Then as if by magic, as if he could sense my growing distress, Travis appears beside me and places his hand on my shoulder, his long fingers applying just the right amount of pressure to make things inside me settle. I don’t think he was eavesdropping on our conversation, because all he says is, “Hey. You good?”

Glancing up at him, I force myself to nod. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

That’s not one hundred percent the truth, but under his touch, I do feel much closer to fine. Like he threw me a life preserver when I was drowning. Although really, I’m sure that if I was drowning, Travis wouldn’t hesitate to jump in himself to save me.

He gives me a long, searching look, then squeezes my shoulder. “Okay.”

After he returns to helping other customers, I turn back to face May. My daughter never asks for much, but she’s asking me for this. And as much as the idea of talking about April and being forced to dredge up all my pain fills me with dread, I would give my daughter anything she wants. So I’ll have to give her this.

“Travis can be there,” she says.

“What?”

“If you want him to. I know he didn’t know my mom, but if it would make you feel better having him there with you, I think he should be.”

“Why do you think he would make me feel better?” I ask, averting my eyes down to my half-eaten sandwich.

She doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and when I risk a glance up at her, I find her smiling at me knowingly. “Because he always makes you feel better.”

It seems like I should argue that, but I can’t. Because it’s true. There’s a reason I ran to Travis on Mother’s Day when I couldn’t handle all my emotions. And while he can’t fix any of this stuff for me, he did make me feel better. And maybe I didn’t recognize it so much before, but I’m realizing now that he’s been doing that for me for years.

Travis has always shown up for me whenever I’ve asked him to. But this time he’s done it in such a big way that I honestly don’t know what to say to him. At some point, thank you stops cutting it. When I sneak into the back area of the diner—where I’m not supposed to be, and yes, he’s going to yell at me—to find him at the grill cooking pancakes, I’m overwhelmed with everything I feel for him.

He not only agreed to be at this freaking memorial, but he offered to close the diner early so we could have it here. Because apparently, Elise and Grant told him that April loved coming here for pancakes on their vacations.