from his table, passing them to Harry and still keeping her body between them at all times. "If there is nothing I can get you, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
The man rose, opening his mouth to speak, one hand in the inner pocket of his coat. Salty stepped through the kitchen doors at that moment, setting one hand on Harry's shoulder and casting a long broad shadow from the brightly lit kitchen.
"The time must have gotten away from me, accept my apologies." The man said hurriedly, his eyes shifting from Hope, to Salty, to where Harry stood shielded by both. He nearly forgot his book in his haste to leave, turned back to get it, and left with one last long look at the boy.
"I'll walk you two out. Seeing as its your last night." Salty suggested lightly, setting two bags filled with takeaway boxes on the counter. "And here's something for the road."
Harry hugged the man impulsively and then released him as suddenly, reddening and busying himself about his bookbag.
Salty walked them to the car, but there was no sign of anyone still hanging about.
"We appreciate everything you've done for us Salty, if you ever find yourself down our way, there's a frilly guest room waiting for you."
Salty accepted her thanks with a quiet smile and a shake of the head. "You don't owe me anything, Hope."
"All the same." She patted his arm affectionately. "Thanks."
"Do me a favor, see Harry here grow up strong and healthy and loved." The burly man said softly, smiling at Harry in the passenger seat.
"That, I can do." Hope said with perfect confidence.
Note: edited to fix an error, the nearest school is fifty kilometers away, not half a mile :)