The diner had only one booth left, and it was double-booked. The waitress just shrugged and pointed at the other guy.
He was older, maybe sixty, with a grease-stained cap and a hand that shook when he lifted his coffee. I sat down across from him.
I keep a flashlight by the back door of my house. Out here, the power goes, and you learn quick what you can't do without. He noticed the calluses on my hands, asked if I flew.
I told him about my first solo flight—how the whole sky opened up and I was the only one in it. He laughed and said that's how he felt the first time his son left for college.
He'd been a locksmith for thirty years. Got called out on a Sunday once, drove forty miles to let a woman into her own car. She tipped him a sandwich and a beer.
We talked until the waitress brought the check. He paid for my pie. I never got his name, but I remember that table—the way the light hit the Formica, the way two strangers can share a beginning without knowing it's the last time.