The order was still clipped above the grill when Remy bought the diner: two eggs, no toast, tea left to cool. The former cook had died suddenly. His daughter asked Remy to keep the paper until she understood why her father had written it in ink instead of using the order pad.
Regular customers offered several names. None remembered that exact breakfast. Then a delivery driver recognized the instruction about tea. It belonged to the cook's wife, who had lost her sense of taste during an illness. He prepared the plate on mornings when she felt well enough to come downstairs.
The order had remained after she died because moving it felt like deciding she would never return. The daughter had known about the breakfast but not the paper above the grill. She had eaten beneath it for years without looking up.
Remy gave her the original and asked whether he could keep a blank clip in its place. She said he should use it. By the next dawn, a new order hung there, written in pencil and already stained with ordinary work.