“It’sreallygreat,” I say too emphatically.
“What’s your hesitation?” Emma asks. “Do you not want this job?”
Take the job, save the house.
Don’t take the job, lose the house.
“I don’t…” I stiffen. “No.”
“You don’t know?” Gloria asks.
“No. Yes,” I say, backtracking. “No. I don’t know.”
I’ve never had a chance to get to know what I want. I’ve always been too busy doing what I needed to do.
What’s the data telling me? I could put together an entire spreadsheet with all the times Dad and Jerry have dug themselves into a hole and lied to me about it, and with the ways I’ve sacrificed myself to help them out of it.
“What’s your gut telling you?” Emma asks.
My gut?
I’m silent for too long, and they both lose interest and get backto work. Emma busies herself with a Post-it while Gloria fills up her candy bowl.
But then Emma walks over to the front door, tapes the Post-it onto the glass, and flips the “Open” sign around. Gloria waves me over to join her at the sitting area in the front of the store. “Come. Sit.” They’re not getting back to work. They’re temporarily closing the store. For me.
Emma speaks first. “Hazel, Gloria and I have gotten the sense that it’s hard for you to open up—”
“Trust people,” Gloria says around a mouthful of candy, offering me the bowl. “You’ve always been suspicious. Of others.Youaren’t suspicious. Well, you kind of are with how secretive you—”
“Thanks, Glo. You know what, I got this,” Emma says, patting her knee. She turns to me. “Hazel, we would never want to pressure you into telling us anything or doing anything you’re uncomfortable with, but we want you to know that you can always talk to us. We might just be your coworkers—”
“I thought we agreed on candy crew,” Gloria interjects.
Emma gives Gloria a look. “We might just be your candy crew, but we’d also like to be your friends.”
Friends. I don’t even know how to have friends. Or how to be a friend.
Gloria nods quickly. “Thanks to candy, we were all brought together. That’s got to mean something. You don’t have to talk to us now if you don’t want, but we’re here whenever you do.”
“I—I…”
Emma and Gloria each take one of my hands in theirs. I draw in a tight breath. They’ve made me feel nothing but accepted.
“My mom died when I was really young,” I say, starting slowly. “And from that point forward, I think I always viewed myself as needing to replace her in my family. To be the person who caredfor everybody. Who fixed all their problems. Who put them above herself, at all costs.”
“Oh, Hazel,” Gloria whispers.
“I’m starting to realize that a lot of decisions I’ve made in my life maybe gave people—my family—the ability not to have to worry about their decisions. And maybe that scares me because if I’m not needed, then who am I?”
It’s overwhelming to say this out loud. I don’t try to numb it away. Instead, I let myself feel the weight of these words.
“Darling, you’ve got a lifetime to figure that out,” Gloria says gently. “But also, what you’ve said, it isn’t fully true. You are needed… by you. You’ve spent all these years looking out for others, but now it’s time for you to look out for yourself.”
“What are your hopes?” Emma asks. “What are your dreams?”
I look between Emma and Gloria. It’s not that there haven’t been people to trust. It’s that I haven’t let myself notice them. Before I glance away, in one of the reflections of the glass candy jar, I catch an oblong, blurry reflection of myself.
I haven’t let myself trust me, either.
