Peg propped her left foot on his leg. “Are my feet swelling yet?”
Mike tickled the bottom of her foot. Peg didn’t flinch.
“No, and I see you haven’t lost your willpower. Don’t fix the coffee. I thought we would stop for breakfast on the way.”
They went outside. It was a cool morning but without any clouds in the sky. “Do I need a jacket?” Peg asked.
“Probably not, but I put one in the pack.”
“And my pillow in case I want to lie down in the grass and take a nap?”
Mike pointed to his chest. “This is your pillow.”
They took Mike’s car. Peg didn’t like to get her car dusty, and the parking lot behind Hank’s Grocery wasn’t paved. Judge jumped into the backseat and lay down peacefully. Mike drove to the bottom of the ridge and through Shelton to the west side of town. He and Peg didn’t have to debate where to eat breakfast. He pulled into the parking lot for Traci’s Restaurant, a low-slung brown building with plate-glass windows along the front and one side. Calico curtains hung in at the edges of the windows. Mike cracked the back window for Judge, who sat up and sniffed the morning air.
“I’ll bring you a bite of sausage biscuit,” Peg promised the dog as they left the car.
A single door opened to a small waiting area beside the cash register. The restaurant was an L shape with bench seating along the walls and a row of tables down the middle. Within a few seconds of entering, Mike heard a female voice call his name.
“Mike! Get over here!”
Across the room, a skinny waitress in her late fifties motioned with her hand and pointed to an empty table. Mike and Peg came over to her.
“How are you, Judy?” Mike asked.
“Better now that you’re here.”
Judy turned to Peg and patted her on the arm. “I used to see him all the time when he was practicing law. Now that he’s a preacher, he’s quit eating breakfast.”
Judy had raised three children with no help from their father. For many years, she reported to work at 5:00 a.m. and worked through the lunch shift, arriving home in time to greet the school bus and begin her second job as a mother.
“Don’t tell me what you want,” Judy said to Mike. “Let me take care of you.”
Peg gave her order. The waitress returned with coffee: black for Mike, sugar and extra cream for Peg.
“Fill me in on the family,” Mike said.
“I have a new grandbaby, a little boy who is already sleeping through the night. But the funny thing is my younger daughter Margie. She’s been working out at the gym and is almost as buff as I used to be.”
When in her twenties, Judy had been a serious weight lifter. She still retained enough wiry strength to beat unsuspecting bus boys in arm wrestling.
“Peg and I are going to have a baby,” Mike said. “We just found out.”
Judy lifted her hands in the air. “Hallelujah. You get all that lawyer pressure off and get pregnant.”
“I thought that applied to women,” Mike replied.
“No, honey. It’s always the man.”
Judy hustled away to take care of another table.
“What did she mean?” Peg asked.
Mike shook his head. “I’m not sure. Until I met Sam Miller, Judy was the most difficult person to understand I knew.”
The waitress returned with two eggs over easy for Mike, crisp bacon, and dry toast. Peg’s plate held two scrambled eggs with a sausage biscuit along with a large glass of orange juice.
“I looked out the window and saw that dog of yours in the car,” Judy said.
“We’re going for a hike up Jefferson’s Ridge.”
“That’s good. Your baby will be an early walker. I did a lot of walking when I was pregnant. It paid off until I had to start chasing them around the house.”
Judy moved on at a rapid clip. Peg sipped her orange juice.
“In her mind, everything is connected,” Peg said. “If I like orange juice, our child will want me to buy bags of oranges.”
“Are you going to swim this summer?” Mike asked.
“Probably.”
“Good. When you combine swimming with your running and my bike riding, we’re going to produce a future triathlon champion.”
When they finished, Mike left a generous tip on the table. Peg offered part of her sausage biscuit to Judge in her open palm. The dog scooped it up with a swift flick of his tongue.
Mike drove away from town. Within a half mile, the number of older houses along the road dropped off, and they began to climb higher. New asphalt roads to the side signaled points of access to housing developments in the hill. Land that farmers once considered less desirable because it was rocky and hilly now commanded good prices.