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I follow him up to the front door, worried now that Patrick looks so worried and upset.
“I hope he feels better. Let me know if you guys need anything. I can pick it up on my way home,” I offer.
“Thanks, Eli,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads for the front door.
“Wait,” I call out but he’s already outside.
I grab a few Hershey Hugs from the jar under the counter and chase after him.
“Hey!” I call as Patrick reaches his car. “Give these to Brennan when he feels better,” I say, passing him the candies.
“Thanks, man. I’ll talk to you later!” he calls as he slips behind the wheel and takes off down the road toward the school.
I watch him go, noting that a few of my neighbors are outside. I raise my hand to wave at them and notice some of them giving me weird looks. When the Sheriff, Hank, drives past and gives me a wide, knowing smile, I let out a curse and head back inside the shop.
I try to push thoughts of Hartley and the rampant town gossip from my head as I finish stocking and help a few customers. When I break for lunch and my mother still hasn’t called me to ask about the topless girl that I had in my shop, I start to think that maybe I dodged a bullet.
Deep down though, I know that it’s only a matter of time before the town gossip reaches her ears. She might live a few thousand miles away now, but she still has friends who live in town and who will be all too happy to tell her what they heard her son was getting up to.
She’s been pushing for me to settle down and give her grandbabies for years now, so I know that once she hears, she’ll be over the moon excited. Then I’ll have to ruin her mood by explaining that it’s not what it seems.
And then, she’ll try to set me up with a friend of hers. It will, of course, go terribly and the cycle will repeat over and over again.
I sigh as I get back to work stocking shelves and trying not to flinch or show fear every time the phone rings.
FIVE
Hartley
I wake early the next morning and make a to-do list for the day before I remember that I don’t have my car. I had called the mechanic last night after I got home and he assured me that he would look at it first thing this morning.
It’s still too early for most people to be awake, so I pad into the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee. I should be nailing down the bakery menu, figuring out what the heck I’m going to call the place, and ordering the last of the ingredients and equipment that I need for the kitchen but instead, I find myself carrying my coffee cup over to the couch.
I head into my bedroom, stretching up on my tiptoes to reach the old shoebox on the shelf in the back of my closet. The worn cardboard is familiar and always brings a smile to my face. I run my fingertips over the top of the lid, smiling softly as memories start to pop up in my mind.
Grams and I decorated it when I was just a kid, gluing tissue paper and pictures of food to the entire outside. The box was Grams’ idea. I think that she knew that it was too easy to get discouraged in this life and to just stop trying to reach your dreams. She said if we had it, had something that we could hold in our hands and strive toward, that we would never stop fighting to get our bakery and reach our dreams.
We’ve been filling the box with all of the ideas for when we were going to open our own bakery. We used to look through it all the time but we seemed to stop when Grams got sick. I guess that was when we stopped making plans. It was too hard, too painful to dream of the future when Grams’ was so uncertain.
I sit down on the couch and take a deep breath, preparing myself for the old memories and grief that this box may bring up, before I flip the lid of the box off.
Recipes, loose pieces of paper, and a few photos lie inside. I smile as I pick up the photos first, flipping through them and laughing as I see Grams and I in our kitchen back in Atlanta, our faces and hair streaked with flour, our arms thrown around each other as we grin into the camera. You can see cookies lining the counter behind us and the dirty dishes piled high in the sink.
There are more pictures of us together and some of us separate with different desserts. I flip through them slowly, smiling as I remember the day that they were taken and the memories that they bring back.
I move onto the recipe cards next, my eyes tearing up when I see my grams’ writing. She had made stars at the top of the index card of the ones that she liked best and I set those to the side, promising myself to make them later. Maybe I’ll end up making one of them to sell downstairs.
Finally, I pull out the loose pieces of paper. There are different samples of paint colors, pictures from magazines and ads of ovens and countertops that we had liked. I probably can’t even find spare parts for the ovens and mixers that we had liked back then, they’re too old, but I know that I can still find something similar to the paint colors that we had picked out. I’ll need to do that soon too so I can send the colors to the designer I hired to make the logo. I’ll need a name first.
I groan when I think of all that I have to do. I set an opening date for February eleventh so that I would be open for Valentine’s Day sales. Now I’m wondering if that was a huge mistake.
I set the ad clippings aside with the recipe cards and grab my coffee cup, taking a big gulp. My eyes are a little damp, but I don’t feel the grief that I thought I would. I still miss her, of course. I still think about her every day. Thoughts of her pop up at the most random of times.
I still wish more than anything that she was still here with me for all of this, but seeing all of our dreams and hard work about to pay off just has me feeling happy. I know that Grams would be proud of me for finally getting our bakery dream off the ground.
I finish my coffee and check the time. The mechanic’s shop opened half an hour ago, so I set my empty cup in the sink and head into my bedroom. I make quick work of showering and getting dressed before I tug on my new parka and winter boots and grab my keys and wallet.
I make it down to the street before I realize that I’m going to need my hat and mittens. It’s freaking colder outside today than it was yesterday. How is that possible?
