I stare at the ledger for a beat, then I open it.
Drew’s grandfather’s handwriting greets me—looping, careful, each number placed with the precision of a man who believed accounting was a form of moral character. The entries start in the 1950s and keep going, page after page, in different inks and different hands as the decades turn. Customer names. Repairs done on credit. Materials donated when times were hard.
Hendersons—roof tin, no charge, bad winter.
Kowalski boy—first toolbox, half price, good kid.
Pelletier furnace, parts at cost, widow discount.
I turn the pages slowly. My paint-stained fingers trace the old script, following the numbers down columns that tell a story bigger than profit margins. This store has never been just a business; it’s been a promise, a handshake, a place where accounts were settled in more than dollars. It’s been settled in trust, in loyalty, in the quiet understanding that some debts are worth carrying.
I stand at the counter with the ledger open and feel something shift in my chest, tectonic and quiet.
This place is mine.
Not inherited. Not on loan. Not a placeholder, a memorial, or a duty I picked up because someone had to. Mine. The way the lavender bedroom is mine. The way the illustrations in the library are mine. The way the hand on the window glass this morning was mine, claiming something I built without noticing I was building it.
I have been keeping this trust for three years. Keeping the books balanced, keeping the doors open, keeping the promise this ledger represents…that Springs & Bells is more than inventory and sales. It’s the steady heartbeat of a town that needs it. And I have been that heartbeat, whether I knew it or not.
I close the ledger carefully, handling the cracked spine with the respect it deserves, and set it on the shelf beneath the register where it belongs. My fingers linger on the leather for a second longer than necessary, a goodbye and a hello at the same time.
Then I pick up my phone.
The screen lights up under my thumb. I open a new message, thumbs hovering over the keyboard for exactly three seconds before I start typing.
ME: Hey May. It’s Maddie. Random question—would you be up for helping me put together a little surprise for Jordan’s birthday? Nothing crazy, just... something that feels like them. I have ideas but could use a co-conspirator who actually knows how to throw a party.
I press send before I can talk myself out of it. The message flies, delivered, and I set the phone down on the counter and smile at nothing in particular.
The bell above the door jingles. A customer walks in, looking vaguely lost, and Melvin grunts from the back room, his version ofI’ve got this, go do whatever you’re doing with that dopey look on your face.
I leave him to it. The afternoon light slants through the front windows, painting the aisles in gold, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, the weight on my shoulders feels like something I chose to carry.
One day.
I think I’m ready.
Chapter 12
Morning at the Stocking feels like a low-budget spy thriller, and everyone in this house is a terrible actor. Anson won’t meet my eyes over the coffee pot. Dev has positioned themself directly in front of the kitchen calendar like a Secret Service agent guarding the nuclear football, and the spoon in my cereal bowl sounds about ten times louder than it's supposed to because no one is talking, and the silence is screaming.
I pour coffee, keeping my face neutral, the way a person who doesn’t notice anything suspicious would. “Weather looks decent today.”
Roz’s head snaps up from where she had it buried in the morning paper. “Yes. Weather. Very weather. I saw the forecast on my phone this morning, and it said weather, and that’s what I thought too.”
I take a sip of coffee and stare at her over the rim.
Dev coughs. “Anybody need anything from the store? Because I’m going to the store. Right now. To get things.” They pivot away from the calendar, which now hangs in plain view, completely unchanged from yesterday. Still July. Still the 29th. No cryptic notes, no circled dates, no smoking gun except the fact that they’re all standing in a kitchen acting like they’re smuggling uranium.
“Just eggs,” Anson says, too quickly.
I drain my coffee, rinse the mug, and shoulder my work bag. “I’m headed out. Chimney on Birchwood, then the flower shop.”
“Have a good day,” Roz calls after me, voice pitched an octave higher than her normal register.
“Yep.” I pull the door shut behind me and stand on the porch for a second, breathing in the morning air, letting my jaw unclench. People are bad at secrets. Especially people who share a bathroom schedule with you and know exactly how long you spend on your hair every morning. Whatever they’re planning, it’ll be obvious by lunch.
The Birchwood chimney takes two hours and leaves me looking like I’ve been working a coal mine. Soot in my hair, soot in my eyebrows, soot in the creases of my knuckles that I’ll be scrubbing for days. The homeowner pays cash, which I tuck into my front pocket, and as I’m packing up the rods, a gray-haired woman, one of the garden club regulars, materializes at my elbow and grips my forearm with fingers like garden shears.
