I'm the Only One Going in Blind novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Eggs on Tuesday
"Morning, boys," Lacey said.
She set the cardboard tray on the table and took out one paper cup.
On the lid, in gold pen, she had written DUSTIN.
"Your mother cried all night, sweetheart," she said. "Come home. I'll drive you."
Dustin's hand lay flat on the table next to his plate.
He looked at the cup and did not touch it.
"He's having breakfast," I said.
"I can see that, Dean." She smiled at me, and then she turned in the booth and raised her voice. "I'm so sorry, everyone. It's a family matter. His brother took him off his medication, and he isn't himself."
The couple in the next booth stopped chewing.
The waitress came down the aisle with the coffeepot and stood at the end of our table.
"Honey," she said to Lacey, "I've served that boy eggs every Tuesday for five years. He's himself."
"You don't know him."
"I know he laughed this morning. I'd like to see him do it again, so either sit down and order, or go."
Lacey's smile did not move.
She stood and picked up the cup with Dustin's name on it and held it against her coat.
"Your mother will hear exactly where you are," she said to me, pleasantly, and walked out under the bell.
Dustin's fingers closed on my sleeve under the table and held on until the white sedan pulled away.
I drove to Broadway with the ring box in my jacket pocket and nothing planned to say.
Simone was at the long table with her back to the door.
She did not turn around.
"I was wrong about what I said," I told her. "I wasn't wrong about what happened. I wanted to say both, and I wanted to say them without shouting."
"That's a lot of clauses."
"Dustin says you looked at him for forty minutes, and nobody else did."
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