Chapter 3 - My fingers hovered over the photograph.
“Celia,” I whispered.
Julian’s gaze remained fixed on my face.
“You knew her.”
“Knew her?”
My voice came out thinner than I intended.
“She worked at Sutton’s Bakery.”
“I know.”
“She was there almost every Saturday.”
“I know that too.”
The room seemed to tilt slightly, though nothing had moved.
I gripped the edge of the table.
Celia had been impossible to miss.
She had thick auburn hair she wore in a loose braid, a laugh that carried through the entire bakery, and a habit of stealing the first imperfect pastry from every tray before Mrs.
Sutton could object.
She had taught me how to tell when dough was ready by pressing the center with one finger.
“Celia was your wife,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And you knew she worked with me.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you hired me without saying anything?”
“I didn’t hire you because of her.”
“Then why?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because Miriam said you were qualified.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the answer I could give you this morning.”
The children watched us with growing unease.
Gabriel’s book lay forgotten beside his plate.
Lila had both hands wrapped around the wooden box.
Oliver’s biscuit remained untouched.
I turned toward them, forcing my voice to soften.
“Celia was very good at bread.”
“Mom said you were better,” Lila said.
The words struck me with such force that I had to look away.
“I don’t think that was true.”
“She said you could make bread feel warm before you even baked it.”
“That sounds like something she would say.”
“Did you know her when she was young?”
“She wasn’t old.”
Lila considered this.
“Dad says she was younger than him.”
“By four years,” Julian said.
“You know everything.”
“I know some things.”
“Not the important things.”
The silence that followed felt too large for the kitchen.
Julian moved toward the box.
“Lila, give it to me.”
She held it tighter.
“But Grace needs to read the note.”
“She can read it another time.”
“Why?”
“Because this is not the way I intended to tell her.”
“Then how were you going to tell her?”
He stopped.
There it was again—that careful stillness, the one people might mistake for control.
But now I saw what it concealed.
He was not deciding what to say.
He was trying to decide which truth would do the least damage.
I picked up the note.
The paper was cream-colored and folded twice.
Celia’s handwriting slanted slightly to the right, the letters round and impatient.
I knew it as well as I knew the rhythm of her laugh.
Grace—
If you ever find yourself in my kitchen, please make the bread the way we used to.
There are things my children need to remember.
And there is something Julian has never been brave enough to tell you.
The note ended there.
I read it again.
“Did she write this before she died?”
I asked.
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
“Three weeks.”
“Why would I ever find myself in your kitchen?”
Julian looked toward the windows.
Fog pressed against the glass, blurring the river and the bare branches beyond it.
“She believed you might come here someday.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It didn’t to me either.”
“Then explain.”
“I’m trying.”
“No.
You’re choosing.”
His eyes returned to mine.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Miriam appeared in the doorway carrying a folded dish towel.
She took in the photograph, the open box, and Julian’s expression.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“You knew,” I said.
She lowered the towel.
“I knew Celia wanted you here.”
“You recommended me because she asked you to?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what exactly?”
Miriam glanced at Julian.
He nodded once.
She came into the kitchen and sat beside Lila.
“Celia asked me to keep your name.”
“My name?”
“She wrote it down in a notebook.
Along with the name of the bakery, your schedule, and the days you usually worked.”
A chill moved through me.
“Why?”
“She said if anything happened to her, the children would need someone who understood what food could do.”
“That still doesn’t explain why she expected me to come here.”
“No,” Miriam said.
“It doesn’t.”
Julian pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down.
The position made him look less like the man whose name made lawyers cautious and more like a father who had been awake too many nights.
“Celia was ill for a long time,” he said.
I knew that.
Everyone at Sutton’s had known, though she had treated the illness like an inconvenience that could be managed with tea and stubbornness.
She had missed work for appointments, lost weight, and once fallen asleep sitting upright behind the bakery counter.
“She told us it was something treatable,” I said.
“It was.
At first.”
I remembered the last Saturday I had seen her.
Celia had been standing near the cooling racks, one hand braced against the counter.
Her skin looked pale beneath the flour dust on her cheek.
“You should go home,” I had told her.
She had smiled.
“And leave you alone with Mrs.
Sutton?
She’ll make you work until your grandchildren retire.”
“You don’t have grandchildren.”
“Then you’ll have to do the work for both generations.”
I had laughed.
She had reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“Don’t let anyone convince you that being gentle means being weak,” she had said.
I had assumed she was talking about Colin.
Maybe she had known more than I realized.
“What happened?”
I asked.
Julian folded his hands on the table.
“The treatment stopped working.
She had good days and difficult days.
She didn’t want the children to understand how serious it was.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She tried.”
I stared at him.
“She wrote to you,” he continued.
“Several times.”
“I never received anything.”
“She asked me not to send them.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid you would come out of obligation.”
I looked at the note in my hand.
“But she wanted me here.”
“She wanted you to choose it.”
The words settled between us.
I thought of Mrs.
Bell’s recommendation.
Of Grey Haven.
Of the advertisement in the newspaper.
Of how quickly everything had lined up after I arrived in town.
“Did you arrange the advertisement?”
“No.”
“Did Miriam?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“Celia.”
My breath caught.
“She had the position prepared before she died,” Julian said.
“The notice was placed with a local employment service and held until after the holidays.
The woman who worked for us planned to leave at the end of the year.
Celia believed you might need work by then.”
“She expected me to lose my job?”
“No.”
“She expected something.”
“She expected you to eventually stop living the life you were living.”
The words were gentle, but they still felt like an intrusion.
“What life did she think I was living?”
Julian hesitated.
“The one you had chosen because it was safe.”
I looked down at my hands.
Flour had worked beneath my fingernails.
A small burn marked the side of my wrist from the boardinghouse oven.
I had spent eight weeks telling myself that starting over meant abandoning the person I had been before Colin.
But Celia had known me before Colin.
She had watched me take the first steady job I could find, accept every extra shift, and say yes whenever someone needed something from me.
She had seen me make myself useful until usefulness became the closest thing I had to an identity.
“She knew about Colin,” I said.
Julian’s silence answered.
“How?”
“I told her.”
“You told her about my fiancé?”
“Celia met him.”
I searched my memory.
“When?”
“At the bakery.
Twice, perhaps.”
I remembered Colin waiting outside one evening in his polished car, checking his watch while I finished closing.
Celia had stood beside me as I counted the register.
“That’s him?” she had asked.
“Yes.”
“He looks like he irons his socks.”
“Celia.”
“I’m only saying he has the face of a man who judges people for eating dessert.”
I had laughed then, though I had also defended him.
“He’s under pressure.”
“He’s always under pressure.
Some people build houses there.”
Now I looked at Julian.
“What did she tell you?”
“That she was worried you had begun apologizing for taking up space.”
The sentence made my throat tighten.
“No one asked her to involve herself.”
“She loved you.”
“She barely knew me outside the bakery.”
“Celia loved people quickly.”
That was true.
She loved Mrs.
Sutton’s terrible singing, the delivery driver’s anxious dog, and every new employee who needed someone to show them where the good knives were kept.
But love had not made her naïve.
She noticed everything.
“Why didn’t you tell me she had chosen me?”
May you like
I asked.
Julian’s expression shifted.
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