And somehow, without ever saying it aloud, she knew… he had become part of it. A part of her.
All of them had.
She lingered there a little longer, watching the girl blow on Beck’s hand and nod with approval, already reaching for the next bottle, purple this time. And Beck? Beck just chuckled and offered his other hand, that same smile still settled on his face like there was nowhere he’d rather be.
And in Hazel’s chest, something loosened.
They ate in shifts— plates balanced on knees, elbows brushing shoulders on the floor, kids perched on stools that didn’t quite reach the table. People passed rolls and poured wine and asked for seconds. There was no schedule, no seating chart, just the messy, beautiful kind of belonging that didn’t need rules to make sense. Hazel lost track of how many times someone touched her shoulder as they passed, or leaned in close to tell her how beautiful the house looked, or how grateful they were for the invitation, or how proud her grandmother would’ve been.
The fire crackled. A pie baked and cooled and disappeared. Someone put on an old playlist and the entire living room erupted in off-key, joyful harmonizing. At one point, Iris stood on a chair and offered a toast,“To friends, to chosen family, to the kind of generosity that leaves your coat pockets full of clementine peels and your heart twice its size.”
Hazel raised her glass with everyone else.
But it wasn’t until later, when the kids were curled up on the rug, giggling, and the dishes were half-washed and the noise had softened to a low, companionable murmur, that she stepped out into the hallway and let herself look.
From where she stood, tucked in the archway that led to the kitchen, she could see it all. The people. The coats hung crooked on the hooks by the door. The table, littered with wineglasses andcrumpled napkins. The living room floor, layered with half-wrapped presents and empty mugs and the faint echo of a carol someone had hummed hours earlier. The walls that had once held so much silence now swollen with sound.
Her throat tightened.
Because she saw it clearly, then— what had shifted. She wasn’t holding it alone anymore.
The grief, the weight, the hope, the trying.
It wasn’t all hers to carry.
She was surrounded by people who knew her, now, who had seen the cracks and stayed anyway. Who showed up not just because it was easy, but because she mattered.
Hazel pressed a hand to the wall behind her and let herself breathe it all in.
And she knew, in that moment, why her grandmother had done it. Why she had bought the bakery, left the house intact, tucked receipts and handwritten recipes and keys to unopened doors into drawers Hazel wouldn’t find until she needed them. It hadn’t been pressure, it hadn’t even been expectation. It had been possibility. A soft offering. A way of saying:if you want to stay, here is a place that will hold you.A place with roots and corners and echoes that know your name.And now, surrounded by the hum of people she had come to love, Hazel understood that this had been the hope all along. That she would grow something new in the shadow of what had come before. That she would be safe here— not in the absence of grief, but in the presence of something larger than it. Something alive.
That she would learn, because ofthem,to stay.
20
The dirt was warm beneath her knees, soft and dark and full of promise.
Hazel knelt in the garden with her hands sunk deep into the soil, her gloved palms dusted with the fine grit of mulch and clay, the damp scent of earth rising in gentle waves around her. Her grandmother’s wide-brimmed sunhat shielded her face from the light, though the early spring sun wasn’t harsh, just golden and kind. It was the kind of light that made everything glow at the edges. Her gloves were already streaked with dirt, the fingertips worn nearly through, and there was a smudge of something dark across her cheek from when she’d pushed back her hair without thinking. She hadn’t bothered to wipe it away.
It was the beginning of April. The days had begun to stretch a little longer, the light lingering at the edges of the sky like it wanted to stay. Tiny green buds were beginning to unfurl on the bushes along the fence. The tulips she’d planted in early February were opening now, their petals fragile and bright. The chives had grown nearly a foot tall. There was still a slight bite in the breeze, but it was threaded now with softness and the promise of more.
Everything was growing again.
She reached down to nestle a seedling into its place, her fingers careful, almost tender. It wasn’t about perfection, it was about presence. Hazel pressed the soil around the base of the stem, patted it gently, and sat back on her heels with a long breath, her knees achingpleasantly beneath her. The breeze lifted the brim of her hat and carried the scent of something rising from the house— yeast, flour, and honey. She’d started a loaf earlier that morning and left it near the oven, covered with a linen cloth just like her grandmother used to do.
Behind her, the old screen door creaked open.
Hazel didn’t turn right away. She just closed her eyes for a moment, letting the light settle against her eyelids, warm and dappled through the weave of the hat.
Then came Beck’s voice, quiet and low, gentle with the kind of softness he only used for her. “They’re here.”
Her eyes opened.
She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she just sat in the stillness of that moment, her heartbeat picking up, not fast but deep— like a drum, like a reminder. Her gloves slipped off slowly. She set them on the edge of the garden bed and pushed herself to her feet, brushing the dirt from her jeans. Her palms were still damp with soil and her nails were rimmed with it. Her breath felt strange in her chest, as though it didn’t know how to move through this new, uncertain version of the day.
Beck waited for her on the porch, one shoulder pressed against the post, the screen door still open behind him. He hadn’t changed since breakfast— still barefoot, still in the navy blue plaid shirt that she loved, sleeves pushed up, collar stretched from the way she’d tugged on it the night before. His jeans were soft and faded, the knees worn, and there was a smudge of flour on his thigh where he’d wiped his hand without noticing. He didn’t move toward her, he just watched her, his gaze steady and open.
Hazel joined him with slow steps, her heart beating a little too hard for how ordinary the moment looked. When she reached him, he didn’t say anything, he just reached out and carefully adjusted the brim of her hat with two fingers, then tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. His thumb lingered there for a breath longer than necessary, tracing the curve of her cheekbone. Hazel leaned into it, just for a breath, and exhaled.
