“Please don’t let this school be filled with little assholes. I don’t have the bail money needed after I beat up their mothers.”
The café is further away from the school than I expected, and I’m glad I drove. To my surprise, it’s already open.
We just moved to town last week, and I assumed the place would be locked up until I came to check it out. Figured I’d have to sweet talk employees into coming back.
“Just sit anywhere, sweetie,” a woman in her late-fifties or early-sixties says with a wide smile.
Her cotton candy blue-gray hair reminds me of Grandma’s, and I nearly burst into tears right there. She was the only caring family member I had, and I hadn’t seen her in years before she died.
I got pregnant pretty young. No one believes I’m only twenty-four when they see Bernie. At fifteen, shortly after telling my parents the stick had two lines on it, they kicked me out. Grandma was the only support I had.
What I loved most about her was how she understood my fierce independence—which is a trait I seem to have passed onto my own daughter—so she knew to give me options. I wasn’t just going to move in with her. No, she sent me money to help me pay for my rent so I could finish school and raise a baby with a part-time job.
“Um, I don’t really need a seat,” I say, shaking away the painful but loving memories. “I’m actually the… owner. The new one.”
Why the hell am I so nervous?
“What did she say?” shouts an older man, who is probably a few years older than the woman who greeted me. “Did she say she’s the new owner?”
Shaking her head, the woman rolls her eyes. “Turn up your hearing aid, Merv! Yes, she did.”
“Gloria’s girl?”
I smile as they both walk up to greet me. “Yes. I’m Misty Reynolds. Gloria’s granddaughter.”
“We missed you at the funeral, but it was a very lovely service. I’m Sandy, and this is my husband, Merv. We’ve been here since Gloria opened this place up.”
“It’s nice to meet you both,” I say. “I wanted to be here for the funeral, but my daughter had appointments, and we couldn’t reschedule.”
Appointments that would have been helpful to have a partner around to help with. Someone to step in so I could attend my grandmother’s funeral.
Bernie’s dad was the love of my life. Or so I thought. When I told him I was pregnant, he promised we’d do this together. I stayed with him and his parents at first.
It didn’t take long for him to change his mind, and he kicked me out, too. I was crushed and left taking care of a newborn baby. Alone.
“Bernadette, right?”
Shocked, I stare at them. “Uh, yes.”
“Gloria showed us pictures of her every time you sent one. Said you were raising her all by yourself, which is why you were never in the pictures with her. It’s always us mamas behind the camera, huh?”
“You look just like your grandma when she was younger,” Merv says. “It’s like seeing a ghost.”
“Really?”
He nods and smiles. “Yes, ma’am. You are the spitting image. Your mama looked like her daddy, but you are all Gloria.”
I wish I had pictures of Grandma at that age to compare. I never looked like either of my parents. There were enoughsimilarities that I couldn’t claim being swapped at birth or adopted, but my oldest sister looks like Mom while my middle sister looks like Dad. Then there’s me.
“What time does the café typically open?” I ask, bringing the conversation to the topic at hand.
“We open at five in the morning.”
Five? “Oh dear. I… I have to get my daughter to school, and the earliest drop off is seven-thirty.”
Merv gives me a warm smile, and his dentures slip slightly as he waves a hand in front of his face. He has a thick, gray mustache that matches his thick eyebrows. His head is bald except for the gray along the sides and back of his scalp, and he looks like the sweetest old man.
“Don’t worry about it. Sandy and I are always here by four-thirty.”
