Some blue.
Some black.
Tiny stick figures stood beside them.
Across the bottom, in uneven backward letters, Miguel had written:
PLEASE COME
Tom's hands stopped moving.
Near the bottom of the page was a date.
Tomorrow.
Below it was an address.
Riverside Cemetery.
Tom read it twice.
Then he looked at Miguel.
"Where's your mom?"
Miguel pointed toward the large diner window.
An old silver Toyota sat near the curb.
A young woman was behind the wheel.
Her face was buried in her hands.
Even from inside the diner, Tom could see her shoulders shaking.
"That's her," Miguel said.
Tom looked back at him.
"She know you're in here?"
Miguel hesitated.
Then shook his head.
"Not exactly."
Snake almost smiled.
Tom did.
Just a little.
Miguel leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"She's scared of you."
Jake looked down at his leather vest.
Miguel continued.
"Everybody's scared of you."
Then he looked Tom directly in the eyes.
"That's why I need you."
The sentence hit harder than it should have.
Tom sat very still.
He had spent most of his life being judged before people spoke to him.
Some of that judgment was unfair.
Some of it, if he was being truthful, he had earned when he was younger.
He had been reckless.
Angry.
Too eager to prove something every time another man challenged him.
Age had cooled most of that.
The vest stayed.
The motorcycles stayed.
The reputation stayed longer than everything else.
But sitting in that diner, hearing a five-year-old boy say he needed them specifically because the world considered them frightening, Tom felt something tighten behind his ribs.
He lowered the drawing.
"What was your daddy's name?"
Miguel straightened.
"Officer Marcus Rivera."
The table became even quieter.
Tom glanced at Snake.
Snake looked back.
Miguel noticed.
"My daddy was a police officer."
Tom nodded slowly.
"I heard you."
"A bad man killed him."
The boy said it simply because children sometimes said impossible things simply.
Nobody asked for details.
Nobody needed them.
Everyone in Franklin had heard about Officer Marcus Rivera.
He had been killed while responding to a violent call outside a convenience store six days earlier.
Tom had seen the news.
He remembered Rivera's photograph.
Thirty-one years old.
Dark hair.
Uniform.
Wedding ring.
A smile that looked almost too young for the badge on his chest.
Tom had not connected the officer from the television with the little boy standing in front of him.
Snake leaned toward Tom.
"Brother."
Tom looked at him.
Snake lowered his voice.
"He was a cop."
Tom's expression did not change.
"So?"
Snake looked around the table.
Nobody answered.
Tom looked at Miguel again.
"He was a father."
Miguel stared at him.
Tom pushed himself up from the booth.
At full height, he towered over the child.
Miguel took a tiny step backward.
Tom immediately noticed.
So he lowered himself onto one knee.
Now they were almost eye level.