He shifted the boxes slightly in his grip. “Got your delivery. Or rather, the one your grandmother commissioned with all the precision of a military operation. She had me mixing glaze formulas like I was prepping to take them to war.”
Hazel stepped aside without thinking, letting the door swing wide. The rosary beads clicked with the movement. “Uh, sure. Come in.”
He moved carefully. His open-toed sandals scuffed softly on the threshold as he ducked inside and set the boxes down one by one on top of the front counter. She watched him in silence, unsure if she was meant to say something more— if there was etiquette for the return of a once-familiar face bearing handcrafted dishware your dead grandmother had ordered before she passed.
When he straightened, he looked around the room and let out a low whistle, as though he hadn’t seen it before. “She did good,” he murmured, dark eyes flaring wide. “Place looks like you. Even before you’ve touched it.”
Hazel’s throat tightened and she forced a nod. “She had vision. Always did.”
“She definitely had a plan,” Malcolm said, glancing back at the boxes. “Down to the last teaspoon, probably. Did you want to open these?”
She nodded again and they leaned toward the boxes together. Malcolm reached for the nearest one with one hand, pulling a yellow-bodied box cutter from the back pocket of his pants with the other.
As he sliced the tape, the scent of paper and cool clay drifted out. Hazel leaned in further, drawn despite herself. She set the rosary and notebook down on the counter, brushing them aside.
Insidethe boxes and wrapped in thick butcher paper or nestled in straw were stacks of ceramic plates, no two exactly alike. Some were speckled cream with smooth, glossy centers. Others were matte, finished in soft fog blues or warm stone greys.
“She said you hated matching sets,” Malcolm said, his voice lower now. “Told me it needed to feel curated. Chosen. Not like something ordered out of a catalogue.”
Hazel traced the uneven edge of one plate with her thumb before setting it down on the counter. “She was right.”
She unwrapped another, this one olive green, darker on one side where the glaze had pooled. It looked like moss clinging to stone.
Malcolm noticed the way her gaze lingered. “That one gave me hell in the kiln— uneven heat distribution. But she insisted it stay in the batch. Said it had‘character.’”
Hazel huffed a quiet breath. “Of course she did.”
The second box held bowls and side plates, each bearing a tiny embossedM.W.on the bottom— Malcolm’s initials, pressed before firing.
The third box was her favourite. Mugs.
Each one had its own shape: pinched, full-bellied, thin-lipped, heavy-handled. The glazes were warmer now: sand, blush, a soft butter yellow that reminded her of her bedroom walls back at the house. Her hand drifted to one with a checkered cream-and-white pattern and gentle curves like an old lava lamp. It made her smile without knowing why.
Malcolm picked up another, this one blue-grey, stormy and smooth. He turned it slowly, watching the way the light caught. “She called this one ‘low tide.’ Said it reminded her of when the harbour empties out and everything smells like seaweed and old secrets.”
Hazel laughed, soft and real. “She always had a flair for drama.”
A smile tugged at Malcolm’s mouth. “She earned it.”
The ease between them lingered, unspoken but understood. Like a hallway wave in ninth grade exchanged with someone who never said much but always made space. She remembered his quiet presence at the edges of rooms, the pencil tucked behind his ear even back then,the way he’d nod if he caught her eye when her grandmother chatted with his mom by the register at Greyfin.
They unpacked in silence after that. The space around them filled with the rustle of paper, the occasional clink of ceramic on stone and the slow, steady tick of the antique clock still waiting to be mounted. A rhythm took shape between them and in some ways it was familiar, but in others, it was all new.
“I wanted to say…” Malcolm began a few beats later, setting down a wide-rimmed saucer with more care than necessary, his fingers lingering at the edge. “I’m really sorry I missed the funeral.”
Hazel looked up, surprised.
He didn’t meet her eyes at first. His gaze flicked instead to the counter, then to the stack of plates they’d just unwrapped, as though searching for the right words in the glossy smoothness of the glaze. “I was out of the country,” he continued, the words gentle as they landed. “My first vacation in years, if you’d believe it. One of my closest friends from art school was getting married in Portugal and I’d booked everything months ago. By the time I heard what had happened, it was already too late to get back in time. It felt like it all happened so fast.”
As he spoke, he ran his thumb along the rim of the saucer, over and over, like he didn’t realize he was doing it. His shoulders had gone still, held a little too straight, like he was bracing for something. A shadow passed through his expression— not guilt exactly, but something adjacent. A quiet ache. Regret tempered by memory, softened at the edges by affection.
Hazel softened, too, the edges of her posture easing as she nodded. “It did. One minute she was fine, just a little tired… and then—“ Her voice caught, eyes pressing shut for a beat before she managed to pull herself back together. “Yeah. It happened fast.”
“I would’ve been there if I could,” he said, finally meeting her gaze. His voice was quiet but certain, and his eyes held something more open in them now. Something unguarded and deeply sad.
“I know,” she said. And she did.
They fell back into rhythm after that, the silence between them denser now. Not uncomfortable, but heavier. Full of truths too late to change and all the kindness that might still grow in their wake.
