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Chapter35
HARPER
She froze. She had to be hearing things. But there it was again.
“Sweet, so sweet, hello to my favorite treat.”
Who the heck would be singing her childhood bonbon jingle?
A flash of pink caught her eye through a sea of brown branches and willowy green aspens fluttering in the breeze. A woman in a pink blouse sat on a downed tree trunk. She had four flat rocks on her lap, and like the nurse in the SUV had mentioned, the woman had a piping bag in her hand.
What was she doing? Decorating rocks to look like sugar cookies?
“Sweet, so sweet, hello to my favorite treat,” the woman sang again, then hummed the tune as she attended to her stones.
Harper narrowed her gaze. She recognized the woman.
“Mrs. Sweet?” she said, hardly able to believe her eyes. But it had to be her. She couldn’t even count the number of times she’d been in the shop with her grandparents and seen the lady carrying out trays of meticulously decorated cookies.
The woman looked up. “Hello, Harper Barbara. I was just singing. I do love to sing when I bake. Did you know I was a soloist in my high school’s choir?”
That might be the oddest hello ever, but she decided to go with it.
“I…I didn’t,” she replied.
Mrs. Sweet brushed a lock of silver hair behind her ear. “Mr. Sweet just put out a tray of your grandpa’s favorite bonbons.” She surveyed her surroundings. “Where are your grandparents, dear? You’re an independent little thing, but they usually accompany you.”
What year did Mrs. Sweet think it was?
She didn’t know much about dementia, but she figured it best to keep playing along.
“My grandparents are inside. It looks like you’re doing your decorating outdoors today,” she answered, unsure if that was the right thing to say, but she didn’t want to upset the woman.
Mrs. Sweet glanced around, then chuckled. “Look at that! Mary Jane Sweet, how did you end up here?”
Mary Jane.
MJ.
It made sense now.
She’d totally forgotten the woman’s first name. To her, she’d always been Mrs. Sweet.
Tanner’s MJ emergencies had to be Mary Jane Sweet emergencies, and she’d bet that this was why Mr. Sweet was often called away from the bakery.
Mrs. Sweet returned to humming and attending to the objects on her lap.
Her heart broke for Mr. Sweet. When she was younger, she’d thought that the Sweets were attached at the hip inside the bakery. They’d seemed as much in love with each other as Babs and her grandpa Reeves.
But now wasn’t the time to take a walk down memory lane. While the woman appeared content and unharmed, she had to get her back to the assisted living facility.
“How about we head inside, Mrs. Sweet? I’ll walk with you.”
The baker surveyed her stone cookies. “I know sugar cookies aren’t your favorite, dear, but would you help me carry them? I’ll tell Mr. Sweet to add a few extra bonbons to your box for being such a good helper.”
“I’m happy to help,” she answered as Mary Jane handed her two rock cookies with the woman’s trademark intricate piping designs.
They walked through the foliage and reached the clearing not far from the playground just as Penny, Libby, and Charlotte appeared.
