“For my niece. Lots of whipped cream. Go wild.”
The kid behind the counter quirks a smile.
“Rough morning?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she mutters.
She hands me the cup when we get back in the car.
It’s warm. Too warm.
I wrap both hands around it anyway.
I take a sip. Sweet. Hot. Comforting in a way I didn’t expect.
“Coffee is like alcohol to me,” she says as she buckles in. “One sip and I start oversharing.”
I huff a tiny laugh.
She turns on the radio to some oldies station that shouldn’t fit the mood but somehow does. Fleetwood Mac hums under her voice as she starts talking.
“Your mom and I… we had a falling out,” she says. “A long time ago. Before you were born.”
I blink.
I’ve never heard the full story.
Mom never talked about it.
“It was over something stupid,” she continues. “Like most family arguments. I was jealous. I thought your grandfather loved her more than me.”
My brow furrows. “Why would you think that?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I was twenty. Dumb. Insecure. Angry at the world. Your mom… she was the golden child. Or at least I thought she was. Dad went to all her events, talked about her achievements. I felt like background noise.”
I sip my drink again. The warmth spreads through my chest, but it doesn’t fix the ache.
“I don’t think he favored either of us,” she says softly. “We were just two different kids. She was sunshine. I was… fog.”
I watch the guardrails blur past the window.
“When your grandfather died…” she pauses, breath tight. “I handled it badly. I lashed out at her. Said things I didn’t mean.”
My throat stings.
The way she said it—regret wrapped in years of silence.
“That’s why I stayed out here,” she says. “I wanted distance in a familiar place. Your mom didn’t even ask me to buy out her half of the summer cottage we live in now. It was our father’s happy place. And keeping it in the family meant something more than money. So I took the fishing shack. Took a job at the clinic. Tried to build something that was mine.”
She glances over at me.
“And your mom… she met your dad in college, got married, moved out to Ohio, and built her life there.”
Her fingers tap the steering wheel.
“We never fixed it. Not really. Sure I came to visit but we never spoke about the emotional baggage between us.”
I swallow hard.
