Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
All in all, it was a really good visit. I was glad I got to know Arie’s family better, and that they had a chance to get to know me. We made plans to see them again at the holidays, and all of us were looking forward to it.
After they left, I turned my attention to fixing up the now-empty second bedroom. It got a fresh coat of paint, and then I went to work turning it into a combination art studio for me and reading nook for Arie.
One day while he was at the diner, I brought in a comfortable chair, a lamp and side table, and a pair of bookshelves. I half-filled them with books I thought he’d like, but left plenty of room for him to add more of his own choosing.
I hadn’t told him about the reading nook ahead of time, and when he came home from work and saw what I’d done for him, he was so touched that he actually started crying. That almost made me cry, too. It was such a simple thing, but he was incredibly grateful for it. It made me wonder how he’d react when he saw the huge surprise I was planning for him.
In addition to sprucing up the apartment, which Arie called “nesting,” I also helped out at the diner and found time to work on a painting—the first of my own since I was a kid. I had a lot of ideas. Maybe too many. I filled three sketchbooks before finally deciding on what I wanted to paint and starting on a large canvas.
And in between all of that, I secretly worked on Arie’s surprise, which finally came together in early December.
On the day I planned to spring it on him, I went to the diner in between the lunch and dinner rush and found him in his office. He was there most afternoons, but a lot had changed with his schedule over the last few weeks. The first thing he’d done when I bought out his son-in-law and invested in the diner was to hire three more employees. Two of them showed up bright and early every morning to do the prep work and open the place for breakfast. Now that that huge task was off his plate, Arie was working slightly less than forty hours a week, for the first time since he was a teenager.
It had been hard for him to give up that much control, and I was proud of him for learning to delegate. He still came in Monday to Friday during lunch and dinner, because he loved this place, his customers, and the people he worked with. But now, he could spend his time doing fun things like working with his cooks to develop daily specials, instead of wearing himself out by working opening to closing.
On this particular December afternoon, he was finalizing the plans for his upcoming holiday event. Four times a year—on Easter, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas—he hosted a free buffet and open house for his customers, and anyone else in the community who wanted to join in.
He’d been doing this for years, even when he could barely afford it, because for a lot of seniors in the neighborhood this might be the only celebration they had to look forward to. It always took a lot of time and effort, but I knew giving back meant everything to Arie.
He looked up from his menu and smiled at me, indicating the sketchpad under my arm as he asked, “What have you been working on?”
“I’ll show you, but first can you take a break for a little field trip?”
“Sure.”
He put on his hoodie and told his cook he’d be stepping out for a bit. Once we were outside, he went straight to the truck I’d recently bought us, but I said, “Actually, we’re walking.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
As we crossed the busy intersection, I pointed at the former bank that was directly across the street from the diner and asked, “Are you familiar with this place?”
“Sure, it’s been here forever. I used to have an account there, but about eight years ago, a huge national bank bought a bunch of local banks and closed most of them. The building’s been empty ever since, except for a short period about a year ago. A developer bought it and started to do some work on it, but he ran out of funding. It’s a real shame too, because it’s a beautiful building, especially on the inside.”
“Let’s take a look.”
“We can’t,” he said. “I’m sure it’s locked.”
I pulled a set of keys from my pocket with a flourish. “It is, but I have these.”
When I started to unlock the door, he asked, “Why do you have the keys to this place?”
“Hold all of your questions until the end, please.”