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Letty Dobesh reached to freshen up a trucker's coffee from behind the counter. His name was Dale or Dan or Dave—something that started with a D. He was a regular. A creepy regular. Came into the diner several times a week. Tall, lanky, never-tipping guy who always wore a red down vest and a John Deere mesh hat.

As Letty filled his mug, he grinned, said, "Know what would look good on you?"

This should be good.

"No, what's that?" she asked without risking eye contact.

"Me."

Now she did meet his eyes. They were small and brown and contained a volatile energy that she recognized—he was a hitter.

"That's beautiful," she said. "You should write Hallmark cards."

The man laughed like he wasn't sure if he'd been insulted.

Her manager called her name from the grill.

"Be there in a sec!" she said.

"No, Letisha. Not in a sec. Now."

She set the pot of coffee back on the warmer and wiped her hands off on her apron. An image blindsided her: Letty at seventy, hobbling around the diner on arthritic feet, hands like claws from a lifetime of this.

The manager was a short, sweaty, unpleasant man. He wore black jeans, black sneakers, and a white Oxford shirt with a hideous Scooby-Doo tie. Same outfit always. As she approached, she saw that he held a wire brush in his right hand.

"Good morning, Lloyd."

"Bathrooms. They're disgusting. You were supposed to clean them yesterday."

"Lloyd, I haven't had a chance—"

He shoved the wire brush into her hand. "With a smile."

"I'm smiling on the inside."

# # #

Letty scrubbed furiously at a beard of dried shit affixed to the inside of the toilet.

The noise of the jukebox was indistinct through the concrete walls, but a new refrain had taken up residence in her head.

This is my life.

This is my life.

This is my beautiful life.

When the toilet bowl was pristine, she stood looking out of the small window behind the sink. The view was down Ocean Boulevard. Vacation cottages and high rises all oriented east toward the sea.

There were bars over this small window, and Letty somehow found it fitting. She'd been out of prison now almost ten months, had been clean for half a year, but she hardly felt free.

She was thirty-six years old and she had just worked herself into a sweat cleaning a toilet in a diner.

Bad as prison was, the walls that had kept her in her cell and in the yard had never screamed hopelessness as loud as the barred window in this tiny bathroom. In prison, there was always something to look forward to. The promise of release, and beyond, the possibility of a Life Different.

She felt a sudden, irresistible urge to get high.

You don't do that anymore.

Why?

For Jacob.