The Grill Cafe’s owner, George Shibata, arrived in California and followed work east, mostly toiling on the railroads but quickly figuring out how deadly the labor could be. He hit Havre, Butte, trying his hand at cooking instead, and ended up in Big Sandy, a town dominated by a single restaurant, the Bear Paw Cafe. Their food often went undercooked; their coffee always tasted burnt; the plates regularly showed faint traces of the last meals served on them. George Shibata decided he could do better—or, at least, as badly—and thus the Grill Cafe came to be. And he’d been correct. He did outshine his competition. Barely. Nearly everyone in town—except maybe the couple who owned the Bear Paw Cafe—agreed Shibata’s Grill Cafe served marginally better food. But the plates and glasses were cleaner. To be fair, the man had been trained as an engineer, not a chef. Shibata just couldn’t find such work in America. Or, such work wasn’t allowed for someone like him.
And yet the Grill Cafe and the Bear Paw Cafe had operated at a standstill. Neither decisively won over the customers in town. If one of them had been able to serve higher-quality cooking, that might’ve done it, but there’s no sense in demanding something that will never come. So imagine Mr. Shibata’s surprise when his business soared simply because he’d saved those two boys. People came in to pepper him with questions, congratulate him on the good deed, and they stayed to eat their meals.
That’s why, after the show at the opera house, the Grill Cafe filled up. Room for twenty diners, nearly every table taken. Adelaide and Sam were lucky they’d left early, or else they might have had to join the line of people along the wall eating from their plates while standing up. Adelaide and Sam each carried a copy of the Bear Paw Mountaineer, given away free—this time—but they went unread because Sam asked a question first.
“Do you think that lady was right?”
“At the opera house?” she asked. “Mrs. Reed? What part?”
“That we’re the wheat, not the chaff.”
Adelaide smiled as she squinted at the menu board. Was she going to need glasses?
“Maybe she meant it, maybe she was just trying to flatter—”
But she stopped talking when she looked at Sam, whose head was down and whose fingers were laced on the tabletop.
“Why do you ask, Sam?”
Still looking down at his hands, Sam said, “Do you think of yourself as the wheat?”
You had to go up to the counter to make your order, and the line there continued to grow as more people left the opera house. Adelaide did feel hungry and had decided she also wanted a beer. But when a child is thinking seriously, you do well to honor their questions.
“No,” Adelaide said. “Most of the time I do not think of myself that way.”
“Why is that, Mrs. Henry?”
And she did not think about where it had gone.
And she did not think about what it might be doing.
And she did not think about—
“I keep secrets,” Adelaide said softly, sitting back in her chair.
“So do I,” Sam said.
The words came so softly Adelaide hardly heard them. Sam lifted his eyes to Adelaide from the other side of the table. His young face suddenly looked tired.
“My mother’s secret,” Sam offered.
Adelaide sighed. “I know quite a bit about things like that.”
Now they were quiet and it felt all right to stay that way. Adelaide wasn’t sure if she wanted Sam to share Grace’s secret with her. She knew the pain, actual physical pain, it would cause the child to betray the parent. And, of course, by now she cared for Grace immensely. What would be the greater act of compassion, to let the child confess or to quiet Sam so Grace’s private concerns remained her own? Though that wasn’t quite true, was it? Grace’s private concerns were clearly Sam’s as well.
“She killed my father,” Sam said. Said it so clearly, with such force, that a pair of men at the next table turned fast and then turned away.
Adelaide saw them do it, and saw them secretly listening now.
“A wild horse will do that,” Adelaide said. Then she pointed at the men so Sam wouldn’t be confused. “I’m sure your daddy tried his best with it.”
Instantly the two men became disinterested. They’d been hoping to eavesdrop on gossip, not another boring story of commonplace hardship. They rose from the table and shuffled to the counter to buy more beer.
Adelaide nodded at Sam to indicate they were free to talk again.
“Did you see this happen?” Adelaide asked.
“It was years back,” Sam said. “Babies don’t have memory.”
Adelaide didn’t agree, but the child wasn’t discussing human development.
“So then how do you know what she did?” Adelaide asked.
“Momma isn’t shy about saying it, not when it’s just her and me. He was a millstone. The only work he ever did was how hard he worked to stay in bed. Those are her words, after a few cups of Bertie’s Brew.”
“Why are you telling me this, Sam?”
“Because I needed to tell someone. And you’re the best someone I know.”
A touching moment, but Adelaide saw a flash in her mind, that moment when she’d been on Grace’s claim, when Bertie took Sam to town to be with Grace as she recovered. When she’d been alone and crept to the second cabin and peeked inside. And there, in the window’s reflection, she’d seen—
“Did she ever say where she killed him?” Adelaide asked.
Sam sat up as tall as he could go. “You saw him.”
“I saw something,” she admitted, looking away to the ceiling to recall the memory. “But then it was gone.”
“Sometimes I see him, too,” Sam told her.
“Are you scared when that happens?”
Sam looked to the door as it opened.
“Mom’s here.”
And so she was. Grace Price looking flush from the cold. As she moved toward their table, she slipped off one glove. The glove on her right hand remained on. She’d recovered from the bullet fairly well, but the hand never recovered its color quite the same. The back of the hand showed spiderwebs of veins, and the fingers looked faintly purple and would until the end of time. And Adelaide watched Grace Price feeling shame enough about her wounded hand to hide it, imperfectly, but doing a seemingly perfect job of hiding the fact that she’d murdered her husband.
It wasn’t funny of course, but why did it seem so funny right then?
By the time Grace reached the table and sat down, Adelaide felt the tickle in her throat that would become either a cough or a giggle.
“Do you know what Finn Kirby said to me?” Grace asked.
And Adelaide lost it. Of all the sentences she’d expected from Grace, that wasn’t even in the top one hundred. She laughed loud enough that it startled Sam, too.
Sam got the giggles next.
Grace sat back in her chair, arms folded, trying to look gruff, but Adelaide took one look at that single gloved hand and lost her composure all over again.
Now Grace just looked confused and then she spied Adelaide’s gaze, the glance at her glove, and she slid her hands down to her knees so they were hidden beneath the table.
“Why are you laughing at me, Mrs. Henry?”
Adelaide took a breath, then another. She could see her friend had guessed at the wrong secret but the idea of its exposure hurt her all the same.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Price,” Adelaide said. She placed a hand on her friend’s arm and squeezed. “Truly.”
Sam went quiet as well, though the child didn’t offer apologies. Instead, he glanced at Adelaide, seeming to wonder what she would do with the secret he’d told.
Adelaide looked at the boy directly and hoped he understood her meaning.
I can keep a secret.
Sam settled back into the seat and nodded and said nothing more.
“Finn Kirby said Matthew had an accident on his ride back from your cabin weeks ago.”
Now she had Adelaide’s full attention.
“He lost the use of his right arm. Finn thinks he was attacked by wolves. Or something larger. He wants to talk with you about that.”
Adelaide cleared her throat. “What does Matthew say?”
Grace raised her eyebrows. “Matthew Kirby hasn’t spoken a word in more than a month. Somehow, Finn blames you for that, too.”
Adelaide considered her options. She might avoid future shows at the opera house. Never come to town again. Grace would be willing to bring her orders to town, and most of the stores were willing to haul them to a claim for a small fee. Maybe she could make that work through this first winter. Then again, Finn Kirby knew where she lived; what would prevent him from riding up to talk with her while she was alone in her cabin? Maybe it would be safer if she spoke with him here, with Grace and Sam to witness it. But then he might say things in front of them that she didn’t want said aloud. Which brought her back to secrets and to shame. Thirty-one years of both, nearly thirty-two; her birthday lay days away. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who live with shame, and those who die from it.
Could there be a third kind of person? she wondered. One who overcomes the shame?
“Grace,” Adelaide said. “I want to tell you something.”
“Did you two order food or is Mr. Shibata especially slow this evening?” Grace asked, looking over her shoulder toward the counter. The line had at least died down.
Adelaide slipped her hand under the table and grabbed her friend’s gloved hand.
Grace recoiled at the touch but Adelaide held firm until their eyes met.
Adelaide said, “I didn’t come to Montana alone.”