Page 126 of Matchmaking On The Menu

“Stay there,” I say.

She does and I step back, framing it. Her in the present, the diner in the past. Connected.

And when she looks at me again, something shifts in her expression. Not just strength. Not just love. Something quieter. A kind of satisfaction that comes from knowing it all mattered. I don’t hesitate. I take the shot.

By the time we finish, the diner has fully descended into chaos again. Shelly’s leaning over my shoulder before I’ve even lowered the camera properly, Mary practically bouncing beside her while Quadri pretends she’s less invested than everyone else despite the fact she hasn’t stopped hovering near the laptop for the last ten minutes.

“Move,” Shelly complains. “You’re blocking the screen.”

“I’m literally operating the screen,” Quadri deadpans.

Mildred sits back in the booth with a cup of coffee, like none of this concerns her in the slightest.

I start loading the shots onto the laptop. There’s immediate noise.

“Oh my god.”

“Wait, that one’s beautiful.”

“Look at the lighting.”

“Grandma, you look hot.”

Dannica sighs. “Shelly.”

“What? She does.”

Mildred rolls her eyes, but I catch the way her mouth twitches. The shots move one after another across the screen: Mildred laughing; Mildred rolling her eyes; Mildred with her hands wrapped around a coffee mug like it’s part of her; the diner glowing warm around her. And then the room goes quiet. Quadri stops scrolling. Mary sucks in a soft breath. Even Shelly stops talking. The photo fills the screen. Mildred sitting beside the old painting of the diner when it was first built. The years between them somehow visible and invisible at the same time. Her posture straight, expression soft but tired around the edges in this deeply human way. Not sad. Not regretful. Satisfied.

Like someone who built something lasting and finally allowed herself to rest beside it for a moment.

Timeless.

“That’s the one,” Quadri says quietly.

Nobody argues.

Beside me, Dannica stares at the screen like she forgot how to breathe.

“Teddy,” she says softly, almost reverently. “It’s perfect.”

I look at the image again, then at Mildred, then at Dannica standing beside me with ink smudged against the side of her hand from editing headlines half the afternoon.

And for the first time in years, something inside me settles completely.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It is.”

Not just the photo. This. All of it. I step away before anybody notices the shift happening inside me too clearly.

“Where are you going?” Shelly calls.

“To make a phone call.”

Nobody questions it. The cool evening air hits me the second I step outside, the noise of the diner muffling behind the closed door. I pull my phone out before I can overthink it and dial.

Rick answers on the second ring.

“Teddy! I was just about to call you. I was starting to think you’d actually gone feral. I said a month, then I managed to get you another one. It’s time.”