Hazel looked away, her eyes dropping to stare down into her tea. A sprig of mint floated near the rim, heat-wilted and dull, spinning slowly in place like it had nowhere to go. She thought about the last voicemail her grandmother had left her, just two days before she’d passed. A sweet nothing of a message, no real urgency. Just her grandmother’s voice asking if Hazel had tried the new peach danish recipe yet, saying she’d clipped something from the paper for her and would send it soon. She’d smiled when she’d heard it and pressed her phone to her chest.And then she’d gotten busy, the way she always did, and told herself she’d call tomorrow.
“I didn’t call her back,” Hazel whispered, eyes beginning to fill with a sudden rush of sadness, of guilt. “She left me a voicemail, two days before, and I didn’t call her back.”
“You don’t have to explain,” Sylvia said, her voice like flannel on skin. “She knew you loved her. And she didn’t hold onto things like that.”
Hazel shook her head, slow and aching. Not in disagreement, just in grief. In all the things she wished she’d done differently. In all the things that couldn’t be undone.
“She talked about you constantly,” Sylvia said. “But not in the way people usually talk about their grandkids. It wasn’t bragging… it was deeper than that. You were her heart, Hazel.”
Hazel looked away and for a moment, she just sat there, breath caught somewhere too deep to reach. The house felt still around her, like it was holding its own breath, too.
“She was mine, too,” she said finally, her voice quiet and cracking.
They let the silence sit between them for a while, long enough for the tea to cool and the sun to shift a little farther west.
“So,” Sylvia said after a while, a glint of something playful settling in her eyes. The emotion had cleared, for the most part, settling back down somewhere deep and hidden within Hazel. “What’s the plan for Rise? I’ve been hearing good things so far, but I’d imagine you have some bigger ideas in that head of yours. Catering events? Wedding cakes? Expansion?”
Hazel let out a sharp, startled laugh. “I’m just trying to make it through the week at this point. It’s still so early.”
But the question pressed against her temples long after Sylvia had moved on to something else. Whatwasthe plan? How far would Rise reach, if she allowed herself to dream?
She’d told herself she was just trying to stay open and keep the lights on, but there were other thoughts, too, ones she didn’t say out loud. A little notebook on her nightstand filled with scribbled ideas. Seasonal menus, collabs. A weekly, rotating donut— something focused onlocal flavours and letting her creativity really shine. Maybe even a late fall harvest supper in the small stretches of alley behind the shop, twinkle lights strung up over picnic tables, cider passed in mismatched mugs.
She never let herself sit with those thoughts for long. Dreaming too big felt dangerous, like inviting disappointment to come settle in early.
She reached for her tea, though it had long since gone cold and traced one finger along the rim of the mug.
“Did she ever talk to you about all this?” Hazel asked, voice quiet. “The house? The bakery?”
Sylvia gave a small, knowing smile. “Some of it. She didn’t want to push you but I think she always hoped you’d come back. She wanted to leave something that wouldhold. Something that would remind you who you are, even on the days you forget. Or the days when you wonder.”
Hazel let out a slow exhale, like a thread had finally gone slack inside her. Her eyes brushed against the slip of paper on the table, but she still didn’t reach for it or pick it up. She just stared at it, at the curve of ink that felt more intimate than any photograph. The final gift from a woman who had spent her life loving in quiet, steady ways. Through meals cooked and blankets folded. Through saved newspaper clippings and prepaid yoga classes and words left unsaid because she’d trusted that love would be loud enough without them.
Hazel didn’t realize the question was coming until it was already leaving her mouth.
“Do you think she’d be disappointed in me?” she asked, eyes still on the paper, voice barely above a whisper. “If I couldn’t do it. If I didn’t stay.”
The words hung in the air like steam, fragile and honest and terrifying.
Sylvia didn’t answer right away. She sat back against the chair, watching Hazel with an expression that didn’t shift or flinch. When she spoke, her voice was gentle— low and warm, but sure.
“No,” she said. “I think she’d worry. She’d ache for you, if it felt like running. But she wouldn’t be disappointed.”
Hazel’s gaze lifted, that same rise of emotion threatening to tug her under once more.
“I think she knew,” Sylvia continued. “That this place, this gift… it might be an anchor, or it might be a stepping stone. She loved you enough to offer both. Staying was never the condition. Lovingyourselfthe waysheloved you— that’s what she wanted most.”
Hazel’s throat closed around something too wide to name. She nodded once, then again, slower. A tear slipped down her cheek before she could stop it, catching on the corner of her mouth. She didn’t wipe it away.
She just sat there, holding the tea in both hands, letting it warm the corners within herself that had long since gone cold.
The bakery was steeped in warmth and quiet, the scent of toasted sugar and espresso clinging to every surface. Hazel stood in the kitchen, her sleeves pushed to her elbows, her apron already smudged with flour. The slab of laminated dough lay cool beneath her palms, its butter layers just pliable enough to fold. She dusted it lightly with almond flour, then pressed the heel of her hand along the edge to seal it before folding again.
She hadn’t really slept, not in any deep, restful way. She had just drifted in and out, her thoughts looping— Sylvia’s visit, the folded gift card still tucked into her wallet, the things her grandmother had never said. She’d cried once, though not loudly. Just a single breathless minute standing in the hallway of the house, her hand pressed to the wall by the front door to keep herself steady and upright. And then she’d come here, to Rise. To the one place that didn’t ask her to explain.
The bell—Beck’s bell—gave a low, familiar chime from above the front door. Still new, but already full of weight. With it came a swell of cool autumn air, the early hints of September making way for October.
She didn’t turn right away. She didn’t have to.
