A Ten-Year-Old Walked Into My Diner At Nine At Night And Asked For One Meal For Him And His Sister

I am seventy-one years old and I own three buildings in Ellery, New York, and I eat dinner in one of them four nights a week because I live alone and a booth is better than a kitchen table. On a Tuesday in November a boy came through the doors at four minutes past nine and asked my manager for one meal for him and his sister, and eleven months later I was standing in a probate courtroom with a six-year-old asleep against my shoulder. This is the whole of it, chapter by chapter, from the door chime to the second bedroom.