Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Sadie
Jillie’s Fears
I know something is wrong with Jillie before she says a word.
That is one of the terrible gifts of motherhood.
You learn the language of silence.
Jillie’s usual silence is never really silence. It hums. It wiggles. It swings its feet against chair legs and whispers to crayons and asks questions about whether penguins have knees.
This silence is different.
This silence sits too still.
She comes into the bakery after school with her purple backpack sliding off one shoulder, her pink hat crooked over one ear, and her mittens clenched in one hand instead of swinging from their string like usual.
No dramatic entrance.
No story about recess.
No complaint about spelling words.
No announcement that someone at lunch traded pudding for pretzels and clearly did not understand market value.
Just quiet.
She steps through the back kitchen door, sets her backpack on the little stool by the prep table, and climbs onto her usual seat.
Then she looks at the mixer.
Not at me. Not at Mrs. Bellamy. Not at the cookie tray that’s cooling near the window.
The mixer.
As if stainless steel has suddenly become very interesting.
I pause with a piping bag in my hand.
“Hi, Bug.”
“Hi.”
One syllable.
Flat. Wrong.
Mrs. Bellamy looks up from boxing cranberry orange shortbread. Her eyes meet mine briefly. She hears it too.
I set the piping bag down. “How was school?”
“Fine.”
Fine.
The official word children use when something is absolutely not fine.
“Did you have art?”
“Yes.”
“What did you make?”
“Stuff.”
Mrs. Bellamy inhales softly. I almost smile despite myself.
Jillie Bennett has never once in her life described art as “stuff.” Last month she spent eleven minutes explaining a paper snowman whose emotional journey involved losing a scarf and finding community.
I wipe my hands on a towel and walk around the prep table.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
Now I am officially terrified.
“You always come home hungry.”
“I had a snack.”
“What snack?”
“Crackers.”
“What kind?”
“Regular.”
This is a child who once described cheese crackers as “tiny orange squares of happiness.”
Something is wrong, very wrong.
Before I can press, the bell over the front door jingles. Voices drift in from the bakery. Two customers. Women.
I recognize one of them by voice before I see her. Linda from the library. The other sounds like Mrs. Callahan, who means well and gossips with the precision of a military strategist.
They don’t know that we’re in the back.
Or maybe they do and simply trust that a small-town bakery has no walls capable of containing information.
“Did you hear about Colby Reid?” Linda says.
My hand stills on the edge of the table. Jillie’s eyes lift slightly.
Mrs. Bellamy’s expression hardens instantly.
“No,” Mrs. Callahan says. “What now?”
“There’s talk he might be traded.”
My stomach drops, not because I haven’t heard whispers.
Everyone else apparently has.
Colby is a hockey star. Hockey stars come with rumors the way bakeries come with flour. The internet has been speculating for weeks because apparently strangers with Wi-Fi believe they are entitled to rearrange people’s lives for entertainment.
But the word sounds different inside my bakery. Closer. Sharper.
Traded.
Jillie’s face changes. Not much, but enough.
Her little fingers tighten around the strap of her backpack.
Mrs. Bellamy moves toward the swinging door with the expression of a woman fully prepared to commit social murder.
I shake my head once, not because I disagree.
Because Jillie is listening.
The voices continue.
“I saw it on one of those hockey pages,” Linda says. “Big-market team interested. Supposedly his people are considering options.”
“Well,” Mrs. Callahan says, lowering her voice in a way that makes it travel farther, “that would explain why he’s been spending so much time here. Maybe saying goodbye.”
Air leaves my lungs.
Jillie looks at me. One quick glance. Then away again.
Mrs. Bellamy slams a box lid shut in the front with enough force to startle both women into silence.
“Can I help you ladies find something?” she calls, in a tone so sweet it could frost cake and so sharp it could cut wire.
The voices stop immediately.
Good. Bless that woman.
I turn back to Jillie. She’s studying the mixer again.
As if she did not hear. As if she does not know. As if her small body has not gone completely still in the way it only does when she is trying very hard to be brave.
I crouch beside her stool.
“Bug.”
“I have homework.”
The words come too quickly.
“All right.”
She reaches for her backpack, pulling out her folder with stiff little movements. Papers slide onto the table.
A spelling list. A permission slip. A worksheet with snowflakes around the border.
Then one paper lands face-up between us and my heart stops.
Across the top, in cheerful block letters, it says: MY FAMILY TREE.
Below the title, Jillie has drawn a brown tree with crooked branches, green leaves, and bright red hearts scattered everywhere.
There is a small stick figure labeled ME.
A taller stick figure labeled MOM.
A lopsided squirrel with a bushy tail labeled Sir Fluffernutter, her favorite stuffed animal.
And on the other side of the tree, beneath a branch decorated with what appears to be a hockey stick and three blue hearts, stands a tall stick figure wearing skates.
The label underneath says: COLBEE
Not Colby Reid. Not hockey man. Not Mommy’s fake boyfriend.
Colbee.
Right there beside us, as though he has always belonged on the page, and as though Jillie never considered another possibility.
The bakery fades around me. The ovens. The hum of the refrigerator. Mrs. Bellamy’s protective voice in the front room.
All of it disappears.
There is only the paper, only the crooked tree, only my daughter’s careful crayon hearts, and only Colby’s name tucked into our family as if adding him was the most natural thing in the world.
My throat tightens.
“Miss Angie said we had to put important people,” Jillie says.
Her voice is small.
Defensive before I have said a word.
I force myself to breathe.
“It’s beautiful.”
She does not smile.
Usually praise lights her up. Today it barely reaches her.
She looks down at the paper, tracing the edge of one red heart with her fingertip. “I didn’t know if I was allowed.”
The sentence breaks something open in me.
“Allowed to what?”
Her shoulder lifts.
“To put him.”
Him.
Not Colby.
Him.
The person whose name she is afraid to say too casually now, as though saying it might make him disappear.
I sit back on my heels, suddenly unsure whether the floor is steady.
“Of course you’re allowed to put important people on your family tree.”
“But he’s not...” She stops.
My chest aches. “He’s not what?”
Her mouth trembles for half a second before she presses it flat. “Nothing.”
I know that move. I taught her that move without meaning to.
Swallow the question. Fold the fear smaller. Pretend it does not hurt.
Adults call it strength.
Children should never have to learn it.
“Jillie.”
She pushes the paper toward me.
“You have to sign it.”
I look at the bottom. PARENT SIGNATURE.
The words blur. I pick up a pen because that is what a mother does. A mother signs forms, packs lunches. Checks homework, and makes sure mittens are dry, hair is brushed, and shoes fit.
A mother also protects her child from heartbreak.
At least she tries.
I sign my name. My hand does not feel steady.
Jillie takes the paper back carefully and slides it into her folder. Too carefully. Like something fragile. Like something breakable.
Like hope.
***
The rest of the afternoon passes too quietly.
Jillie finishes her homework, helps frost cookies, and even laughs once when Mrs. Bellamy accidentally gets powdered sugar on her nose.
But something remains off.
It’s like she's carrying a thought too heavy for her backpack.
And no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to reach it.
By closing time, snow has started falling again.
Nothing dramatic, just soft flakes drifting through the glow of the streetlights.
The bakery smells like cinnamon and vanilla.
Normally Jillie loves closing time.
It's our little ritual, with music playing softly, sweeping floors, packing leftover cookies.
Tonight she moves through it all carefully, thoughtfully, like she's somewhere else.
Mrs. Bellamy notices too.
As we're locking up, she crouches beside Jillie.
"Everything all right, sweetheart?"
Jillie nods immediately, too immediately.
"Yep."
Mrs. Bellamy looks unconvinced. So am I, but neither of us pushes. Not yet.
The drive home is quiet, another warning sign.
Usually, Jillie talks the entire way. About school. Friends. Dogs. Clouds. The possibility of owning a pet dragon.
Tonight she watches snowflakes drift across the windshield.
Lost in thought.
By the time we reach the house, my stomach hurts.
Because mothers know. We always know.
We just don't always know why.
***
After dinner, I find her sitting cross-legged on the living room floor.
The family tree assignment rests beside her.
She isn't drawing or coloring.
Just looking at it.
My heart sinks. I sit beside her. For a minute neither of us speaks.
Then I ask softly: "You want to tell me what's bothering you?"
Silence. Long enough that I think she won't answer.
Then: "The hockey guys were really fun."
The statement catches me off guard.
"Hockey guys?"
She nods.
"Toby."
A smile flickers.
"Jamie."
Another.
"Liam."
A pause.
"Colby."
The smile disappears.
And suddenly I understand exactly where this conversation is headed.
The Hockey Men Invasion.
She’s talking about the day they crowded into the bakery, filled every table, ate half our inventory, and turned the place into a circus.
Jillie had loved every second of it, especially seeing Colby belong somewhere, especially seeing him with people who cared about him.
At the time, it had felt harmless. Now it doesn't.
"That was a good day."
She nods.
"It felt like..." She hesitates.
"Like what?"
Her shoulders lift, then fall.
"Like family."
The word lands hard, harder than I expect.
It hit me hard enough that I have to look away for a second.