Chapter 17: Chapter 17: Current Tenderness I.

For three years now, the first Thursday of November has been my favorite day.

The day I walked through that door, hearing the magic of his bell for the first time, was the moment I began to believe that the impossible was possible.

That a fantasy — perhaps me — just like that clink clink, could be made real.

I took out my phone; it was two-thirty. Very late. "If I weren’t the only employee," I murmured, "I’d lose my title as employee of the month."

I pulled the key from my pocket, inserted it into the handle, feeling it turn. One of the few times it’s me doing the opening.

And with a soft push, I heard the chime.

Clink clink.

But its familiar aromas weren’t floating in the air. I stopped, taking in the place.

It had been a week since it last opened — not because I didn’t want to, but by court and investigation orders.

Maybe his body was no longer on the floor, nor his scent in the air. But his spirit was still by my side, accompanying me with his love.

I took the green cap from the hook — the last trace of my uniform. I untied the purple ribbon from my wrist, pulling my hair into a small ponytail, letting the butterfly earring with the amethyst in the center show.

I removed the sunflower headband, replacing it with the cap. I began my work.

I brought down the chairs one by one, setting each leg precisely on its marks.

Not because anyone would notice. But those marks were still there, asking for it — engraved in the wood like an order that still needed to be fulfilled. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

I connected the coffee machine, hearing its familiar sigh.

"Good morning, Miss Bean — you’ve been sleeping in," I said, pressing the power button. "Time to work."

Fwoooomm.

"Watch your language, Miss Bean — this is a family establishment."

I turned to the bar, picking up the cloth, dampening it a little before wiping. Left and right, left and right, not missing a single fold.

"This isn’t right," I whispered. Something in my body was telling me so — I don’t know if it was exhaustion or something else. "But it doesn’t feel right at all."

I sighed. Nolan was no longer here to handle the monotonous parts. Now it was my job to carry on his legacy.

I looked at the cups on the shelf, handles facing right. An order I thought was mine, but one he had perfected as his own.

"I’m hungry," I whispered, going to the kitchen.

As expected, all the vegetables were in poor condition. No breakfasts, nothing touched by him. I never knew how to cook, and I had no intention of pretending otherwise now that he wasn’t here to correct me.

"We have coffee and cookies," I noted. "But no knife for the pastries." I took a couple, eating them carefully — his last trace.

I flipped the sign on the door, indicating we were officially open.

Chapter 17: Current Tenderness I

I stayed behind the bar for a moment with my hands resting on the surface, looking at the empty café. The silence had a different texture.

But I didn’t want to think about that — and even less about work. If I did, a bitter expression would take over my face, and here I need to smile.

In less than five minutes, someone crossed the door; the bell let me know.

When I saw him, a smile appeared on my face on its own.

Mr. Arrit crossed the door with that slowness of his that I never interpreted as old age but as certainty. His usual hat, his usual tie, his usual brown scarf. He carried the same order as always, and that alone was enough reason to smile.

But his eyes, when they found me from the door, were not his own.

I didn’t feel the strength to rush out and greet him or shout like in past days. I just hid behind the display case. He, in turn, kept walking toward his table. The second one by the window.

He hung his hat on the back of the chair with that precise gesture that had been identical for years.

Swallowing, I approached the coffee machine. I made his coffee. He had already finished settling in when I arrived. I’m not capable of giving good service without the two of them.

"Black coffee, no sugar, strong," I said, setting the cup on the table with my gaze down. "In a ceramic cup."

He looked up at me.

And I saw it. Not the fear I expected — given that he had found me on my knees that day, crying with a knife and a red stain beneath Nolan’s body. "Are you alright, dear?" he asked, his eyes shining with concern.

His words were my first greeting. Not a wave, not a good morning. An are you alright? I tried to smile. "What do you mean, Mr. Arrit? Of course I’m alright."

"Sit down for a moment, dear," he moved the chair across from him with a slow gesture. "If you have time, of course."

"You’re the first customer," I answered, taking a seat. I looked at my hands, playing with my fingers as if I were nervous. "Mr. Arrit, I don’t understand," I told him, before he could claim a word. "Why I’ve felt this way since that day."

He raised an eyebrow, perhaps noticing it. "Ryne, how do you feel?"

"Like I’m not myself," I answered, being more honest than I had been with the psychologist. "I’ve never felt this way." I looked at my hands. "They don’t feel like mine — I feel a dead person still claiming them."

He took my hand, feeling my trembling, as I felt the wrinkles in his fingers. "Don’t see blood in them," he told me. "You were frightened, and that’s alright, Ryne. When a person goes through something like that, it’s impossible not to have lasting effects." He sighed, releasing me. "So don’t see blood in your fingers," he whispered. "And it pains me to say it, because I loved him too — but don’t let the memory of that man control your future actions."

He took his cup, taking a sip. "Don’t let that torment you."

I nodded, looking at my fingers. There was no blood in them — only sincere emotions kept under guard. "I had never felt this before — it’s new for me to feel..." I stopped.

"To feel what?"

"To feel... to feel..." His gaze only deepened its concern. He seemed not to understand me — I am not used to feeling. "To feel bad!" I cried, feeling my stomach twist downward.

He held the cup between his hands without drinking, looking at it — as if choosing his words carefully before releasing them.

"You didn’t have to open today," he began. "It’s not your duty to be in this place."

I turned to look at him, incredulous at his words.

"Nobody would have blamed you for a month’s absence, my brave girl." The last three words arrived with a weight he had chosen carefully. "We know how hard it is to get out of bed after everything you’re going through. That’s why I hurried here when I saw the café open," his voice broke slightly with every word that followed. "So you wouldn’t be alone, remembering only the pain."

I smiled. Not with the employee-of-the-month smile. With the other one — mine, the one Nolan had taught me. "Mr. Arrit," I said. "I’m not opening it because it hurts me."

He frowned slightly.

"I’m opening it because even though Nolan is no longer here, even though he turned out to be what he turned out to be," I paused briefly, "I’m not capable of forgetting how beautiful it was. I can’t forget what I felt for him. And if I stopped coming — if I stopped bringing down the chairs and turning on the coffee machine — I feel like I’d forget that part too." I looked down for a moment. "And only the monster is left."

Mr. Arrit didn’t respond right away. He just listened to me, with his mouth open, while a tear slid down my cheek.

He took a sip of his coffee, turning his face from mine toward the street. Something in his face settled into a place I recognized, though I had never seen it from this close.

"I know exactly what you feel," he said at last.

"Do you?" I questioned, looking down at the floor. "I don’t believe you. I don’t think you know what it is to die by killing what you love most."

"Even if you don’t believe it, dear, I would say I do," he sighed. "Not exactly the way you do. But I do understand what it is to love after loss."

I said nothing — only a smile formed faintly on my lips.

"My wife," he began, with that calm, nostalgic voice of his. "Was a woman... a rather grumpy woman," he admitted.

I raised my eyebrows a little. "What was she like?"

"She was a girl just like you — she wanted to be perfect," he repeated with a smile, followed by a laugh, and in his laugh there was more tenderness than anything else. "If you came in with your tie tied wrong, she’d tell you. And she wouldn’t tell you once. She’d come after you for half an hour. With details, with examples, reminding you of every previous time you hadn’t learned either."

"And what did you do?"

"Listen," he shrugged. "At first it put me in a bad mood. I’d raise my voice at her, ask her not to bother me — but then I learned that her scolding was because she loved me."

"How?"

He raised his hand slowly, moving it in front of his tie, pulling at a thread, straightening it.

"She would fix it," he blinked, twice. "She always did. She’d get angry, she’d lecture you, but she always had that final consideration."

I rested my elbows on the table.

"There was always something to argue about," he continued. "The milk too hot, the window too open, the flowers too close or too far. There was always something." Another small laugh. "But at the end of the day, she always waited for me with a warm plate for the two of us. In forty-one years, there wasn’t a single night that one of us ate alone."

I looked at him.

"I never regretted loving her," he said — without drama, with the serenity of someone who has already finished crying everything they had. "Even though I see her face blurred now and can no longer hear her voice, I remember her hands pulling at this thread, with that care so uniquely hers, straightening my tie."

I stayed silent.

"And that," said Mr. Arrit, looking back at me, "is what gets you out of bed in the morning. Not the perfect memory — but the realness of their imperfection."

We smiled for a moment — maybe a minute of silence. He took his tie, loosening the knot again, as if that were part of him.

"After all those scoldings I still wear it crooked," he sighed. "Maybe I’m still waiting for her to scold me — to feel her beside me one more moment, straightening my tie with her small hands."

I got up, moving toward him, kneeling the way Nolan would have, and with one careful motion, I pulled at that thread. "How is it possible, Mr. Arrit? So many years wearing the same tie, and you still don’t know how to tie it?"

He stayed quiet for a moment, then laughed, touching my head with a small hand.

"You’re a sweetheart, dear," he said, stroking my head.

The air of the café went still between us. Just for a moment. Before I returned to my seat and we continued.

"The same thing happens to me with Nolan," I confessed. "I know what it is. And yet, when I bring down the chairs and turn on the coffee machine, I remember his hands, his voice, his scent." A tear began to slide down my cheek. "And I remember how happy he made me."

Mr. Arrit nodded slowly.

"I know that boy wasn’t what he seemed," he said very quietly. "And yet, if I close my eyes, I see him arriving every day with my coffee before I could even ask for it."

"Just like today," I said.

He raised his cup toward me, in a small and precise gesture. "Just like today."

I smiled. I didn’t decide when that smile came out. It just came, and it was mine. Mr. Arrit received it with a hug, the way he always received the things that were worth it.

"Dear," he said, setting down the cup. "This afternoon, when you finish work, come have dinner at my house." I looked at him. "I’m not asking out of pity." He raised a hand before I could respond. "I’m asking because I know what it is to spend a night alone thinking about someone who is no longer here. And I know today is a special day for you." His eyes moved to the calendar. "I’ve also spent some anniversaries alone, and I know how hard they can be."

I stayed quiet for a moment.

"Do you have whole-grain bread?" I asked. "I don’t eat meat."

He blinked. Then he let out that Santa Claus laugh that always brightened my day without asking permission.

"I have everything that’s needed," he confirmed. "And if not, we’ll figure it out."

"Then I’ll be there without fail," I said, getting up from the chair. "But after closing. Today I’m staying until the end."

"Why?" he asked, without reproach.

I went back behind the bar. I ran the cloth over the surface, left to right.

"Because today is my anniversary," I answered. "And I want to spend it in the only place where I still feel him close. Not in a way that hurts," I clarified before he could say anything. "In a way that reminds me he existed."

Mr. Arrit looked at me for a moment with that expression of someone who recognizes in another person something they already lived through themselves.

Then he nodded, slowly. "Then I’ll keep you company, dear," he answered, taking a sip of his coffee.

His sips accompanying me, at the same time as the clink clink of the bell.

"Welcome," I said to the customer. "We don’t have lunches today, but we do have coffee and cookies."