by Shirley Jump
“Wow. That’s definitely not a football.” Nora let out a low whistle. “That looks so good. Can we have it for lunch?”
Bridget laughed. “If it doesn’t sell first.”
“If we store it back here, no one will know it exists, except for us.” Nora scooped up a dollop of leftover peanut butter buttercream. “Oh my God. That must be what heaven tastes like.”
Nora’s praise washed over Bridget. In the three years since she’d left the bakery, Bridget hadn’t baked anything more complicated than a batch of brownies. Jim hadn’t liked sweets much, and it seemed senseless to bake for herself.
But more than that, in those years apart, being in the kitchen and baking the things she used to make at Charmed by Dessert hurt her heart. Every cup of flour and cracked egg reminded her of her sisters, of the fight they’d had at the wedding, the silent distance between them.
“You didn’t lose your touch after all,” Nora said.
Bridget had worried about returning to the bakery. Worried that it wouldn’t be the same, that she wouldn’t feel welcome or comfortable. But then she’d settled in, her hands in the flour, her mind in the recipes, and as the cake came together, she’d begun to feel like she’d…
Come home.
“I guess I just needed to be back here,” she said.
Nora held Bridget’s gaze for a moment, the two of them with twin green eyes and lopsided smiles. Nora’s smile crooked. “Yeah, Bridge, you did. And I needed you back just as much.”
The kitchen door swung open, ending the moment. Ma walked in, shedding her coat and purse as she did. It was as if the air in the room had been changed, cooled. Ma stopped, gave the cake in Bridget’s hands an assessing glance. It was like standing in front of the principal, being lectured for a dress code violation.
After a moment, Ma nodded. “Glad to see you haven’t completely forgotten how to bake.”
“What do you mean? This was all Duncan Hines, Ma.” Bridget tossed Nora a grin and then brought the cake out front and settled it in the display case before returning to help her sister with the tarts.
Ma bustled around the kitchen, tweaking the flute of a piecrust, giving the cookies in the oven a quick check, restacking a tower of brownies on a display plate. She parked her hands on her hips and took a slow spin around the room. “You haven’t started on the order for the Chandler birthday party yet.”
Nora blew a wisp of hair out of her face. “That party isn’t until Saturday. We have time.”
“Better to be prepared than caught unaware.” Ma flipped through the order sheets. “And there’s the rehearsal dinner cake for the Talbots, the order for the church for Sunday services—”
“Ma, how about a, ‘great job, girls. You got in early and we’re ready to go a half hour before we open’?” Bridget said.
Nora put a hand on Bridget’s arm. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t, but Bridget let the argument go, just as she had a thousand times before. They could have baked enough to feed the entire population of India and their mother still would have found something to complain about.
“I guess I’ll start on that cake for the Chandlers,” Ma said. She paused beside Bridget and put a hand on her daughter’s cheek. “Goodness, you look like you haven’t slept in a month. A little concealer will do wonders for your eyes. I have some in my purse. Why don’t I get it for you?”
“I’m fine, Ma.”
“Well, it’s your face, and I suppose you are working in the back all day. But if it were me...I’m just saying…” Ma arched a brow and pursed her lips.
That sense of failing, of not being enough, simmered inside Bridget. Her cell phone rang, the vibration making it dance across the stainless steel counter. Bridget scooped up the excuse to avoid another Mom Makeover and headed outside to the alley behind the shop. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Masterson?” a woman asked, her voice soft and smooth, like jazz music. “This is Chase Bank. We have been trying to reach your husband for two days but he hasn’t returned our calls, so we contacted you.”
Jim’s cell phone was sitting beside the pile of bills at home, the battery drained, the screen black. She had no doubt a few of the blinking red lights on the answering machine would be attached to this woman’s voice.
“He…” Bridget drew in a breath and expelled it with the words, “passed away.”
“Oh. Oh. Uh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The woman on the other end stuttered through some more condolences and cleared her throat. “Well, we were calling because your account is overdrawn, and the monthly mortgage payment with Chase is scheduled to be withdrawn today—”
“Wait. Overdrawn?” Impossible. They’d never bounced a check. Or…
At least that’s what she believed. Jim could have bounced checks every other day and Bridget wouldn’t have known. She had gone along, blindly and blithely, trusting the man who’d put a ring on her finger.
The same husband who had sworn they had adequate life insurance. The same one who promised to work harder at their marriage. The same one who had walked out and—
Died. Breaking all his promises in a single moment.
She didn’t want to believe that he had done any of this on purpose. That the man who had whispered I love you in their bed at night would have left his wife with an empty bank account and no backup in case the worst happened. But he had, and she couldn’t quite bring that fuzzy, faded image she had of her marriage together with the piles of bills and the call from the bank.
“If you could add funds before four o’clock today,” the woman went on, relentless, determined, “the payment will be covered.”
“How overdrawn am I?” And how had that happened? Jim’s last check had been direct-deposited. How could it be gone already?
“Two hundred and seventy-two dollars. Your overdraft protection covered the first five hundred, but the rest is in the negative. Add in the mortgage payment, and you’ll need to deposit”—a pause—“two thousand one hundred seventeen dollars and ninety-three cents.”
Two grand? Just to get caught up? Bridget thanked the woman, mumbled something about being by later—assuming some genie showed up to grant her wish of a few grand in cash—and hung up the phone.
When Bridget was seven, she’d gotten swept into a rip tide at Wollaston Beach. Two strangers had run in and rescued her, but even now, more than twenty years later, she could feel the suffocating weight of the water. How the waves shoved her into the sandy bottom, stole her breath, closed around her.
All of this, the bills, the bank, the life insurance, was another rip tide pulling her farther and farther out to sea. There were no strangers coming to rescue her. No husband to save the day.
Oh God. What was she going to do? How was she going to pay the bills?
Bridget’s knees buckled. Her chest tightened. She slid down the concrete wall, wrapped her arms around her knees, and laid her head on top. She tried to draw in deep breaths, but the fist in her chest only tightened.
The back door opened, and her mother stepped outside. “For goodness’ sake, Bridget, get up. It’s only nine in the morning. You can’t possibly be too tired already.”
She didn’t need this. Not now. “That isn’t it at all, Ma. Just leave me alone.” She got to her feet and started to reach past her mother to open the door when Colleen put a hand on her arm.
“What is it then?”
Bridget sighed. “Do you really want to know? Or do you want to tell me about the bags under my eyes or how I should have ironed my jeans or chosen a different sweater or eaten oatmeal instead of Rice Krispies today? Because honestly, I can’t handle that. I can’t handle anything right now.”
“You can handle far more than you know. You’re an O’Bannon.” Her mother’s stern face punctuated the sentence. She crossed her arms over her chest, staring up at her daughter. “Now, tell me what is going on.”
Bridget stood there a moment, silent, stubborn. But the waves kept crushing her and her lungs were screami
ng for air, and she couldn’t find her way back to the surface. She opened her mouth, drawing in a breath, and before she could stop them, the words started pouring out of her.
“We were in financial trouble, and Jim never told me. He handled all the bills and told me we were fine.” She held up her cell. “I just got off the phone with the bank. My account is overdrawn, and the mortgage payment comes out in the morning. I don’t have enough to pay it, and honestly I haven’t looked at a single bill, so I don’t know how much I need or where I’m going to get it. All I know is I don’t have enough.”
“But the life insurance—”
“Was canceled six months ago.”
Her mother nodded, absorbing the information. No emotion flickered on her face, only the stoic practicality that had gotten her through the last sixty years of her life. “Here is what you are going to do. You will take an advance on your paycheck from here and drive over to the bank on your lunch hour and cover the bills. Then, when you get home, you will open those envelopes and see what you are dealing with. This is no time to keep your head buried in the sand, Bridget.”
“I can’t—”
“You can, and you will. I’ll draw up the check myself. Now, get back inside and finish making the cake for the Chandlers.”
“And just like that, everything’s fixed?” Bridget shook her head.
“Of course not.” Her mother’s green eyes softened, and her gaze blurred. It was as close to emotional as Colleen got. “Some things can never be fixed. All we can do is bandage them up and move on.”
“Is that what you’re doing with Abby?”
The question hung in the air while traffic went by outside and a garbage truck sounded a steady beep-beep. Around them, life moved forward at the frantic pace of a city that rarely paused.
Before her mother turned on her heel and went back inside, she said, “Like I said, not everything can be fixed.”
FIFTEEN
There were days when Colleen wished she had taken up smoking. Then she would have had an excuse to go outside, escape the bakery, and grab a few moments alone, away from the tension that hung in the air. Instead, she hefted a trash bag that was only half full and announced to Nora that she was taking it out back.
As she lifted the lid to the Dumpster, she thought of Abby. Just a few weeks ago, her fourth daughter had stood here, longing and apology in her voice, and Colleen had done what she always did—
Drove her away again.
Colleen threw in the bag, closed the lid again. All her life, she’d thought she was a good mother. Prided herself, actually, on raising four girls single-handedly while running a business. But two of her daughters had stopped talking to her for years, one had married a man who, well, none of them had ever completely warmed to.
Now, instead of enjoying these years with her daughters, the way Erma Waterstone did, going on those silly vacations to every corner of the world with her girls, Colleen felt like the connections between her and her daughters were fraying more by the day.
And she had no idea what to do about that, except what she’d always done. Keep her head down and keep on working. As she turned to go back inside, Nora emerged from the bakery.
“Hey, Ma. What are you doing out here?”
“Taking out the trash.” She brushed her hands together. She could see concern in Nora’s eyes, the worry that maybe her mother’s frequent trips out back were about something other than empty trash cans. “Well, I should get back to work.”
“I forgot to tell you that when the bread delivery came, they mentioned they were low on croissants but promised to get us extra tomorrow.”
“Good. Those sell well.” She brushed past Nora.
“Not as well as Abby’s used to.”
Colleen hesitated, her hand on the door handle. “No, not as well.”
“Why don’t you call her? I doubt she likes that job at the mall, and she was the best bread baker I’ve ever met. It’d be nice to have her working here again.”
Colleen’s hand tightened on the metal handle. “Abigail made her choices.”
“So, is that it? One of us disappoints you or takes some time away from the family and they’re dead to you?” Nora closed the distance between them. “Bridget walked away, too, but now she’s back. How can you forgive one of us and not the other?”
“It’s not about forgiveness. Abigail…she wasn’t happy here.”
“Yeah, she was, Ma.” Nora’s gaze narrowed. A moment later, light dawned in her eyes. “You think she doesn’t want to be here, and you’re afraid to ask her. Because she might say no.”
Colleen knew Abby would say no. Too much time had passed, too many hurts.
And the worst one of all? Colleen throwing her own daughter out of the house after the scene at Bridget’s wedding and telling her she wasn’t welcome there again. That she was no longer a daughter of Colleen’s.
Abby’s visit here the other day had been an olive branch, but Colleen knew the damage had been done. And knew how her daughter really felt about her.
Dad was the one who loved me, Ma. Not you. Why didn’t you love me like he did? I don’t need you. I don’t need someone who treats me like an outsider in my own goddamned family.
Then Colleen had said those awful things, and Abby had left. The door between them shut firm.
“We have just the right amount of help right now.” Colleen tugged open the door. “Remind the bread company to send us extra rolls. I promised Mrs. Williams we would have them for her family dinner this weekend.”
Then she went back inside and back to work.
* * *
The cake sold before lunch to a woman hosting an office party that afternoon. Nora looked like she might cry as the boxed dessert left the building. While her sister was at lunch, Bridget whipped up two more, storing one in the freezer with a giant note that said NORA: EAT ME.
Later, Bridget stood in the tiny office at the back of the bakery while her mother hand-wrote a check, adding “Advance on Wages” to the memo line. The whole experience took fifteen years off her life and reduced her to a mumbling, resentful yet grateful high schooler. She hated herself for needing the money, hated being put in the position of depending on her mother to save her ass.
“You really should consider clipping coupons,” Ma said. “And going to thrift stores. Why, when you girls were little, I was always at the Goodwill. I bought groceries in bulk and cooked ahead for a month…”
The interest rate on a loan from her mother was unlimited advice on how to run her life. So Bridget listened and nodded and promised to buy the Sunday paper for the coupons. Then she grabbed the check and zipped out to make the deposit.
When she got back, she buried herself in work for the rest of the day. Far better to bake than think about how she was thirty years old and still taking a handout from her mother.
Garrett texted twice more, but Bridget didn’t reply. They were friendly, nonflirty texts, and while it was nice to have a man interested, this whole new world of widowhood left her unsure how to proceed. So she kept on avoiding and procrastinating. At this rate, she was going to be a gold medalist in those sports.
She and Nora worked side by side the rest of the day, their familiar rhythm of weaving in and out of each other as they created cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, a well-choreographed dance. Their mother stayed mostly out front, working the register and taking the phone orders. During an afternoon lull, Bridget sat down with a cup of coffee and her phone.
Magpie had texted a couple times, from whatever remote location she was at today. Heard you’re back at the old grindstone. How many times did Ma redo your work?
There was an old bet between the girls—whoever had been ordered to do the most redos at work that day from their perfectionist mother had to do the last batch of dirty dishes. Magpie, being the youngest, lost that bet the most often, until she went off to college, got a degree in journalism, and started traveling the world as a freelancer.
Only twice, Bri
dget replied. I think that’s some kind of record.
Hold on while I call Guinness. A pause, then: How’s GrumpyFace Nora?
Okay. A little distant. Seems to have something on her mind.
Bridget glanced over at her sister, who was turned toward the wall with her phone, immersed in a low-volume argument with someone. From the snatches of conversation Bridget heard, it sounded like Nora was arguing with Ben, her husband, about picking up the kids.
Eat something decadent today, Magpie texted back. And do something unexpected. Life is better when you don’t always play by the rules. Ciao!
The last made Bridget think of Garrett, of the moment in the bakery. She scrolled back through his texts, debated replying, and then the oven timer dinged and she put her phone away instead. The rest of the day passed in a blur of dishes and desserts, until the last order went out the door and the three of them sighed with relief.
As she was locking up the bakery at the end of the day, Ma turned to Bridget. Her face was stern, her eyes hard with admonishment. “Go home and look at those bills, Bridget. Procrastinating only makes things worse. When your father died—”
“You were right back at work. I know, Ma.”
“I had children depending on me. I couldn’t afford to keep my eyes closed to reality. In those days, if people had life insurance, it wasn’t much. Your dad had a policy for a few hundred dollars. I had a mortgage and rent and you girls, and if you think I wasn’t worried or scared, you’re wrong.”
“You never showed it.” None of them had ever seen their mother cry or break down or admit she was overwhelmed. Colleen O’Bannon wore unflappable like it was a perfume.
Bridget thought of all the nights the sisters had huddled together in Bridget’s bed, alone and scared and whispering memories of their father. They questioned the priest’s promises that Dad was watching over them and that one day they’d see him again. To four girls under ten, heaven seemed like an impossible, unreachable place.