“Is that good?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Nothing much is changing but the signs.”
Hopefully that meant the return policy was still in place. “I’m here to return some things my grandma bought by mistake.” I unzipped the bag and lifted piles of clothes and jewelry onto the counter. Then I got out my wallet and passed her Glamma’s card. “Please refund it to this.”
She pursed her lips like she couldn’t believe we were still doing this, but then her jaw went slack as she read the info on the card to type it in. “What’s the address?” she asked.
Confused, I rambled it off. They never verified our address before, but I wrote it off to the ownership transfer.
“No return needed,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows. “What?”
“We’ve been instructed to automatically refund all purchases made from that address—it should already be reflected in your account.”
Now my jaw was the one going slack. “What?” It seemed I was a broken record today.
She tipped her head to the side. “You might want to go outside and check the sign.”
Still bewildered, I left my bag on the counter and walked out front where the guy on a ladder was still screwing pieces of the sign into the wall, but I could read it clearly.Glamma’s Place.
I stared and stared because I knew exactly who had bought the store and made this happen. Even though Bryce said he needed space, I had to call him about this.
Fishing my phone out of the pocket of my leggings, I dialed his number and held my phone to my ear. It rang. And rang. And rang.
Then his warm voice came over in a recorded message. “You’ve reached Bryce Madigan. Leave me a message, and I’ll return your call.”
My eyes stung as the beep rang through the speaker. Lowering my phone to my side, I gave one last look at the sign and then went inside to collect my things. On the way out, I took a picture of the sign to show Glamma. No matter how things turned out between Bryce and me, I knew the smile on her face when she saw it would make all of this heartache worth it.
The ride back home on the bus seemed to go faster than the ride there, but then I noticed a truck alongside the curb in front of the house.
Bryce’s truck.
My heart rate ratcheted up.He’s here?
Then I realized he was alone inside with Glamma.
So I hurried into the house and found them sitting in the living room surrounded by paper shopping bags. They both looked up at me, Bryce with a guarded expression, Glamma grinning like the Cheshire cat.
“What’s going on here?”
Glamma said, “Bryce brought some things for you. A lot of things for you.”
I swear the tips of his ears went red. “I met with a prenatal specialist.” He reached into the bags, talking fast and pulling out the items as he mentioned them. “Some lotion for your skin, supplements that are supposed to help third-trimester development, a belly band to make things more comfortable, ginger suckers for nausea...”
As he continued through the list, my eyes misted over.
And then he pulled out an item wrapped in a beautiful pink box with a blue bow. “I got this for you too.”
My lips parted as I looked at it. “You got me all this?” I asked him.
He smiled and nodded.
Glamma yelled, “Open it already!”
Laughing through the tears, I tugged on the ribbon and lifted the lid.
Inside was a frame just the right size for a sonogram picture. And on the bottom, etched into the porcelain, was her name, Twyla Jordan. Unable to find words, I looked up at him. He stood from the couch, waiting for me to speak.
