“I don’t think so, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I never planned to go back.”
“So bake while he’s at work,” she said. “No harm, no foul. He’ll never know, and you can bake in the space you’re most comfortable. Plus, you can get more done with the oversized double ovens than you can here or at my place.”
“I bought my stove the year you were born,” Ilona said.
I pinched my bottom lip between my teeth.
I could definitely use the money, and I usually got new orders when I baked for a group like this. Fixing the hot-water heater had already cost me four hundred dollars, and I suspected that was the tip of the iceberg where home repairs were concerned.
“When does she want the cakes?” Alicia asked.
I glanced back at the phone. “End of the week.”
She smiled. “Easy peasy.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ilona agreed.
I inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. I appreciated retaining access to our joint accounts, but writing checks or using our debit card meant providing a record for Robert. I’d moved out, but he still knew my every move: where I shopped, how much I spent, and when. And I hated it. Earning some cash would be wonderful.
“Well?” Ilona asked.
“I’m thinking,” I said. “I can always take the buckets of coins I’ve found to the bank.”
“Coins?” Ilona asked. “I love coins, and I have lots of rollers. I can help with that.”
Alicia beamed. “Me too. And I can take any other jewelry or collectibles you have to the appraiser. Did you find more?”
I nearly laughed. In this house, there was always more.
“Come with me,” I said.
I walked them to my parents’ old bedroom, where everything with any cash value remained. “This is the last room I need to sort, and I’m keeping everything in here that I don’t know what to do with. Coins are in the boxes on the dresser. Jewelry is in that case.”
My friends dug in while I noodled on whether to bake at my old house.
“I’m going to do it,” I said after another minute of thought. What did I have to lose? “Assuming Robert still works long hours, and he hasn’t purged the pantry, I can accept the request and make the cakes this afternoon.”
“Excellent,” Alicia said. “We’ll lock up if we leave before you get back.”
“I’ll feed Raisin,” Ilona promised, glancing up from her coffee can of coins. “This is filled with half dollars, and there must be at least five hundred of them here!”
A smile broke on my face. “Good to know!”
Alicia waved, and I turned on a burst of energy and raced home.
The massive fifty-two-hundred-square-foot home Robert and I commissioned so many years ago looked foreboding as I approached. I parked at the end of the block and entered through the utility door in the garage, thankful I hadn’t returned all my keys.
Robert’s car wasn’t in the garage, so I let myself into the kitchen.
Everything was as I’d left it. Surprisingly so. Either Robert hadn’t come home in a couple of weeks, or he’d started cleaning up after himself. The latter made me angry. If he could put dishes into the dishwasher and pick up his shoes and ties now, why hadn’t he done it before?
To remind me I was his maid, I presumed.
I made a disgusted, throaty noise, as I got to work on the mini layer cakes. Everything remained equally undisturbed in the pantry.
Being back in the home where I’d raised our daughter and planned my escape felt strange, even after only a short time away. Maybe because I was the heart of this place, and without me it was just an expensive tomb. The energy had fizzled in my absence. Even the air felt different on my skin.
I couldn’t help wondering if Robert came home more or less often without me here.
