I can hear her stern, commanding tone:Don’t cry at work because people see it as a sign of weakness.
Oops.
I take five, head to the restroom, clean up my face, and wash my hands. I don’t want to touch the letters with paint-streaked fingers.
Once I’m done, I take some calming breaths, will my heart to stop racing, then attempt not to run back into the bakery. It’s not every day you stumble across a stash of decades-old letters.
Even though I want to gobble them up, I also know how to follow orders. Grandma’s rules to slow down exist for a reason. When I was seven, I once ate a dozen or so cookies at her house, and I had the worst stomachache. Then, of course, there’s what happened to the llamas who got into the sugar cookies.
Best not to rush headfirst into anything. And besides, this gift of letters from the past—I haven’t even begun reading but I already know I won’t want it to end. If I savor each one, I can enjoy them more.
When I return to the bakery area, I sit cross-legged on the floor with the stack of letters and do what I should—I take my time. I pick up the stack. I flip through it. I imagine what this stack of letters and cards might become if I follow a recipe.
Because that’s really what this is. It’s my grandmother’s recipe for…something. I don’t know what, I don’t know how, but it’s clear she had a plan.
I doubt Corbin was in her plan though. How could she have known he’d be my business partner? But somehow, it feels right having him here for whatever comes next.
Because he just made you come.
I silence that very naughty voice in my head. I mean, sure, the man has a way with his thigh. But he also has a steady presence and an air of patience as he joins me on the cool, concrete floor, stretching his legs out in front of him. Maybe she knew somehow that I’d need that.
As I undo the satiny lilac ribbon, I focus on opening the stack carefully, on figuring out what ingredients Grandma left me in this surprise recipe, on taking time to consider each one.
“I have no idea if these are her letters or someone else’s,” I say, feeling like I’m opening the door to an escape room, unsure of what the puzzle is, but eager to solve it.
“Did she ever mention anything about letters? From a friend? A lover? A relative?”
I shake my head as I fiddle with the corner of the first sheet of paper. “No. She sent me postcards. I sent some back to her. It was our thing.”
“Maybe this is your thing now,” he offers.
“Or our thing,” I suggest. I don’t want to be a greedy little pig. The letters might have been saved for me, but he discovered them. Only, I don’t want to imply I thinkweare a thing, so I backpedal. “Our thing at Afternoon Delight.”
His gaze strays to the garage windows, covered by brown paper as we work, but a section’s peeled back, a sliver of a pane letting the sun filter through. “It is afternoon.”
It is.
And it’s time.
I look down at the first letter, searching for clues. There’s no envelope, no postmark. Just a fragile sheet of paper from the past, folded in thirds. “What if it’s…?”
I trail off, afraid to say what I truly want—my grandmother’s guidance. Her support. Her words, directing me through whatever happens next in my life. I don’t get that from my own parents. It’s not really my brother’s place to do it. Grandma was always the one with the gentle hand and the willing ear.
“What if it’s…what?” Corbin prompts.
I shake my head. I’m not ready to let on how much I need someone to lean on, because that someone I leaned on is gone.
“What if it’s nothing?” I say instead. That feels safer.
“It’s not nothing,” he says with the certainty I wish I felt.
I run my finger over the paper once more.
My chest tightens with the wish for something magical in here. For the transformation of flour and sugar and butter into something that melts on your tongue. With that delicious possibility dancing in front of me, I unfold the first page and scan the handwritten note and the date.
“Corbin,” I whisper, “it’s from seventy years ago.”
His smile is full of wonder. “Yeah?”
