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“Sorry, Mom.” Mira grabbed the binder she always took the blame for moving, even though she never did. “I must have left it next to the sink.”
Swiping a hand across her brow, leaving an irritated smear of flour behind, she said, “Don’t make excuses for me, Mira. I know you didn’t move it. What good is a recipe book if I can’t remember where it is?”
“It’s just like Jen said.” Mira placed the binder next to the empty bowl. “No strategy is perfect. If one doesn’t work, we—”
“Try another, I know.” Pointing her spoon in Mira’s direction, she said, “I used to change Jen’s diapers, and now she’s making labels and laminating signs to remind me where the forks go. It’s not right.”
“We can always find a different speech therapist. Maybe someone who hasn’t been my best friend since we were two years old. There must be someone around here whose diapers you didn’t change. Maybe in Bozeman? Missoula? Spokane?”
“You’re very funny.”
“Seriously, though,” Mira said, meeting her mom’s stare, tiptoeing along the tightrope between concern and keeping things light, solving problems while trying not to make new ones. “If it’s weird seeing Jen, I’ll drive you wherever we need to go. I think the therapy is helping, but I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
The lines around her mom’s mouth, between her brows, softened. “I know you would. But you already do too much for us. Besides, I love Jen, you know that. It’s just…” When she looked around the kitchen, at the shiny signs taped up on every wall, the labels pasted on every drawer, the lines returned. “These are the signs of our lives.”
Mira had to admit the signage was getting a little out of hand, but—“If they allow you to continue doing the things you want to do without me hovering over your shoulder all the time, they’re worth it, right?”
While her mom’s attention swiveled back to the mixing bowl, her mouth opening for a reply, the bell Mira’s grandfather had hung above the bakery door nearly seventy-five years ago wentding.
“Hold that thought,” Mira said, flipping to theSnickerdoodlepage in the binder.
“Is that a memory joke?” Her mom’s hand landed on her hip, her fingers pointing to theConfusedin the Glaze and Confused logo on her apron. “Because I’ve already forgotten if it was funny.”
Mira snorted. At least it wasn’t so bad yet. At least they could still laugh about it. At least her mom could still bake, even if she needed signs and binders to do it. She slid the glass container of granulated sugar across the counter, kissed her mom’s cheek, and said, “You know none of my jokes are funny.”
Switching the playlist from the indie mix they’d been listening to all day to late ’80s/early ’90s alternative, Mira pulled her ponytail tight while the first few drumbeats of REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” played over the speakers. Not realizing the significance of the song, the obvious cosmic warning goingrat-a-tat-tat, she walked down the hall, rounded the corner into the bakery, and froze in place like she’d hit concrete. Spinning on her heel, plastering herself against the wall, she hissed, “Shit!”
“Mira? What’s wrong?” her mom called to her down the hallway, her preternatural skill of hearing any swear word uttered within a country mile fully intact. “Is it a mouse?”
No, it wasn’t a mouse. A mouse would have been great. Compared to the ex-boyfriend who’d bailed on her, then married another woman two minutes later, currently perusing her pie rack, a mouse would have been a goddamned delight!
“Mira?” Paul said, his deep, familiar voice triggering a painful neck spasm. “Are you back there?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Uh, just a second,” she said, louder than she probably needed to. “I…had to pee.”Fantastic.
“O-kay,” Paul said slowly, probably running a hand through his dark brown hair, probably looking slick and handsome and completely put together while she had a neon yellow bra strap sliding down her arm.
With a deep breath, she slid the strap back up, finger-combed her bangs, groaned as quietly as she could, then stepped into the bakery.
“Hi, Paul,” she said woodenly. She looked at the floor, then at the clock on the wall, and finally, awkwardly, at his face. She blinked fast, protectively, like if she stared at him too long, her retinas would detach—which was something her optometrist had warned her about just last week after she’d started having floaters. “How can I help you today?”
“Did you get something in your eye?” His head tilted in a way that made his soft hair swoop over his smooth forehead. Paul was one of those fifty-year-old men who barely aged—no gray hairs, only enough wrinkles to be charming, retinas likely firmly attached.
“Must be some flour.” Mira rubbed her eyes, then forced herself to look at him like a normal person. “What are you doing back in town?”
“We’re here for the wedding.”
“Oh, right.” She mashed her lips together. “Of course.” Of course he was going, because, for some unknowable reason, the entire populace of Red Falls invited anyone they’d ever known to their weddings. “Welcome back, I guess.”
“How’ve you been? I’ve been meaning to call—”
A scoff launched out of her. Because if he was about to say he’d been meaning to call her, she was about to tell him he was full of shit. He hadn’t reached out to her once in the two years since her mom moved in, and he hightailed it back to Bozeman.
His expression fell, almost wounded, throwing her off balance the way raindrops did when the sun was still shining. “Mira, please.”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Don’tMira, pleaseme, okay? We’re good. Everything’s great. Mom’s great. Ian’s great. I’m super great.” It was almost true. True enough. True adjacent.
