The fluorescent lights of the Dutch Pantry Diner buzzed with a low, droning hum that seemed to match the vibration of the refrigerator units behind the chrome lunch counter. Outside, along the shoulder of Route 30, the wind off the Lancaster County cornfields was beginning to churn, driving small, granular pellets of frozen sleet against the wide glass panes. The paper snowflakes taped to the glass trembled slightly with each blast, illuminated intermittently by the sweep of eighteen-wheeler headlights crawling west toward York.
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Arthur Vance sat motionless in his burgundy vinyl booth, his heavy silver-plated watch resting against the edge of the formica table. The second hand ticked with rhythmic, mechanical indifference.
Across the narrow aisle, three booths forward, the little girl was eating.
She ate with a slow, deliberate reverence that broke something ancient and calcified behind Arthur’s ribs. She was cutting each pancake into tiny, uniform triangles with her plastic fork, pressing the tines down carefully so as not to spill a single drop of the pale, generic maple syrup pooling on the paper plate. She wore an oversized, faded purple fleece sweater with cuffs rolled back twice to free her small wrists. Every three bites, she would stop, look across the table, and push the plate an inch forward.
