Thanksgiving, and I was pulling pies out of the oven at the diner because someone had to. My family was three states away, eating without me.
The lobster mitt—absurd, red, claw-shaped—was still on my right hand when I sat down on the curb out back and started crying.
I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough that the pie smell faded and the cold crept in through my apron.
Then a man I'd never seen sat down next to me on the curb. Didn't ask what was wrong. Didn't offer a tissue or a platitude. Just sat there, hands on his knees, breathing the same cold air.
We stayed like that maybe ten minutes. Two strangers on a curb behind a diner, one of them wearing a lobster oven mitt in November.
Then he stood up, nodded once, and walked away. Never got his name.
I went back inside and finished the shift. But I kept thinking: he didn't fix anything, and that was exactly the right thing. He just stayed.