by Shirley Jump
* * *
Bridget and Nora arrived at work at the same time, parking side by side in the dark back lot. “Great minds think alike,” she said as she got out of her car.
“Or can’t sleep for shit.” Nora yawned. “I think it was the wine that had me tossing and turning. Either that or what Aunt Mary said. Or what you found out. Geez, I’m starting to feel like we’re living in the middle of a soap opera.”
“Except it’s my real life. And a shock I didn’t expect.” Bridget leaned against her Toyota and waited for Nora to grab her purse out of the backseat. It was still early in the morning, the rest of Dorchester quiet and still. None of the people outside this parking lot had any idea that Bridget’s world had imploded last night.
“So…what are you going to do about Jim’s kid?” Nora asked.
Bridget had thought about it most of the night, absorbing the information, processing it. Trying to square it with Jim’s absences, the bank balance. She’d expected it to hurt more, but maybe she was numb. Or maybe a part of her knew all along that Jim wasn’t the dream she’d imagined, and this secret child was just the final nail in that coffin. “I don’t know. There’s no life insurance, which means he didn’t just let me down, but he let his own daughter down too. I can probably split the retirement check when I get that, but other than that…I don’t know.”
Did she want to meet Jennelle? The child? Maybe someday, but for now, no. That was a bit more than she wanted to deal with.
“How are you feeling about the whole thing?” Nora asked.
“Betrayed. Pissed. And…not surprised.” Bridget sighed. She’d read the rest of the emails late last night, and it had been clear Jim had never wanted Jennelle to get pregnant and had been angry when he found out she was. He’d done his part financially but had maintained an emotional distance that Jennelle had resented. Bridget didn’t understand that—how could anyone not want to connect with their own daughter? What kind of man could let her grow up with a father who was always on the sidelines? If she and Jim had had a child, she had no doubt he would have been the same, and as much as she grieved never having a family, she realized no baby should be brought into a home where only one parent wanted him. “I think I always knew Jim wasn’t quite what I thought. But I was so caught up in the wedding and being married, and every time we fought, he would convince me that we were happy, and I pushed all those worries and doubts to the side.”
“Just like you pretended it didn’t bother you that he gave you a hard time about the fucking bananas.”
“Yeah, like that.” The more time she put between herself and Jim’s death, the clearer the picture got. It wasn’t an image she liked to look at, because she had deluded herself for so long. The day she planted the primroses was the day she finally realized Jim had only been paying lip service to the idea of a baby. That the future she dreamed of was never going to happen with him—and the only way to have the life she wanted was to leave.
Nora fiddled with her keys. “Wasn’t that whole thing with Aunt Mary and Billy weird too? Especially how much alike those photos were? Do you think she’s hiding something?”
“Nothing would surprise me at this point.” Bridget sighed. That laptop had opened up a big can of worms. A necessary one, but still, a part of Bridget wished she’d never lifted that lid. “Maybe Aunt Mary had a baby and gave it up for adoption? That would explain why that woman looked like Ma, if Billy’s family adopted the baby.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t someone have said something about that long before now?”
“I don’t know, Nora. I’ve discovered it’s pretty easy for people to keep secrets from those they are closest to. Even someone they have slept beside for three years.”
“Aw, Bridge. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it. Jim was—” Nora halted. From this angle, they could see the front side window of the bakery. “Is that a light on inside the bakery?”
A soft glow through the window cast a puddle of light on the alley. “Maybe Ma got in early?” Bridget glanced at the parking lot. “Her car’s not here, though. Or maybe one of us forgot to shut off the lights.”
“Well whoever forgot last night is gonna be on dish duty today.” Nora unlocked the back door and held it for Bridget.
She took a cautious step inside and stopped. “Abby? What are you doing here?”
Abby was up to her elbows in bread dough, pressing and kneading the pale ball with constant, smooth motions. She glanced up and blew her bangs off her forehead. “Baking bread.”
“But we get a delivery from Maistranos every morning,” Nora said. “Not that I don’t love your bread way more, but I don’t want you to do unnecessary work.”
Abby stopped working the dough and stepped back from the counter. Bridget noticed her sister’s eyes were red and swollen. “There’s not going to be a delivery today. And not in the immediate future. There was a sign on the door this morning.” Abby sniffled and bit her lip. “Mrs. Maistrano died. I found her obituary in the online edition of the Globe.”
Bridget drew in a sharp breath. She’d known Mrs. Maistrano was old—hell, the Maistranos had seemed old even when Bridget was a little girl—but had never really thought about how someday they would die. They’d been such friendly people, part of the same church that Ma attended and always willing to lend a hand during busy season, and vice versa. “Oh, that’s terrible. She was a wonderful woman,” Bridget said.
“Still baking every day at eighty-five.” Abby shook her head. “I’m going to miss her.”
“I think we all will,” Nora added. “Remember how much Mrs. Maistrano loved Ma’s carrot cake? And every year, Mr. Maistrano would buy one for her birthday. They were such a sweet couple.”
Bridget looked around the kitchen, at the stacks of baked bread, the new loaves ready to go in the oven. “Abby, did you come in today to fill our bread order until we find a new baker?”
“Partly that, yes. I came in today because”—Abby pressed her hands onto the counter—“I needed to work. To get my hands in some dough. To…create again.” She lifted her gaze first to Bridget, then to Nora. “But more than that, I needed my family.”
“Oh, Abs, we need you too.” Bridget drew her sister into a tight hug.
“You all have to quit making me cry before nine a.m.” Nora threw her arms around the two of them, and in that embrace, tears began to flow, and old wounds began to heal. The scent of fresh-baked bread danced in the air, and in that moment, it was as if they’d all come home.
Nora drew back first and swiped the tears off her face. “Okay, okay. Enough of that. We all need to get to work because the world needs more chocolate cake.”
“And challah bread.” Bridget grinned at Abby. “Think we still got it? We can all work together in this little kitchen as a team again?”
“I don’t know about you,” Abby said to Bridget, “since you’re the old one—”
“Hey!” Bridget flung a handful of flour at her sister, who retaliated with a flour bomb of her own.
Abby swiped the flour off her cheeks and laughed. “It’s good to be back with you guys. Real good.”
In the first hour, there were a few missteps and hip collisions, but then the girls settled into a routine as familiar as their own names. Abby baking loaves, biscuits, and bagels while Nora transformed triple-stacked tiers into elaborate white wedding cakes with black trim and incredibly realistic red roses. Bridget churned out cookies, pies, and brownies. As they worked together, the bakery filled with the sweet scents and even sweeter laughter.
Abby slid a half dozen loaves into the oven, then stepped back and wiped the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. “I forgot how much work this is. I kinda miss my cushy job at Williams-Sonoma.”
“That was me, my first week back. I went home every night completely exhausted.” Bridget turned off the stand mixer and then wheeled the stainless steel bowl over to the counter. “Hey, can you help me fill these cake pans?”
“Sure. I
finished all the bread orders, so we’re good to go for a few hours.” Abby lifted the mixing bowl while Bridget scooped the batter into rectangular pans. When they were done, Abby pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the screen. With a sigh, she slid it back into her pocket.
“It’s like the tenth time you’ve checked that thing this morning. Is everything okay?” Bridget asked.
“No. Not even close to okay.” Abby swallowed hard and toed at the floor. “Jessie broke up with me yesterday. She called off the wedding, went to her mom’s, and isn’t answering my calls or texts. She was mad—and rightly so—when I told Ma she was my friend.” Abby cursed under her breath. “Why am I so damned scared to stand up to her?”
Bridget and Nora exchanged a glance. “Because we all feel that way,” Nora said. “I try never to rock the boat. It’s a lot easier than having that battle of wills.”
“Yeah. Ma can be…forceful,” Bridget said. Like drag you out of bed, put you in a dress you hate, and haul you off to church when you’re a grown woman forceful.
“Forceful?” Abby poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter. “That’s just code for controlling.”
“And whatever other synonyms Roget’s has for that word.” Nora stepped back to assess her work, spinning the cake left, right. As with all of Nora’s creations, this cake was elegant and simple. The roses could have been plucked directly from their stems, and the intricate lace work rivaled any found on a wedding dress.
Abby grabbed a cloth and started wiping the countertops. “I’m tired of being afraid to be myself and I’m tired of feeling...like I don’t have a home,” Abby said.
Bridget thought of the beautiful house she’d bought with Jim—a house far bigger than what she had wanted and far more expensive. They’d lived there for three years and never had it truly been home. It had been a castle built on shifting sand. How much of it had been real? How much had she imagined to fill in the gaps?
“Remember that Children of Lir thing?” Abby asked.
“Yeah, with Mr. O’Donnell at the candy store.” Bridget nodded. “Though I look back now and wonder if he made that up just to sell us extra candy.”
“Ha, maybe he did. I never thought of that.” Abby washed her hands and dried them on a towel. She was quiet for a moment, her head down, that wing of black hair hiding her eyes. “Do you know why I kept hiding the candy and toys in the yard?”
“Because you thought those children might find it?”
“Because I hoped they’d find me.” Abby raised her gaze, and in her eyes, Bridget saw so much of herself. A woman who had felt alone, even with another person standing right beside her. A woman who had been lost and struggling to find her way, her place. “Even when I was little, I never felt like I was me. You know what I mean? I was different from all of you, and especially from Ma. After Dad died, it was like I lost my anchor in the family. And then when I realized I was gay, I felt even more excluded. Every time I went to church, every time I listened to Ma criticize someone who was gay, it was like she was attacking me. So I withdrew more and eventually…”
“Withdrew altogether.”
“Yeah.” She wrung the towel over and over again. “I’m sorry.”
“No, we’re sorry,” Nora said, closing the distance with Abby. “We all let you down, let you go. It’s no wonder you didn’t feel included. I know I got caught up in my own life, my own bullshit, and wasn’t there for you.”
“Well, I didn’t make it easy,” Abby said.
“Ha. None of us make things easy,” Nora said. “We’re all a little stubborn.”
“A little?” Bridget laughed. “Try a lot.”
Nora put an arm around Abby’s shoulders. “You’re here now, and just so you know, you’re always gonna be one of us, whether you like it or not.”
Abby grinned. “Riding the crazy train with all of you?”
“Oh God, I’d forgotten all about that,” Bridget said. When they were girls, there was a traveling carnival that came to Dorchester every summer. One of the rides was a train that circled around and around in a figure eight. It had a clown head mounted on the front and an elephant mounted on the back. The girls had dubbed it the crazy train the first time they rode it, and every year after, they made it a point to go to the fair and ride the train, until they got far too old and the ride operator refused to let them on. The shared memory warmed the space between the girls.
“Of course. Who else would you ride it with?” Bridget grinned.
“Thank you, guys, for having my back,” Abby said.
Bridget gave her sister a squeeze. “Anytime, Abs. I should have done it all along.”
The back door opened, and Ma strode into the kitchen, shedding her purse and barking out orders. “We need to get the Kimball cake done today. The hall needs it by six. Also, we have to find another bread source. Maistranos’ is closed. I think poor Mrs. Maistrano died. I don’t know what we’re going to…”
When she saw Abby, the sentence trailed off. Ma stopped moving.
“We already found another bread source,” Bridget said in a bright, happy, isn’t-this-awesome voice. “Abby is back. For the time being anyway.”
“Well…good.” Ma slipped an apron over her head and swept her auburn hair off her face with a barrette. “Why are you all standing around? We open in an hour. Surely you girls know that. Abigail, I expect we won’t have any dramatic interruptions today?”
Abby’s face reddened. “Dramatic interruptions?”
“From your”—Ma waved a hand in the air—”friend.”
Abby glanced at Bridget and then at Nora. A storm brewed in Abby’s eyes, and Bridget stepped forward to stand by her sister. Nora did the same, sisters flanking her on either side. “Jessie isn’t my friend, Ma—”
“I should hope not,” Ma said, already immersed in flipping through the order sheets, “given the way she disrupted din—”
“She’s my fiancée. Or she was, until she broke up with me yesterday.”
Ma froze. The clipboard shivered in her hands. For a long second, there wasn’t a single sound except for the ticking of the clock and the faint sound of a siren somewhere in the city.
“I’m sorry,” Ma said. “I think I misheard you. Did you say…fiancée?”
“Yes, I did. I’m in love with her, and I’m going to marry her, if I can get her to work things out after what happened last night.” Abby glanced at her sisters. Bridget nodded and placed a hand of support on Abby’s back, just as Nora did the same. It made Bridget think of that Red Rover game they’d played in gym. Everyone linking arms, trying to stand strong against whatever the other team sent their way.
Ma stared at her. “Are you…did you…does this mean…?”
“Yes, Ma, this means I’m a lesbian,” Abby went on, her voice picking up steam. “You can call me a freak of nature or tell me I’m going straight to hell. But you know what? I don’t care. I love Jessie, and I’m going to marry her, because”—and now Abby’s voice caught, choked a bit—”I have finally found someone who accepts and loves me exactly as I am.”
Silence. The clock ticked. The siren came to a halt.
“I…I…I can’t have this conversation right now.” Ma pulled down a set of cupcake pans. They clattered against the metal counter. “There are things to…to, uh, bake and orders to…fill.”
Abby gaped at her mother. “You’re really going to work right now, while I’m telling you the most important thing in my life?”
Ma reached for the container of cupcake liners. She fumbled them, and they spilled on the stainless steel. She scrambled to restack them. “Work doesn’t wait for conversations that can be had another time.”
“In other words, you’re just going to ignore it and hope it goes away. Maybe I’ll meet the right man this afternoon and suddenly realize I was straight all along? Well, Ma, that isn’t going to happen. I met the right one for me, and I’m marrying her, as soon as I can.” Abby drew her shoulders back and raise
d her chin. “Either you’re there with me or you’re not.”
Ma kept her head down while she dropped liner after liner into the pan. “I have to get these cupcakes made.”
Abby shook her head. “Of course. Why am I not surprised you’re not talking to me now? You never understood me. You never even tried.”
She hung up her apron, grabbed her car keys off the shelf, then pushed on the back door. Sunlight burst into the kitchen for a moment, then the door shut, and both Abby and the bright day disappeared.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Nora hurried outside after Abby. Bridget wheeled around and faced her mother. “You’re going to let her go…just like that?” Bridget said.
“I have work to do.” Ma abandoned the cupcake tins and started wiping counters that were already clean, moving in fast, furious circles along the stainless steel surfaces, her head down, her body language screaming avoidance.
Bridget bit back her frustration. She could, after all, understand avoidance, because she had been the queen of that for a long time. But this wasn’t ignoring a bill or procrastinating on calling the lawn service. This was a child who needed their mother to understand, to accept, to open her arms. “Work, huh? That’s more important than a daughter who is hurting?”
Her mother finished the first counter and attacked the second one, faster and harder. “Work…keeps me busy,” she said between breaths. “You would do well to do more of it yourself.”
Meaning Bridget should bury herself in baking and cleaning and not in what her family wanted or needed. She was done doing that. She had buried her head in the sand for three years, and in the end, she’d ignored the truth about her marriage, and she’d almost lost her sisters. Never again. “When are you going to stop telling me what to do? I’m not a child, Ma.”
“Then stop acting like one and get to work.”
“No.” Bridget crossed her arms over her chest, realizing in that second that she did, sort of, look like a child staging a protest. Maybe that was the only way to get her mother to listen. To really hear her. “I’m done working here. Working for you.”