“So do we.”
“One of ours sticks if the moon is too humid.”
“That’s called character.”
“That’s called a police report waiting to happen.”
The oven screams again, longer this time, and a customer near the window flinches so hard coffee sloshes over his hand. I lift my voice toward the kitchen.
“It’s fine! Everything is fine! The oven is expressing itself!”
The customer gives me a doubtful thumbs-up.
Darlene waits until I face her again, and for once she does not sharpen her voice. “Honey, I know this place is your blood. I know your grandmother built the counter with your grandfather and your mother painted the trim twice a year even when therewas no money for new paint. I know what Sweet Tooth means to you.”
“Then don’t ask me to sell it.”
“I’m asking because I know what it means. Buildings can become graves if people are too sentimental to walk away.”
I fold the top invoice until the paper creases beneath my thumbnail. “Halo needs places like this.”
“Halo needs working sewage, honest police, and gangs that don’t treat teenage boys like farm crops.” Darlene gestures toward the front windows, where rainwater runs over the bakery logo in wavering lines. “Your cinnamon rolls are lovely, but they are not infrastructure.”
“No, they’re not. They’re breakfast. They’re somewhere warm when everything else feels cold. They’re a reason for people to sit down and remember they’re not animals fighting over scraps.” My throat tightens, which annoys me because righteous speeches should not come with emotional betrayal. “My grandmother used to say people can endure a lot if they know one door still opens for them.”
Darlene looks away first.
That means I win, but it feels like the kind of victory where everyone gets bruised.
“She also used to say your grandfather’s singing was romantic,” Darlene mutters. “Woman was not infallible.”
I smile despite myself. “Grandpa had a beautiful voice.”
“Your grandfather sounded like a garbage disposal full of bolts.”
“He sang with feeling.”
“So do wounded animals.”
The front bell rings before I can defend my dead grandfather’s musical legacy, and the lunch rush begins in earnest. The bakery fills with damp humanity. Coats drip onto the floor mats. Customers shake rain from their hair. The glassfogs from breath, coffee steam, and soup heat. I move from register to pastry case to coffee urn with the practiced rhythm of someone who has learned to smile while mentally calculating whether she can stretch one week’s profit across two weeks’ disasters.
“Two lunch specials, Evie,” Renn from the machine shop calls. “Put one on my account.”
“Your account is currently in witness protection.”
“I’ll settle Friday.”
“You said that last Friday.”
“Different Friday.”
Darlene mutters from the pass-through, “Time is a flat circle of deadbeats.”
Renn grins. “Love you too, Dar.”
“Die solvent.”
I box his order anyway because he has three kids and a wife whose hours were cut when the shipyards automated half her division. He knows I know. I know he hates that I know. So I make a face, slap the receipt against the counter, and say, “Friday. I want actual money or at least a dramatic performance of remorse.”
