Chapter 6 Welcome Home, Winona

POV: Millie

The diner claims to have the best breakfast for fifty miles. That's probably true since it appears to be the only place to eat around here. There's not even a McDonald's in this tiny town. The calm feeling I got from the scenery earlier has vanished. Now I'm just irritated, pacing back and forth across the gravel parking lot, kicking white rocks with my shoe while I try to figure out my next move. My shoulders are tight with tension, and I can feel a headache building behind my eyes.

The smell of bacon draws me toward the entrance, making my empty stomach clench with hunger. I wrinkle my nose at the red and white checkered curtains in the windows. The whole place looks like something from an old TV show - the kind my foster mom used to watch on lazy Sunday afternoons. A glass display case sits on a worn counter, and wow, the pies inside look amazing. Tall meringue peaks, fruit and cream filling, flaky crusts - my stomach growls loudly enough that I glance around, hoping nobody heard.

The aroma from the kitchen makes my mouth water. The place is packed with locals. Men in faded flannel and worn jeans lean back in their chairs, laughing at some shared joke. Kids with droopy eyes slump over tables, cheeks in their palms, barely touching breakfasts far too big for them. Tired moms sip coffee and swap gossip over half-eaten plates, their voices rising and falling in familiar rhythms. It's homey and comfortable, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else's business. But something about it makes me nervous, sets my teeth on edge. Maybe because every single person in the room seems to be staring at me as I make my way to an empty seat at the counter. I can feel their eyes tracking my movement, assessing me, comparing me to some mental image I can't see.

The noise of a dozen conversations hits me all at once, washing over me in waves. I'm so tired that even reading the menu takes effort. My eyes blur as I scan the laminated pages. Honestly, I'm hiding behind them, hoping nobody notices the obvious outsider hunched over the counter, trying to make herself invisible.

A waitress with a wide smile and a mountain of frizzy bleached blonde hair flips my coffee cup over and fills it without asking. The steam rises between us, carrying the rich scent of dark roast.

"What can I get 'cha, honey?" she asks brightly.

Honey. I glance over my menu and shoot her a look, but she doesn't notice. It's obvious I'm not from here because she starts listing her personal favorites before I can say anything. Her Midwestern accent, the way she runs all her words together without stopping for breath, grates on my nerves a little. Back in the city, people at least pretended to let you get a word in. I guess that's something I'll have to get used to if I stay. Just to stop her talking, I order something safe. How badly can anyone mess up pancakes and bacon?

The food appears in front of me almost instantly, and I start eating right away. Either I'm starving or these pancakes are incredible - probably both. The syrup is warm, and I'm pretty sure it's real maple syrup, not the fake stuff from a plastic bottle. The butter is real too, melting into a soft golden pool in the middle of a stack of pancakes as big as my head, piled so high they threaten to topple over. For the first time in days, something feels right. Simple. Uncomplicated.

By the third bite, I'm feeling much better. The food settles the anxious churning in my stomach, grounds me somehow. I think about asking the waitress - Diane, according to her nametag - a few questions, even though the rest of the diner keeps shouting for coffee refills. She seems chatty enough, the type who knows everything about everyone. I wonder what she knows about Mr. Galloway, my distant cousin and lawyer. About the Victorian house and the land that's supposedly mine now. Whether she knew any of my family. Whether she knew my parents, what they were like, why they left me behind.

She tops off my coffee and stares at me before I can ask anything, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "You're kin to the Galloways, aren't 'cha," she says, squinting at me over her glasses. It's not really a question, more like a confirmation of something she already knows. "I heard Han finally tracked down a relation."

Am I a Galloway? I guess I am, though the name still feels foreign on my tongue. I nod, and her smile gets bigger, spreading across her weathered face. "Well, you sure look like the lot of 'em," she says, nodding hard enough to make her hair bounce. "I can see your granddaddy and your daddy in ya', and your mama too. God rest their souls," she adds, glancing up at the ceiling as if they might be watching from above.

My heart stutters at the casual mention of people I've never known, people whose faces I can't even picture. They're real to her in a way they've never been to me.

Before I can ask anything, Diane refills my coffee and clears my empty plate with practiced efficiency. With a wink, she sets another helping of pancakes in front of me, as if feeding me might somehow make up for lost time. "Welcome home, then, Winona."

My fork freezes halfway to my mouth. Winona. She called me Winona. The certainty in her eyes tells me she knows exactly who I am, or who I was supposed to be. Is that my real name? Winona Galloway? It doesn't feel right, doesn't fit the person I've become. Winnie? Maybe that's better, softer somehow. No. I'm Millie Klein. That's who I've been for as long as I can remember. I can't forget that, not even for a second, no matter what some stranger in a diner calls me.

The diner stays busy, a constant flow of humanity moving through its doors. A table barely gets cleaned before someone else takes the seat, sliding into the still-warm vinyl. Diane's clearly too busy to answer anything in detail, rushing from table to table with coffeepot in hand. I'm exhausted, and my full stomach is making me sleepy, the kind of bone-deep tiredness that comes from too many sleepless nights. Mr. Galloway - Han, apparently - isn't expecting me until tomorrow morning. I need to find somewhere to stay tonight, though the prospect of navigating this small town alone makes my chest tight. I could call him if I had any cell signal and try to meet him a day early. But do I really want to learn the details of my past that badly? Do I want to know why they gave me up, why I wasn't enough to keep?

I pick at the pancakes, pushing them around my plate without much appetite now. I decide to wait until the diner clears out so I can talk to Diane properly, get some real answers instead of cryptic comments shouted over the din. She clearly knows Han. She clearly knew my parents too, probably watched them grow up, served them breakfast just like this. I look like them, apparently - a ghost of people I've never met. I try to picture them, what they looked like, what my grandfather looked like, what kind of people they were. Were they kind? Did they laugh easily? Did they ever think about me? I can't imagine any past beyond the one I already know, the succession of foster homes and temporary families. What kind of person would I be if I'd grown up here instead? Would I be happier? Would I belong?

The questions pile up fast enough to make my head hurt, each one spawning three more. Other than Diane, I have no one to answer them. And that thought - that crushing loneliness - is almost enough to make me walk out the door and never look bac