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“I’m Virginia,” she said. “Ruth’s daughter. I don’t really have words for what you did for my mom, but thank you doesn’t even come close.”
A woman emerged from the kitchen carrying two steaming mugs.
Virginia pulled up a chair. “Mind if I join you for a minute?”
What started as polite conversation somehow turned into an hour of easy laughter. Virginia told stories about growing up at the café. Nina shared embarrassing anecdotes about my cooking disasters. Ruth kept bringing out pastries “just to try.”
And somewhere in that warmth and noise, I felt something I hadn’t felt since before my wife died… like maybe there was space in my life for new people after all.
We came back the following weekend. And the one after that. Soon it became our Saturday tradition — Nina, me, Ruth, and increasingly, Virginia, who started staying at our table long after her shift ended.
What started as polite conversation
somehow turned into
an hour of easy laughter.
