The morning continues.
Customers arrive. Coffee pours. Rain eases into mist. I carry three crates of flour from the delivery skiff while the driver stares at me with open relief because he had clearly expected to haul them himself. Evie pays him, jokes about needing hazard pay for my face before eight, and slips two rolls into his bag. He leaves smiling despite the district around him.
I notice these small transactions now.
Evie does not heal the world in grand gestures. She applies pressure to one wound at a time. A meal here. A joke there. A place to sit. A refusal to humiliate someone already stripped of pride. It is inefficient, unsustainable, and impossible to defend from a strategic standpoint. It is also the only reason some people who enter the bakery look human again when they leave.
By midday, a man with a dockworker’s coat and too-bright eyes steps inside, scans the room, and heads straight for the counter without looking at the menu. Not Poison Memories. Not wearing colors. But trouble has many uniforms.
“Coffee,” he says.
Evie reaches for a mug. “Sure thing.”
“Free,” he adds.
Her hand stops. “Excuse me?”
“Heard you feed people.”
“I feed people who ask like they remember I’m a person.”
He leans on the counter. “I’m asking.”
“No, you’re demanding.”
His gaze moves over her, unpleasant and slow. “You always this mouthy?”
I set the flour crate down behind him.
The floor shakes.
The man turns.
I do not speak. I do not need to. I stand close enough that he understands the amount of space I occupy and the choices available to him within it. His pupils widen. His throat works. The smell of chemical courage begins evaporating from him.
Evie’s voice comes from behind the counter, calm and far too cheerful. “Would you like to try that again?”
He swallows. “Coffee. Please.”
“See? Look at us building community.”
He pays.
I do not move until he takes his mug to the far table. When I look back at Evie, she is fighting a smile.
“What?” I ask.
“You didn’t even growl.”
“I can, if needed.”
“I know. That’s why it worked.”
Darlene walks past with a tray of clean cups. “Best customer service we’ve had in years.”
“I said nothing,” I tell her.
“Exactly.”
