Cora hadn’t been back to Sunrise since the funeral, which had been a whirlwind of polite hugs, wilted carnations, and enough casseroles to feed a small army. The whole thing had blended into a blur of faces she couldn’t place and condolences she’d barely heard. She’d packed up her grief and flown back to New York before the thank-you notes were even written, convincing herself that distance made it easier. But none of it had been easy.
She swallowed hard as she stepped into the living room, the familiar scent of vanilla potpourri wrapping around her like a warm hug from Lolly herself.Welcome home, baby girl,the room seemed to say, echoing the same upbeat Southern drawl that had greeted her every day.Sit down and tell me everything. The faded floral wallpaper and the bright, mismatched art and sculptures on the walls captured Lolly’s irreverent, bold personality. It was like walking into a Jackson Pollock painting, if Pollock had been into Southern comfort food and yard sale finds.
And the cookbooks. They were everywhere, overflowing from the floor-to-ceiling shelves, stacked in haphazard towers on the coffee table, and even perched on the edge of the clawfoot tub. Cora smiled, remembering how Lolly kept buying them even though she hardly ever used them.
“They keep me company,” she used to say. “And they’re great for pressing flowers and scaring off nosy men.”
Cora ran her fingers along a dusty spine. When was the last time they’d sat together, flipping through one? The thought landed hard. It had been years. Years of quick phone calls and hurried visits, always with one foot out the door, rushing back to herreallife. At some point, without meaning to, her visits had dwindled into digital check-ins, texts sentbetween meetings, and calls made while wedged between strangers on the subway, her voice half lost in the roar of passing stations. She had always told herself she’d come down for a proper visit soon, maybe spend a weekend just the two of them. But “soon” had turned out to be too late.
Her gaze drifted to a worn book tucked at the end of a shelf, and a sad chuckle escaped her lips. It was Lolly’s personal recipe book. The one she’d guarded like a treasure, always tucked into her apron pocket. Cora had begged her grandmother countless times to let her peek inside, but Lolly would swat her away with a kitchen towel.
“They’re my secret recipes, baby girl. You’ll have to come up with your own.”
Cora had always imagined that one day Lolly would hand her that book with a knowing smile and a wink, as if to say,Now you’re ready. But that day never came. Instead, all Cora had were memories of her laughter and the wisdom she’d imparted between sips of tea. Tonight, those memories were more bittersweet than comforting.
Later, tossing and turning beneath Lolly’s favorite purple afghan, Cora finally gave up on sleep and padded to the apartment’s kitchen. The fridge greeted her with nothing but a bottle of ketchup and a can of sparkling water. Undeterred, she made her way down the stairs to the café’s kitchen, bracing herself for more of the same emptiness. The place had been closed for months, so there shouldn’t have been anything to eat, even if Jack Harlow had been squatting there in the evenings. But to her surprise, not only had Jack left the place spotless when he’d quietly departed earlier, he’d also left a plate on the counter, wrapped tightly in foil.
She peeled it back, revealing a stack of donuts filled with Lolly’s famous strawberry jelly. Her heart clenched as she picked up the paper resting beside them. In messy handwriting, it read:
In case you changed your mind.
Cora woketo the sound of laughter seeping through the floorboards. Groaning, she squinted at the clock. 8:37 a.m. Way too early, especially after a night spent wrestling with sheets that felt like they’d been soaked in swamp water, courtesy of the world’s most useless air conditioner.
The smell of coffee coaxed her downstairs, overriding any desire to burrow back under the covers. As she descended, her fingers brushed the notches Lolly had carved into the doorframe to mark her height over the years. Another wave of memories hit her: Lolly’s proud smile as she’d noted each growth spurt and her warm hug the day Cora had left for college, promising to return soon, even though she’d known she wasn’t planning on moving back.
Lolly knew Cora’s dreams were bigger than Sunrise long before she did. She saw it in the way Cora devoured books, scribbled down stories, and collected postcards of city skylines that she kept in a special photo album, each one neatly labeled, dated, and tucked into its own sleeve like a tiny piece of the future she was already planning. “You’re meant for more, baby,” Lolly would say with that knowing smile. But “more” meant leaving the town, The Spoon, and Lolly herself, with that kitchen that always smelled like cookies.
Cora shook her head, pushing the memories aside. There was no time for a stroll down memory lane. She was here on a mission: sell the café, get the cash, restart her life. Simple.
She pushed open the door that separated the stairs from the café, and another wave of nostalgia hit her square in the chest. The old ceiling fan whirred overhead, casting flickering shadows across the sunlit room. The air was thick with thefamiliar scents of coffee, old books from the tiny lending library, and a hint of pine floor cleaner that couldn’t quite overpower decades of bacon grease and vanilla extract baked into the walls.
Sunlight streamed through the front windows, warming the mismatched café tables. Some were round, some square, and none of them were quite level. The chairs didn’t match, either, but that was part of The Spoon’s charm. Residents of Sunrise had been gathering there for decades, and nobody minded that some people sat in metal chairs while others got painted wood. There was even a former barstool in the corner with sawed-off legs and a red gingham pillow duct-taped to the seat. Lolly always said it was perfect for anyone who dared to get their knickers in a twist when she sold out of the day’s special.
Cora didn’t flinch when she rounded the corner and found Lolly’s three best friends—Aggie, Bea, and Winston—huddled around a table with steaming cups of coffee as if they owned the place. This was Sunrise, after all. The kind of town where people knew the code to your garage door, the best pie to bring for Sunday supper, and exactly where you kept your coffee filters. The Spoon wasn’t even open, but that had never stopped them before. They’d been having coffee and doing the crossword there every morning for years, and the fact that the building didn’t technically belong to them wasn’t reason enough to break the habit.
Aggie, the group’s ringleader, was impossible to miss, mostly because she looked like a rainbow that had gotten loose in the clearance aisle at a craft store. Her neon tie-dye shirt, boldly declaringI’m not arguing, I’m explaining why I’m right, clung to her small frame. A wild mess of silver hair was piled on top of her head, and she had a pair of multi-colored rhinestone glasses perched in the middle of it like a tiara. She had the energy of a teenager who’d just downed three Red Bulls, which made sense. After years as a high school principal,she’d absorbed all the sass her students had ever thrown at her. Especially the smart-mouthed ones.
She stabbed a hot pink nail at the crossword in front of her, her voice cutting through the café like a whistle. “It’smagnolia. I’m telling you.”
Aggie’s quick wit and no-filter style had made her and Lolly friends the moment she’d moved to Sunrise, back when Cora was still in diapers. Over the years, she’d mastered the art of saying whatever popped into her head, whether people were ready for it or not.
Most of the time, they weren’t.
Next to Aggie, Bea let out a soft snort, the kind that barely disturbed the air. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’smarigold,” she said, her voice calm, almost soothing. She nodded to herself as she started counting the letters out on her fingers, her brow furrowing in concentration like it was the most important task in the world.
Bea was the balance to Aggie’s sharp edges, the quiet, steady presence that made everything feel a little more grounded. Always baking something or fussing over someone, she was the kind of person who made people feel taken care of just by being near her. If Aggie was the storm, Bea was the sunshine that followed, making sure everyone was all right once the dust had settled.
Then there was Winston, looking every bit like he’d just stepped out of a British mystery novel with his tweed hat and wire-rimmed glasses. “Ladies, ladies. It’smimosa. And before you ask, I don’t mean the drink.” He gave his mustache a quick, thoughtful pinch. “Though that does remind me of a rather interesting dinner party I once attended ...”
As the long-standing editor of theSunrise Gazette, Winston took his role very seriously, perhaps a bit too seriously for a small-town paper. He’d been in Sunrise for decades, always ready with a story, whether anyone wanted to hear it or not. He was like a walking encyclopedia, full of facts andanecdotes no one asked for. And while his tales were packed with detail, getting to the point was always a bit of a journey.
Cora cleared her throat, cutting him off before he could launch into one of his famous “I once knew a man” speeches. Whether they were true or not, she’d previously spent an hour listening to him describe the Queen’s hairstyle up close, and she wasn’t caffeinated enough for a repeat.
Suddenly, three pairs of eyes locked on her, lighting up as if she’d just walked in with a pound cake and a winning lottery ticket.
“Look who decided to grace us with her presence,” Bea exclaimed, pulling Cora into a hug that smelled like butter cookies and lavender. “Welcome home, sweetheart.”
Aggie leaned in, her curiosity barely contained. “We heard you were back in town.”
