Billie nodded in agreement but couldn’t decide whether he was referring to her or to himself. At times, sitting there with his vest collar turned up to the cold and cradling his coffee cup in both hands, he could look gruff yet quite vulnerable, like a lost child, searching for something. Then he would look up and smile, as he did just then, and the impression would fade. She cursed herself for a gabbing ass. They had sat and talked all night long, but she had done most of it, making up for times when there was no one else to talk to but the kids. She told him about them and their fathers, and about her family in nearby Ellettsville and her life in Isherwood. And she told him about herself. Not just trivial things, surface details like where did she go to school or her favorite color, but deep-down things. Her successes. Her failures. Her dreams. She couldn’t believe it herself, even as the words came pouring out of her like water from a spigot she couldn’t turn off. And finally she quit trying to understand. It felt good to get things off her chest after so long. To finally confide in someone. She hadn’t done that since Gordon was alive. Somehow this stranger had touched something in her. It was beyond just physical attraction, she was sure of that. He listened. He cared. He knew how to draw her out of herself. But at the same time he gave very little in return. Chris Stiles was still as much an enigma as when he walked into the diner yesterday morning.

She went over to the swing and scrunched into the seat beside him. Every mystery must be unraveled sooner or later, she decided. Especially this one. “You know, this really isn’t fair.”

“What isn’t?”

“Your letting me do all the talking. You know nearly everything about me but I don’t know nothing about you. Tell me about the real Chris Stiles.”

He gave a slight chuckle. “There isn’t that much to tell.”

“Let me be the judge. C’mon, Chris, play right. Tell me about, let’s see . . . how about your family?”

Where her own remembrances a moment ago had brought a sentimental expression to her face, she noticed just the opposite in him. It was as if the stirring of memories raised a faint, unpleasant odor. She reached out and took his hand. His expression softened somewhat.

“My mother’s name was Mary,” he said hesitantly. “Mary and Griffin Stiles. Just your average parents, you know, struggling to get by, raise a family. Pop worked in a tire factory during the day and pumped gas at night. Mom took in sewing to help us out. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t hurting. They were good providers. Of most things.”