1
Sienna
I keep telling myself this is what freedom feels like.
The quiet.
The slow mornings.
The way the air smells like toasted bread, laundry detergent, and the faint lemon cleaner they use in every senior apartment down this hall. Not gunpowder. Not cigar smoke.
It should feel good.
Normal.
Instead, it just feels… weird.
The coffee pot gurgles behind me while my grandmother hums an off-key Sinatra tune, tapping her slipper against the tile floor. The TV murmurs faintly in the living room—an old black-and-white show with the volume too low to understand, just enough for background noise.
Her hair’s a little messy this morning, and her silver curls are pinned half up and half down.
She looks peaceful, untouched by the chaos I left behind.
I wish I could say the same.
“Did you sleep at all?” She slides me a cup of coffee without even turning around. She’s been doing that since I was sixteen—handing me caffeine and questions before I can ask for either.
“Some,” I lie.
The truth is that I stared at the ceiling most of the night, listening to the fridge hum and waiting for something that didn’t happen.
A knock.
A text.
A call.
Something.
“Some.” She doesn’t believe me, but isn’t going to push yet. “Eat something. You’re starting to look like your father when he skipped meals.”
That gets me moving.
I grab a slice of toast and spread butter across it to keep my hands busy. The knife scrapes softly, and I watch the melted yellow spread until I can pretend that I’m not thinking about anything.
She settles into her chair—the old wooden one that creaks under her—and studies me over the rim of her mug. “How’s work, honey?”
“It’s… good.” I stare down at my plate. “Busy, actually.”
That part’s true.
The bakery’s doing fine.
I’m making a million deliveries a day, covering shifts, and still working on the bakery Benedikt gave me at night.
Every time I walk in, I feel guilty that I’m still in that building with his name quietly tied to it.
Guilty that I’m baking in the same ovens he bought for me.
