Page 189 of Just One Little Bargain

Daisy: can we talk?

Daisy: nvm, i know you’ll say no. im on my way to you

Daisy: already driving so don’t argue

I set the phone down and keep scrubbing.

She arrives five minutes later. I hear her shoes on the tile, the soft thud of her bag hitting the counter.

“Evie.”

I don’t glance up. “I’m working.”

“I can see that.” Her voice is careful. “Can you stop for a minute?”

“Not really.”

She crouches beside me, smelling faintly of the floral perfume Mom bought her for her birthday. “What happened last night after you left?”

My hand stills on the baseboard. “It’s complicated.”

“Not this again,” she groans.

“It’s all I have.”

“Mom and I thought you were going to fight for him. That he’d be back here by now.” She glances around. “But he’s not. And you’re in your weird deep cleaning mood.”

I sit back on my heels and look at her. “It wasn’t a breakup.”

“Then what was it?”

“It was more complicated than that. I tried to stop him from leaving, and it didn’t work. He’s gone.”

“Evie, I’m sorry.”

“I need time to process it.” I sound flatter than I mean to. “I promise I’ll tell you everything when I’m ready. Just not today.”

She doesn’t push. Instead, she stands, rolls up her sleeves, and starts pulling cleaning supplies from under the sink. “Where do you want me?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.” She’s already filling a bucket with water. “So where should I start?”

I point toward the fridge, and she goes without another word.

We work in silence for the rest of the afternoon. She folds the laundry wrong, creasing the fitted sheets into lumpy squares instead of proper rectangles. She knocks over the bleach in the Honeysuckle Room, and I watch it spread across the hardwood before grabbing towels to soak it up. Neither of us argues nor snaps. She helps me clean it, and when we’re done, she makes me tea that doesn’t have enough sugar and sits with me on the porch until the sun drops.

“Thank you,” I say as she’s leaving.

She hugs me. “Call me if you need anything. I mean it.”

On Monday, I burn three batches of cinnamon rolls, turning them into charcoal briquettes that set off the smoke detector and leave a smell in the kitchen that two open windows and a fan can’t chase out.

They were Milo’s favorites. I wasn’t trying to make them for him or think about the way he’d devour two before they’d cooled, licking icing off his fingers and asking if it was normal for humans to want to eat an entire pan by themselves.

Except I was thinking about exactly that.

I stare at the blackened tray, and my throat constricts. Marmalade appears in the doorway, surveys the disaster, and leaves.