by Shirley Jump
In that instant, she was twenty-two and sitting in the dining room at her mother’s house, with all of her sisters and Ben. Ma ducked into the kitchen and emerged with a three-tier torta, the scent of almond meringue dancing in the air. Instead of putting it on the table, Ma handed the cake to Ben. He’d dropped to one knee—in front of her entire family—and held the platter out to her, turning it so one curl of gold ribbon faced her. “I love you, Nora, and I don’t want to spend another day without you. At the end of that ribbon is our future, if you want it. Marry me.”
She’d been stunned, completely in the dark that this family dinner was an impromptu engagement party. She tugged on the gold string and out slipped a diamond ring—elegant and simple and perfect. In that moment, with the ring and meringue and the joy in the room, Nora had thought her life forward would be as beautiful and amazing as the cake.
But like the dessert, nothing lasted forever. The gold ribbon had long ago been lost, and the sweet moments had soured and spoiled.
“So…you didn’t say. How was your birthday? Do anything special?” Bridget lifted one of the rounds for the layer cake onto a turntable and grabbed a frosting knife. “If I know Ben, he did something huge and over the top for you.”
Nora hesitated. Ben’s extravagance had been a major source of contention between them for years. Which for Ben meant expending huge amounts of cash they didn’t have, and when their savings dipped, he’d gone to the dog track or the horse races, in an ever-spiraling quest to “fix everything.”
In the end, all his big gifts and grand plans had cost them everything. She should have known it from that first day with the torta. There was no middle ground with Ben, and only rare moments of him facing reality. She’d been the one who worried and fussed and returned the overpriced sweaters he’d bought her. He’d looked at her like she’d let all the helium out of his balloons, and instead of apologizing or taking things down a notch, Ben had ramped up the celebration for the next holiday. She stopped trusting him with the checkbook and then stopped trusting him with their lives. It had been a year since he went to the gambling rehab place in New Hampshire, but Nora still saw shades of the old Ben in his tendency to overdo a simple holiday. Last Christmas, he’d bought the kids a trampoline without talking to Nora first. A trampoline she had had to return the next week, just to pay the electric bill. Which meant she was the bad guy, yet again.
“You know Ben—of course he did, but a little more muted this time because we’ve both been so busy.” Nora pasted on a smile. She’d gotten so used to lying about her life that the words slipped out with barely a hitch in her chest. “Balloons, flowers, a whole big surprise when I got home last night. We took the kids to Giovanni’s for dinner, then called the sitter so Ben and I could walk the beach. He had picked up that Italian pinot gris I love, and we had a little picnic under the stars.”
The lie sounded so convincing that for a second, even she could believe it. Maybe she’d imagined the auction notice. The fight with Ben. The night in the hotel and the suitcase in the back of her car.
“You know, you really do have the perfect life,” Bridget said with a sigh. “I used to be so jealous, and, hell, maybe I still am even though Garrett is awesome. But Ben…boy, he really does it up right.”
Nora checked the smoothness of the frosting job, avoiding Bridget’s gaze. Pale pink buttercream wrapped around the moist cake in a flat, even pattern. Her life might be out of control, but inside the walls of the bakery, Nora could keep order. Maybe that was why she liked working here so much. The precision of measuring, the dependability of what emerged from the ovens, the straight, neat decorations that turned ordinary into amazing. “Yeah, he’s one of a kind.”
Bridget turned her cake as she skimmed frosting along the edges, her movements fluid and practiced. “By the way, Ma said that new girl is starting today. The one she met at Roger’s place.”
“Oh yeah, the intern. I forgot about that.” The extra help would be a blessing, especially since Nora had been so distracted lately. The orders had been piling up while Nora’s motivation had been dipping lower every day, and even with her sisters here, it had been hard to keep up. She needed to get back on track, to focus on work. Except her mind kept wandering to that yellow notice, to the house that was no longer hers. To the question of what the hell she was going to do. Nora shook her head and cleared her throat. “Ma spends a lot of time over at the shelter.”
Sophie’s Home was a shelter started for women and children who were down on their luck or escaping dangerous situations. Nora had seen those women, women who looked just like her. Women who had lost everything.
She was one of them now, she realized. Homeless, broke, lost.
“I think she has a crush on Roger,” Bridget said. The founder of the shelter had been introduced to their mother at church last year, and they seemed to have hit it off right away. “And he definitely has one on her. He’s over here all the time, for some imaginary reason or another. What was it yesterday? He dropped off an umbrella because there was a thirty percent chance of rain. Ma parks right outside the back door. She doesn’t need an umbrella to walk ten feet. Still, it’s kinda cute to see him do that kind of thing.” Bridget finished frosting the top of the first round, and then set it to the side and placed a second cake on the turnstile. “Okay, how am I beating you at this? You’re like the decorating Iron Chef. Usually you’ve got two and a half cakes done to my one.”
“I’m just tired. Late night of birthday celebrating.” Which sounded a whole lot better than a sleepless night on a too-firm hotel bed. Nora’s mind had churned, panic clawing at the edges of every thought.
Bridget nudged Nora. “You and Ben, just as in love as you were when you got married, huh?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Nora and Ben had had sex only once in two years. They’d become glorified roommates who shared two kids. In the middle of the night, when the dark crowded into her space in the guest room, Nora wondered what Ben had done for the last two years. When their marriage had been good, they’d had a healthy sex life. She doubted Ben could go more than two weeks without some kind of physical encounter, and given how little he was home nowadays, she had often wondered who he was spending those late nights with. The thought of Ben with someone else pained her, but she’d never asked. She had checked out of their marriage and essentially left him, which meant he was free to do as he pleased. To share that smile with someone else.
Bridget paused. “Hey, you okay?”
Nora dipped the knife into the tub, scooped up too much buttercream, and then scraped the glob off and grabbed another, smaller one. “Sure. Fine.”
Bridget stopped frosting, put her back to the counter, and faced Nora. “You sound a little…different. I don’t mean to pry, but you haven’t seemed like yourself in a while.”
“I’m fine. Just…tired.” Nora studied the cake as if her life depended on it. When the bell over the shop door rang, she shoved her knife into the tub. “I’ll get that.”
“I can—”
But Nora was already out of the kitchen and into the front portion of Charmed by Dessert. She’d always loved the public face of their family-owned bakery. Bright white paint lightened the walls, the starkness offset by pink window trim and black wrought-iron café tables. The glass case, full of pretty much every baked good imaginable, dominated one wall of the shop.
And all a stark contrast to the twentysomething girl standing in the center of the bakery. She was tall, thin as a beanpole, as Gramma used to say, with dark purple hair cut in a short spiky style. Nora counted at least four piercings above her neck—ears, brow, nose—and she could see the edge of a floral tattoo sticking out from under the sleeve of the girl’s leather jacket.
“Hey, I’m Iris.” The girl nodded toward Nora. “You work here?”
“I’m one of the owners.” Nora wiped her hand on her apron and stepped forward. “I’m Nora.”
The girl had a firm handshake, but her gaze cut away to the floor. S
hy? Or shady? “Uh, Roger says I’m supposed to work here,” Iris said. “Said I was supposed to talk to Colleen.”
“That’s my mother. She owns the bakery, along with me and my sisters. She’s not here right now, but she told us you’d be coming in today,” Nora said. “Do you have any experience working in a bakery?”
And do you have a criminal record? Probably not a good question to ask, Nora decided.
“No, I mean, like, not a real one.” Iris toed the floor. “Before…well, before, I used to help my grandma in the kitchen.”
Good Lord. Roger had probably sent her some girl who barely knew how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. The “help” was going to end up being more work than it was worth. Still, Nora couldn’t turn her away. If Iris was truly terrible, Nora would just put her on dish duty. “Well, let’s get you in the back and get you started. We have a couple orders that have to go out today, so you arrived just in time.”
The girl looked ready to bolt. “Wait. Like I start now?”
“Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”
“No. Not really.” Iris raised her gaze and met Nora’s for a second. Dark kohl eyeliner ringed Iris’s blue eyes and dominated her features, emphasized the paleness of her skin. She looked tired and sad, and unsure. “But, like, don’t you need to interview me or, like, background check me or piss-test me?”
“Are you a felon? A drug addict?”
Iris shook her head. “I got enough of both in my family.”
A sadness hung in Iris’s voice, a weariness that seemed decades too old for her young, unlined face. Nora tried to think of something comforting to say back but only came up with, “Well, good.”
The girl didn’t reply. Nora wondered if maybe she should have done an interview, or something like that. She’d just assumed, after all that Ma had said about the women at Sophie’s Home, that Roger had vetted whoever he sent to the shop.
Either way, Nora had more than enough on her plate right now. She didn’t need to add a sullen twentysomething who looked like she’d hopped off a Slipknot tour bus five minutes ago. She’d hand Iris off to Bridget and bury herself in decorating until it was time to get the kids from school.
Iris lagged behind as Nora pushed on the swinging door and led her into the kitchen. Bridget looked up and gave them a smile. “Hi. I’m Bridget. Nora’s better sister.”
Nora scoffed. “That’s a matter of opinion.”
Bridget waved off the words. “Don’t listen to her. She’s grumpy because she’s thirty now. If you want to grab an apron from the hook, I can get you started.”
Iris hesitated. “I…I’ve never worked in a bakery before. Should I just watch for a while?”
“Baking’s the kind of thing you have to do hands-on,” Bridget said. “So wash your hands, put on the apron, and get ready to get a little messy.”
Iris did as she was told, looking over her shoulder every few seconds. Bridget gave the girl an encouraging smile. Even though Nora was the unofficial manager of the bakery, she was more than happy to let Bridget take the lead.
Nora’s phone began to buzz. She considered ignoring it—Ben had tried to call six times already this morning, and Nora had ignored them all. After the first couple, she hadn’t bothered to listen to the voice mails he’d left or read his texts, because they all said the same thing. Come home. Let’s work this out. I can fix it.
Nora fished her phone out of her pocket, about to turn it off, when she saw St. Gregory’s Elementary School pop up on the caller ID. Her heart did a little trip, that mother instinct kicking in, causing her to start worrying even before she answered. Nora signaled to Bridget and stepped out back. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Daniels? This is Sister Esther, the principal at St. Gregory’s.” The nun paused, and for a second, Nora’s heart froze. Her mind pictured a thousand different scenarios, an accident, a bus crash, a field trip gone wrong. “We, uh, have a problem with Sarah. I need you to come in right away.”
TWO
Sarah sat on a bench outside the principal’s office, swinging her feet back and forth, her toes skimming along the pale green tile. When Nora had dropped her eight-year-old off this morning, Sarah had been wearing clean jeans, a pale pink T-shirt, and a yellow hoodie, with her long dark hair back in a neat braid.
Now the jeans were scuffed and muddy, the hoodie nowhere to be seen, and most of her hair had escaped the braid. There was a smudge on her chin, and tear tracks ran down her cheeks.
Nora bent down in front of her daughter, trying to hide the worry and fear roaring inside her. She scanned Sarah, looking for a cut or a scrape, but saw only dirt. Thank God. “Hey, sweetie, what happened?”
“Nothin’.” Sarah kept her gaze on the floor.
“Did you get hurt?”
Sarah shook her head. Nora brushed a lock of hair away from her daughter’s face. At eight, she still had some of that baby roundness in her face, although she was growing tall and gangly like her father. If Nora inhaled, she knew she’d catch the strawberry scent of Sarah’s shampoo, a fragrance that didn’t square with the dirty, grumpy girl before her. “Then what happened?”
The office door opened and Sister Esther stepped into the hall. She was a short woman, wide in the middle, and her habit swung like a bell over her hips. She’d been here for as long as Nora could remember—the same principal when Nora and her sisters had attended St. Gregory’s—and managed to recall nearly every student’s name.
She had a kind smile and patience that stretched for miles. Nora had always liked her but still felt that guilty twinge, like she’d been caught sneaking out of class, whenever Sister Esther looked at her.
“Mrs. Daniels,” Sister Esther said. “So nice to see you, my dear.”
“Thank you, Sister.” Nora placed a hand on Sarah’s shoulder. Her daughter gave an almost imperceptible twitch, shifting away from her mother’s touch. Nora glanced down, but Sarah didn’t meet her gaze. “What happened? Did Sarah get hurt today?”
“Perhaps it’s best if we talk in my office.” Sister Esther bent toward the bench. “Sarah, will you be all right out here for a little longer?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Thank you. Why don’t you open up your reading book and start on the homework Sister Margaret gave you while your mother and I chat a bit?” Sister Esther turned and led Nora into the small room that housed her office. Nora shut the door behind them and then took a seat in one of the hard wooden chairs. The principal’s desk was tidy, papers stacked in baskets, pencils and pens nestled in a dark brown coffee cup. Pictures of students lined the top of the bookshelf, and a single red carnation sat in a vase on the windowsill. Nora could hear children on the playground, their voices swinging up and down in the air.
The nun sat at her desk and steepled her hands. She paused a moment before speaking. “We’ve had a few problems with Sarah as of late.”
No small talk, no wasted words. “Problems?” Nora echoed.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, her grades have been dropping.”
“Uh, yes, I knew that.” Was it a mortal sin to lie to a nun? Was she going straight to hell for forgetting to check Sarah’s backpack every day? Nora had gotten so sidetracked by the bills and arguing with the creditors that the kids’ grades had fallen off her priority list.
She bit back a sigh. How did Ben expect her to do it all? Work full-time, deal with the bills and debt calls, and do everything for the kids? The partnership she’d entered into when she said “I do” had become a one-sided, shitty deal.
Sister Esther waited a beat, but Nora didn’t fill in the blank with an explanation. “Our greater concern right now is her behavior. Sarah has been acting…out of character.” The nun’s lips pursed. “There has been some misconduct in class and a fight at recess.”
“Sarah got into a fight?” Of all the kids in the world Nora would pick for a fighter, her daughter wouldn’t even come to mind. Sarah had a sweet temperament, a fondness for rescuing animals, and an overw
helming love for the color pink. That wasn’t a kid who got into fights. “If that’s so, then I’m sure she had a good reason. Perhaps someone is bullying her?”
“I’m afraid”—Sister Esther’s brows knitted, and she paused a beat again—“Sarah is the bully.”
Sarah is the bully. The words took their time connecting in Nora’s brain. Her sweet third-grader, who drew pictures of butterflies and named every living creature she saw, was a bully?
“You must be mistaken. Sarah is not a bully. Do you have her confused with another student? Or maybe she was defending herself. Have you talked to the other child involved? Kids lie, you know. Especially when they don’t want to get in trouble.”
Adults lie too, her mind whispered. Especially when their life is out of control.
Sister Esther’s face softened. “Ah, Nora, I know how hard it is to hear that one of your children has done something wrong.”
No, Nora thought, no, you don’t. You’ve never had children. You can’t possibly know what is going on in my head.
“But I am a firm believer in accepting and facing our faults so we can fix them. At St. Gregory’s, we have a strict no-bullying policy. Sarah has been picking on several of her classmates for a while now. Because she has always been a good student, and because we know you and your family so well, we tried to be lenient. Her teacher and I have talked to her many times. We have given her second chances we don’t give to the other children. But today,” the nun sighed, “today was not the kind of day we could turn a blind eye to.”
A stone mound of dread and worry formed in Nora’s stomach. “What happened?”
“Do you know Anna Richardson?”
Anna, Sarah’s best friend in kindergarten. They’d joined Brownies together and been at each other’s houses so often during summer break that it almost seemed like Nora had two daughters. Nora tried to think of the last time Anna had been at the house and couldn’t remember. Had it been April? March? Or last year?