The Waitress Who Split Her Tips With a Homeless Man in 1998 Just Got a Call From His Attorney

The attorney on the phone said the name Walter Prine, and I almost dropped the coffee pot.
I was standing behind the counter at Delaney’s Diner in Millbrook, Ohio, the same counter I’d been standing behind for twenty-seven years.
It was 6:14 in the morning.
The breakfast rush hadn’t started yet.
My daughter Casey was rolling silverware in napkins at the corner booth.
“Ma’am? Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” I said.
“I just, I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

“Then you do remember him.”

I set the coffee pot down.
My hand was shaking a little, which annoyed me.
I’m fifty-eight years old and I do not shake over phone calls.
“I remember him,” I said.
“But there has to be some mistake. Walter didn’t have anything. He slept behind the hardware store.”

The attorney was quiet for a second.
“Mrs. Halloran, my name is David Chen. I’m with Chen and Whitfield in Cleveland. Walter Prine passed away three weeks ago. You are named in his will. I’d like to drive out to Millbrook this Thursday and meet with you in person, if that’s acceptable.”

I said yes because I didn’t know what else to say.
Then I hung up and stood there staring at the coffee pot like it owed me an explanation.
Casey looked up from her napkins.
“Mom? You okay?”

“Do you remember Walter?”

She squinted.
“The old guy with the beard? From when I was little?”

“That’s him.”

“I remember you used to make me bring him a to-go cup of soup. Every Tuesday. I thought he was your uncle for like three years.”

I laughed, but it came out wrong.
I met Walter Prine in the spring of 1998.
I was thirty-one, freshly divorced, working doubles at Delaney’s because my ex had cleared out the checking account on his way to Reno.
Casey was four.
I was renting a one-bedroom above the pharmacy and eating whatever the cook was going to throw out at the end of the night.
Walter would come in every morning and sit at the counter and order a coffee, which was fifty cents.
That was all he could afford.
Sometimes he’d count out the pennies from a Ziploc bag.
The other waitresses ignored him.
The manager, a man named Boyd who is dead now and I will not pretend to miss, told me to stop refilling Walter’s cup because it was bad for business to have “that kind” sitting at the counter.
I refilled Walter’s cup anyway.
And once a day, when Boyd was in the back on a smoke break, I’d slide Walter a plate of eggs and hash browns and pretend a customer had sent them back.
At the end of every shift I’d count my tips and put two dollars in an envelope in the register.
On Friday I’d give the envelope to Walter and tell him it was from an anonymous customer who liked his manners.
Ten dollars a week.
In 1998 that bought a lot of canned soup.
I did this for almost two years.
Then one Tuesday in the winter of 2000, Walter didn’t show up.
Or the Tuesday after.
I asked around.
Someone at the hardware store said his brother had come and gotten him and taken him somewhere out east.
Nobody knew where.
I hadn’t thought about him in maybe fifteen years.
Not really.
Sometimes I’d see an old man on a bench and my chest would do a little thing, but that was it.
Now his attorney was driving three hours to sit in my diner.
Thursday came too fast.
I wore my good blouse, which is a stupid thing to wear to work, and Casey noticed and gave me a look but didn’t say anything.
David Chen turned out to be a young guy in a suit that fit him better than any suit I’ve ever seen in Millbrook.
He sat in the corner booth.
He ordered coffee and didn’t touch it.
He opened a leather folder and slid a single sheet of paper across the table to me.
I looked at the number on the paper.
Then I looked at him.
Then I looked at the number again.
“This is a mistake,” I said.
“It isn’t.”

“This can’t be right. This is, this is a house. This is more than a house.”

David Chen folded his hands.
“Mrs. Halloran,” he said, “there are some things about Walter Prine you need to know. And they’re going to take a while to explain.”

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