Chapter 18
Be Patient
Twelve Days Left of Feeling Like I’m Part of a Family
Jamie opens the oven and carefully pulls out the red Dutch oven. Outside, another three inches of snow have fallen since we dropped the girls at school, coating the ground in a pale, muffled gray light. He’s in a white tee and flannel pajama pants. A tiny fleck of flour clings to his jaw.
“Your first sourdough,” he announces, removing the lid with his potholders. Inside sits a perfect golden-brown loaf. The crust is crackling, and steam fills the kitchen with that toasty, yeasty smell that makes everything feel like home.
“I love carbs,” I breathe, leaning forward like I could inhale the whole thing. “I’ll get the butter.”
“Nope,” he says, shaking his head, green eyes catching mine as a stray curl falls over his forehead. “We gotta wait at least an hour for it to cool.”
“You didn’t tell me that when we started!” I groan, swatting him lightly with a candy cane linen dish towel.
“Keep complaining.” He plops the loaf onto a wooden cutting board. “I usually wait two hours.”
“I’m only waiting for one. Even setting a timer for fifty-seven minutes.”
I pick up my phone to set the timer and notice an email from the lab. Scanning it quickly, I feel a small surge of vindication.
“The lab got the sample back,” I say, rereading the findings.
“Already?”
“I am the best in the city,” I say, smirking. “The moss samples from the trees the other day are a mild irritant. No long-term effects expected, but the moss should be scraped off and the spores killed with white vinegar.”
Jamie leans against the counter and glances at the dark window. It’s only eleven in the morning, but a blizzard is howling outside, with snow piling up along the edges of the house. “Damn. They used to love the moss. I wonder what changed.”
“It’s a new strand,” I say, reading off the report. “Maybe cross-pollination or something.”
“I can hire some teenagers to clear it with the new funds you brought in.”
“Good idea,” I say, staring at the ice crusting around the kitchen window. It’s the coldest day since I arrived. There’s nothing we can do today, so the moss will have to wait.
Jamie’s eyes flick back to me. “Guess all your work here is done.”
I don’t think he meant for it to sound cold, but my skin pebbles like I’ve been kicked out into the storm.
He is right. I handled Arrietty’s labor, stabilized the sick reindeer, and even did things he wasn’t expecting, like revamping the sanctuary’s social media presence and introducing the adoptions.
But it seems tiny next to everything he’s done for me.
Patience. Fun. There are so many things I want to say to him, but listing them all would make whatever this is between us feel finished. And I’m not ready to say goodbye.
“But you’re glad I’m staying?” I say, wrapping my arms around his stomach.
“Of course,” he says, rubbing his thumb over my arm.
And I feel it all—the guilt, the pull, the impossible mixture of wanting to linger and knowing I can’t.