lifted his empty plate. “Could I get two more of those cinnamon rolls?”
“Make it four,” someone else said.
A woman near the register stood up. “I’ll take six croissants to go.”
Just like that, the chatter returned. Chairs scraped. Cups clinked. The room came back to life, warmer than before.
I turned to Nicole. “You checked the cameras before you came out.”
She shrugged, like it was nothing. “I knew Dad wasn’t as clever as he thinks he is.”
I looked at the little gift bag still sitting on the counter, then at my daughter—my brave, sharp, sixteen-year-old girl who had carried her father’s cruelty in silence for weeks, just to protect me. My throat tightened. And then, without warning, I broke down.
Nicole came around the counter and wrapped her arms around me.
“Mom.”
“I’m okay.” I pressed my face into her hair and held on. “I just
hate that he put you in the middle. That was never your burden.”
She only hugged me tighter.
Edward had once looked at Grandma’s little house and seen something that might one day belong to him. Grandma had seen something else entirely: a place for me to start over. A kitchen where I could remember who I was.
Rose had told me to stop surviving and start living. Standing in that bakery, surrounded by people who believed in me, with my daughter’s arms around me, I finally understood what she meant.
I turned around. Six people were waiting at the counter. Denise gave me a knowing smile.
“Those cinnamon rolls aren’t going to sell themselves.”
I wiped my eyes and laughed for the first time all day. “No,” I said. “Apparently not.”
Then I tied my apron a little tighter, washed my hands, and went back to work.
