“I knew your daddy,” he said.

Sam didn’t say anything.

They drove into town and pulled up to a diner on the main drag. Sam followed him inside and they took a booth. They were by the window and could see the road. The snowplows were out in force.

Sam sat there, looking so ferocious Lance made note of where her fork and knife were.

“I suppose you’re thinking I had no right to do what I did,” he said.

She shook her head. She was upset. Him talking wasn’t helping.

“I met you once,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“At the funeral.”

Sam gritted her teeth. “Stop talking.”

A waitress came over. Lance knew her. Marlene.

“We’ll have the special and coffee, sweetie,” he said. When she looked at Sam he said, “The both of us.”

Marlene sensed the mood and left them alone. She came back a minute later with two cups of coffee and some sugar and creamers.

Lance took a sip. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing. He didn’t spend enough time with women. He was rusty.

“I told him I’d look out for you,” he said.

Sam pursed her lips. She inhaled deeply.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said.

She said nothing. She was more emotional than he’d expected. He should have known.

The mug of coffee was in her hands. She’d put a decent amount of cream in it but it could still scald.

“The funeral was seven years ago,” she said.

“I know.”

“Seven years.”

“I know.”

“Stop saying you know. You don’t know shit. If you wanted to step in, that was the time. Now you’re too late.”

Sam’s father left her to serve in the army. He’d come back in a pine box with a flag draped over it. That was all the closure she ever got.

Lance knew that was the time he should have come. It would have been messy. There would have been tears. But he could have done something for her then. For her mother.

The mother was dead now too. A car accident. She’d been drunk. She took a father of two out with her.

No wonder the kid was messed up.

“Why now?” she said.

Lance didn’t have an answer for that. He’d been adrift. He’d been drinking too much and fucking around too much. He couldn’t sleep at night.

“I wanted to keep my promise,” he said.

It was the wrong thing to say.

“You,” Sam said, “wanted to keep your promise?”

“I checked in and saw you needed help.”

“I needed help? Oh, come on. You’re the one with the survivor’s guilt. You feel bad because you’re alive and men like my father are dead. You feel guilty and you want to feel better about yourself.”