Chapter 4
“She mailed it after our last conversation.”
“Did you read it?”
“Not for years.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because I was still angry at myself.”
She gave a small, sad smile.
“Pride becomes ridiculous when you carry it long enough.”
“What does the letter say?”
Evelyn slid it toward me.
“It says she forgave me.”
My throat tightened.
“She also asked me something.”
“What?”
Evelyn nodded toward the binder.
“To make sure you and Chloe eventually knew she didn't regret leaving the bakery.”
I didn't understand.
“She loved it.”
“She did.
But leaving changed her life.”
Evelyn smiled faintly.
“She met your father six months later.”
I stared at her.
Dad had died when Chloe was very young.
Mom had always described meeting him as an accident at a bus stop during a rainstorm.
I'd never realized that bus stop belonged to a life she wouldn't have been living if the bakery hadn't ended.
“She wrote that losing one dream made room for another,” Evelyn said.
“She wanted you to know that choices can be painful without being mistakes.”
That sentence settled somewhere deep inside me.
For years, I had thought of my life as a series of things I had no choice about.
Mom dying.
School.
Work.
Bills.
Responsibility.
I rarely thought about what I actually wanted.
Evelyn continued.
“There is one more issue.”
Of course there was.
Daniel opened another document.
“The money can't simply be transferred.”
“Why not?”
“Your mother's estate was closed years ago.
There are legal steps.
Nothing alarming, but it may take time.”
I almost laughed.
“I've survived this long.”
Daniel smiled.
“There's another option.”
“What?”
“The account also includes ownership rights to three of the bakery's original recipes.”
I looked at Evelyn.
“Which ones?”
“Cinnamon bread, orange scones, and apple cake.”
Mom's recipe box.
All three were inside.
“A local café company has asked several times to purchase the rights,” Daniel said.
“It would increase the amount considerably.”
“How considerably?”
He gave me a figure.
I blinked.
Enough to pay a significant portion of my tuition.
Enough to make Chloe's next few years easier.
Enough that I wouldn't have to count every shift in groceries.
“You want me to sell?”
“No,” Evelyn said quickly.
“Then what?”
“That's your decision.”
For once, nobody was telling me what I had to do.
Not Julian.
Not Evelyn.
Not Daniel.
That freedom was strangely frightening.
I looked toward the window.
Mom had left a bakery when staying might have looked safer.
Maybe meaningful choices rarely arrived looking safe.
That evening, Chloe and I baked the cinnamon bread.
We ruined the first loaf.
The second wasn't much better.
The third filled the apartment with the smell of butter and cinnamon, and for ten wonderful minutes, it felt as though Mom had simply stepped into another room.
Chloe cut herself an enormous slice.
“We should keep the recipes.”
“You don't even bake.”
“I've baked three loaves tonight.”
“You measured salt with a tablespoon.”
“The recipe was unclear.”
“It said teaspoon.”
“Tiny writing.”
I laughed.
Then Chloe became thoughtful.
“What do you want?”
I looked at her.
“With the money?”
“No.”
She pointed at me with her fork.
“With your life.”
Nobody had asked me that in years.
Maybe nobody ever had.
“I don't know.”
“You wanted to study architecture.”
“I am studying architecture.”
“No.
You wanted to actually be an architect.”
I smiled.
“That generally follows.”
“You talk about school like it's a punishment.”
I looked down.
She was right.
I had been surviving for so long that even the things I loved had turned into obligations.
“I like designing things,” I said.
“Then maybe keep doing that.”
“What about you?”
“I'm fourteen.”
“That's not an answer.”
“My plan currently involves passing algebra.”
“Ambitious.”
She smiled.
Then she reached across the table.
“We don't have to solve everything Mom didn't solve.”
I squeezed her hand.
“No.”
“We can just solve ours.”
Later, while cleaning the recipe box, I noticed something written beneath one of the cards.
A name.
Rose Mercer.
And a phone number.
I stared at it.
The name appeared nowhere in the binder.
I called Evelyn.
“Do you know someone named Rose Mercer?”
Silence.
Then Evelyn said, “Where did you find that?”
“Mom's recipe box.”
Another pause.
“Yes.
I know her.”
“Who is she?”
Evelyn's answer changed everything again—but this time, not because of money.
“Rose was the third person who helped us start the bakery.”
I frowned.
“The partnership documents only show you and Mom.”
“Because Rose refused ownership.”
“Why?”
“She said she didn't want money.”
“What did she want?”
Evelyn's voice softened.
“She wanted Laura to promise that if the bakery ever succeeded, she'd use part of it to help someone else get started.”
I looked at the account papers spread across the kitchen table.
“Did Mom ever do that?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
There was regret in Evelyn's voice.
“That's the part neither of us finished.”
I stared at the phone number written beneath Rose's name.
The area code was local.
May you like
And suddenly the question wasn't merely what Mom's money could do for Chloe and me.
It was why she had hidden Rose's number in the one place she knew we might someday look.
