The days begin folding together like dough.
I arrive before dawn. I check the rear alley, the locks, the window brace, the display case, the wiring, the roof seamover the kitchen that leaks whenever the wind comes from the harbor. Evie gives me coffee and a list she pretends is not a list because she knows direct orders offend my pride. Darlene insults my repair methods while asking me to repair more things. Customers begin stepping around me rather than away from me. Children stop hiding and start staring with curiosity. One asks whether my scales are armor. I tell her they are scales. She asks whether she can have some if one falls off. Evie nearly drops a tray laughing.
At night, I return to the tunnels later and later.
Al notices immediately.
“You smell like sugar again,” he says one evening, seated by the heater coil with a blanket around his shoulders.
“I work in a bakery.”
“Work, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Debt labor, right?”
“Yes.”
“How long’s that debt?”
I think of Evie looking at me under the precinct awning, rain on her face, offering me an excuse to stay. “Indefinite.”
Al laughs until he coughs. “Dumb bastard. You sound happy about it.”
“I am not happy.”
“Sure. You’re just less miserable in the shape of happiness.”
I give him a wrapped roll.
He snatches it from my hand. “See? Sugar. That girl’s colonizing you.”
“She is not.”
“She already has. You’re bringing tribute.”
“It is leftover inventory.”
“It’s a cinnamon dowry.”
“Stop speaking.”
He bites into the roll and closes his eyes. “Precursors above, she really can bake.”
“Yes.”
The answer leaves me too softly.
Al opens one eye. “Oh, you poor doomed son of a bitch.”
I walk away while he laughs.
The bakery asks for parts of me I did not know remained functional. Patience. Humor. Gentleness without immediate crisis. I learn to hold plates without making people watch my hands. I learn which regulars prefer silence and which prefer complaint as a form of greeting. I learn that Darlene smokes less when worried and more when angry, which means she smokes constantly but with nuance. I learn Evie talks fastest when she is nervous and hums when she is content. I learn she likes coffee with too much cream, hates fennel, loves old neighborhood stories, and keeps a small notebook of debts she will never collect but cannot bring herself to erase.
One late afternoon, after a rush leaves the bakery scattered with crumbs and tired warmth, Evie finds me sanding a replacement shelf for the display case.
“You ever miss home?” she asks.
