No wait. It’s Sunday. I don’t have to be anywhere. Crap.
Irritation snapped. I had hours of more sleep to enjoy. I needed sleep. I needed to shut down. I laid back and closed my eyes. I did deep breathing exercises. Counted sheep. Punched my pillow and rolled on my side. But nothing coaxed me back to sleep. I was too jazzed.
“Read my book!”
“Leave me alone.”
“Not until you read.”
Muttering a curse, I sat up and clicked on a side table light, and padded over to the box I’d not opened in three days.
I reached inside for the book, careful not to let my fingers skim Terry’s letter. I was still not ready to open that Pandora’s box, but I could look at the journal.
Sitting back on my bed cross-legged, I gently opened the front cover.
To S. With love, J.
Over 150 years and so many lifetimes separated me from S and J. I still didn’t understand why Mrs. Woodrow would want me to have this mystery. Clearly the old woman had made a mistake. Better to just read the journal and give it to Margaret.
I knew your mama . . . your other mama.
The words clanged and rattled in my head. If only the old lady had lived a few more days. Then I could have taken Terry’s letter to her and asked more questions: Was Terry my mother? Was she the woman you saw me with all those years ago? If only Mrs. Woodrow had mentioned my other mother’s name. Just a name would have clarified so very much. If only . . .
I glared at the journal, which I now associated with the letter. There was no logic in this thought process. One had nothing to do with the other. But that didn’t make it any easier for me to separate the two.
I opened to a random page.
It’s hot work by the stove in the cookhouse behind the master’s house. This morning, I was put in charge of making breakfast for the house. Even as I struggled to coax the embers to life and bank the fire, I was grateful I knew how the oven worked. Mistress says I am of good use to her for the first time ever and that I might be worth keeping.
I burned my arm on the cast-iron pan as the flat cakes cooked. The injury stung something awful even after I rushed outside and pumped cool water on it. The cakes burned and, nursing my burn, I had to scrape hard to get them off the pan’s bottom.
When Mama got home long after the sunset, I followed her into the kitchen and showed her my burn. I wanted a bit of sympathy, a hug, or praise for the work I did in the master’s house. But she had none to spare.
I cried and wailed and tried to show Mama my burn again and again, but she wasn’t the least bit kind about my injury.
In fact the red burn that slashed across my forearm seemed to make her angry. She says Master will have more reason to sell me if I am so clumsy around the stoves. And if the wound were to go sour, I could lose my arm or die.
Then she did unwrap my bandage and take a look at the burn. She promised to find herbs tomorrow and make a poultice.
When I repeated what the mistress said about me being of use, she tossed me a bitter smile. “Make no mistake, girl, she would sell me or you in a heartbeat. The woman has not liked either of us since the day she first stepped over the front threshold.”
I pressed for her to explain but she would not. She slumped in the wooden kitchen chair and in silence ate her hardtack smeared with bacon grease. Whatever had happened that day had drained her of all energy and vigor. I asked her about her day but she said it was none of my concern.
For the first time, my mama looked old.
The kid had been having trouble with her mother. Not what I needed right now. I replaced the journal in the box, dressed, and headed downstairs to the bakery. Fuck it. It was Sunday but there was always work to be done. At least I knew I could get a little peace of mind working.
To my surprise, I found Henri standing by the large mixer, lovingly feeding flour into his dough. I nodded a greeting to him. He grunted back. Stumbling over to the coffee machine, I filled a USB mug and sipped. Hot and strong, the coffee gave me a much-needed boost. “You know it’s Sunday, right?”
“Oui.”
I pressed the warm mug to my temple and closed my eyes as I ticked through the day’s tasks and listened to the whirr and thump of the dough mixer. “Why are you here?”
“Baking helps me think.”
“Ah.” Who was I to argue? We were two peas in a pod. I moved toward a pallet of newly delivered supplies. Sugar, rye flour, and even some of that organic flour Rachel had lusted over at the beginning of the week. I could do inventory. It would save Rachel and me time tomorrow. I set my mug down, content to let Henri bake while I assembled and organized.
We worked in a companionable silence for a half hour before he spoke. “Your sister cannot do this alone.”
I was shocked that he had actually spoken a complete sentence. I didn’t think he’d ever said so many words to me before.
I turned and found he still hunched over his mixer, his gaze squarely on the dough in the industrial stainless bowl.
For a moment I paused, not certain I’d heard correctly. “Did you say something?”
His downcast gaze did not flicker, but he raised a gnarled hand to the mixer’s speed control. It slowed so he could be better heard. “She is creative, perhaps one of the most talented bakers I’ve ever known. But no businesswoman.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.” I didn’t approach him because it still felt odd to be having a real conversation with Henri. Most days it was: “Hey!” Grunt. “Thanks!” Grunt. “Have a good evening.” Grunt.
He grabbed a handful of flour and sprinkled some into the mixer. “So you will stay?”
I took a tentative step toward him. “For now.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I will be leaving soon. The time has come for me to retire.”
My mouth dropped open, and then I snapped it closed. “What?”
“I am leaving.” His voice did not waver and I knew the decision was firm.
I closed my eyes, torn between begging him to stay, wishing him well, and wondering how much more could go wrong. “When?”
“Two months. June.”
At the rate the bakery was going, I wondered if we’d have the money to stay open that long. And a part of me was glad Henri would be gone so he did not have to see the bakery fail.
If we made it to June, I was not sure how we’d make it without the bread. Summer sales were always higher and there’d be no getting by without Henri.
All these thoughts clanged and rattled like the chains of a ghost but all I heard myself say was, “Thank you for staying this long.”
He glanced at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I stayed for your parents and Rachel.”
“I know.”
He sniffed and straightened a fraction. “But you are here now.”
Laughter rumbled in the back of my throat. “Everyone keeps saying that.”
He shifted a squinting gaze at me. “You will fix things.”
I sipped my coffee and wondered if this kind of news warranted an Irish coffee. “That’s asking a lot.”
He shrugged.
The utter calm in my voice truly amazed me. “I don’t suppose you know of a baker I could hire?”
He turned back to his dough, his stooped shoulders telegraphing his age more than ever. “I will think about that.”
“Great.” I gulped the rest of my coffee and finished putting away the supplies. I found my way to my office, which now had some semblance of order. I spent the next half hour online, checking our accounts. Ike’s check had cleared and still the bottom remained in the black, if only just barely. Two days ago, I’d asked Margaret to really start tracking what sold and didn’t sell before she hauled the day’s leftovers to the food kitchen. We needed to separate our moneymakers from our duds.
My request had prompted M
argaret to roll her eyes and grumble but so far she’d kept a pretty accurate tally. I hoped in the next two weeks to have a snapshot of what sold and what didn’t.
With tax day looming, I had gotten on the phone a few days ago with the bakery’s accountant. He’d told me he’d filed an extension for the bakery, confident that we had not turned a profit, and had said that I could take the next month gathering all the paperwork. It appeared Rachel’s tax system involved dumping receipts in the desk’s bottom drawer. I was able to excavate through the receipts’ layers like an archaeologist at a dig, and entered them in my favorite spreadsheet program. Slowly I was piecing together the last year’s finances. Each day I tried to dig a little deeper, hoping I’d hit the drawer’s bottom in the next couple of weeks.
My cell on my hip vibrated, and I checked the time. Three thirty. The alarm was always set. As Dad used to say, “A baker never sleeps.”
I shut it off and went back to work. It was just after seven when I made a second pot of coffee. Henri had finished his random baking, and I’d managed to pull together the tax receipts.
When I heard footsteps behind me, I turned to find Rachel. She’d washed her face and pulled back her hair. I handed her coffee. She sipped it, a moan of gratitude rumbling in her throat as she took a second sip. “When did you become a morning person?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a fluke. In fact, you just might find me in the fetal position around two o’clock this afternoon.”
“You just might find me curled beside you.” She closed the door softly behind her. Secured on her hip was the baby monitor she kept in the bakery in case the girls woke up.
“So why are you moving so slow?”
“Dreams of Mike. I dreamed again he was alive.”
She’d had those dreams a lot in the months after his death. Mom had told me she often woke up crying and disoriented. “I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes the dreams are so real I can smell the scent of his skin and feel the brush of his knuckles on my cheek. When we were married, he always brushed my cheek before he left for the bakery and told me he loved me. Last night I could have sworn his spirit was here.” Color warmed her cheeks as if the statement embarrassed her.
I cocked a brow. “Please tell me he is not haunting the place.”
She blinked as if that were the last comment she expected. “Why would you say that?”
I glanced toward the ceiling. “This place seems to be full of odd energy.”
“What kind of energy?”
“Hard to say.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You deal in numbers, facts, and figures. You’re not making sense.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and wondered if I were more rested if I’d even open this line of conversation. “I think two ghosts in one house are quite enough.”
“Two ghosts?” Now she was smiling.
It was good to see her smiling, and I didn’t feel so much like a fool for voicing my thoughts. “That’s right. Two. A good one and a bad one.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
She leaned forward, cradling her cup. “Do tell.”
“I could swear I’ve felt two ghosts.” I sounded insane but let’s face it, I was insane for tackling this bakery manager job. “I know this sounds pretty odd.”
She raised a brow. “Reminds me of when you were a kid, and you’d sit in the corner of our bedroom and chat with someone.”
“Who?”
“Beyond me. But I think you introduced us once.”
I grinned. “Did I?”
“Yep. Her name was . . . Sally . . . Sara . . . I think it started with an S.”
“Susie.”
“Yeah, that’s it. And according to you, she’d lost her mother like you’d lost yours. I told Mom but she said she figured it was just your way of coping with the big changes you’d gone through.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. It could easily have been explained away as a childhood fantasy. No one would have blamed me. I wouldn’t have blamed myself. But it wasn’t a fantasy. That much I was sure.
“You said two ghosts.”
“Yeah. One good and one bad. The bad one doesn’t like me so much. He wants me to leave.”
Rachel cocked her head. “What did you say to the ghost to make him mad?”
“What makes you think it’s my fault? It could just be a bad ghost.”
She dropped her voice a notch. “Daisy, you have a talent for irritating the living like no one I know. I love you, but you can be prickly. Stands to reason you’ve found a way to hack off a few dead people.”
I laughed. What was there to deny? I did have a sharp tongue. “It’s a talent. What can I say?”
• • •
Monday morning was a replay of last Monday. Rachel and I worked in the bakery with Henri, and Margaret stumbled through the front door ten minutes after seven. I’d given up expecting Margaret to arrive on time. Ten minutes here or there didn’t matter as much to me as it had that first day. Quirks went hand in hand with this business. Besides, Margaret really was great with the customers. She not only knew all by name, but she remembered their likes and dislikes. And new customers to the store, tourists, visitors, or businessmen, quickly felt as if they’d been Union Street Bakery customers for years, thanks to Margaret. So, I let the ten minutes roll.
Rachel, with her pastries and kitchen, was content. Left to her own devices, she’d never enter the bakery office again. And other than her daughters, I’d started to wonder if she cared much about the outside world.
Rachel created, Margaret greeted, and I managed. Between the three of us we made a whole baker. It all felt kind of normal and manageable.
Yet rumbling under the surface of all this calm was Henri’s plans to retire, which he’d only discussed with me, the oven that needed coaxing, and the water heater that kept tripping the breaker. I also was going to have to have a sit-down with Rachel and discuss the menu. We had key items, though delicious, that were time consuming to make and expensive. If they’d been selling well I’d have let it ride but so far the molasses cookies, pumpkin bread, and peanut butter bars had to go. Rachel thought of each item as one of her babies and she would not be happy.
No matter how smooth the waters, there were always sharks under the surface waiting to snap.
I’d forgotten that Mabel Woodrow’s funeral was today until Mom breezed into the bakery at eleven and reminded me. Margaret and Rachel had remembered but the detail had never taken root in my brain.
“I can’t believe you forgot,” Margaret said. “Groovy hair, Mom.”
Mom had been to the salon to get her hair done in a style that was a little too formal for my tastes. She gingerly touched the side of her updo. “Thanks, honey.”
A customer entered the shop, and we all grinned. Margaret greeted while Mom followed me to the register.
“You need to go.”
“I am pretty busy. Cut me some slack.” I wiped my hands on my apron and punched the Sale button on the register. The drawer popped open, and I started to pull out extra cash for the afternoon deposit. “I kinda thought I’d just hold down the fort.”
“No. You’re coming.” She glanced at the customer—a woman in a sharp business suit ordering sugar cookies—smiled, and lowered her voice. Oddly, Mom was more threatening when her voice was low and controlled. “Mrs. Woodrow’s funeral promises to attract half of the city. The pews for the one o’clock church service will fill quickly so we need to leave early.”
“Where’s the service?” I asked as I arranged all the bills faceup. Margaret handed the lady her change and tossed me a glance that shouted, “Moron!”
“Christ Church. I told you that. And Dad has decided that the McCrae clan should gather at the bakery thirty minutes beforehand and walk the five blocks to the church.”
“
We won’t get a seat.”
“There’ll be a lot of old folks there, and they’ll need the seats.”
I considered reminding Mom that she and Dad were in their seventies, but decided not to go down that path. “Shit.”
“Daisy, manners.”
“Fine. I’ll be ready.”
It was a warm spring day and being outside should have been a treat, but I was already feeling the exhaustion creeping into my limbs. I should have slept late yesterday. Or taken a nap. But I’d worked on quarterly taxes most of the day. I’d need a double shot of espresso from the machine before I headed upstairs to shower.
After the morning rush, I snuck back to my office and worked on supply orders and arranged the few catering contracts Rachel had signed. By the time I glanced up at the clock I realized I was totally out of time and had to dash upstairs for a quick shower.
Stripping as I moved across my apartment, I dropped my clothes and dashed to the bathroom. I turned on the shower and as the water heated, I brushed my teeth. When steam rose, I jumped into the shower, expecting to stay seconds but the hot spray tempted me to linger. Its heat and steady beat worked tension and fatigue from my muscles and I couldn’t help but close my eyes. For a moment my mind drifted.
She wrapped long fingers around my small hand and I had to hurry to match her long strides. My feet hurt and the air was cold. All I wanted to do was get back in our car and sleep under my blanket.
“Daisy, you need to hurry. If we’re late, the old lady won’t see us.”
My eyes snapped open and immediately I shut off the water. The memory was so real and tangible it felt like I’d just tripped back in time. Who the hell was the woman speaking to me?
Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed the memory to replay but no amount of coercion, begging, or pleading would bring it back.
“Damn it.” I shoved wet hair out of my eyes, and snatched a towel off the hook on the bathroom door. Dry, I dashed naked across my bedroom, and dug panties and a bra from a garbage bag crammed full of clothes I’d yet to unpack. I scrambled into my undies, reached for another bag, and dug through layers of clothes, wishing I’d taken some time to unpack. Why was it that I could drop my savings into the business, commit to finding a replacement for Henri, but couldn’t commit to unpacking?
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