Chapter 6
The knock came just as Hazel was rinsing soap suds from her wrists, the sink still half full with tepid water and floating forks.
Early evening light angled through the kitchen window, soft and golden.
Outside, the breeze had picked up, rustling the hedges along the porch and carrying the faintest edge of salt in the air.
She hadn’t expected anyone, but something about the knock felt familiar, not urgent. A rhythm without rush.
She dried her hands on her grandmother’s favourite dish towel, its hem fraying, the lemon print faded to a gentle ghost of yellow. Her bare feet padded across the hardwood floor; it was cool against her skin as she moved through the still-quiet house.
She cracked the front door open without pausing to check who it was first.
A woman Hazel just barely recognized stood on the porch like she belonged there, with her soft grey cardigan hanging open over a cornflower-blue tunic and dark-washed jeans.
Her hair curled like ivy around her shoulders, streaked silver in places that caught the light.
In one hand she held a wicker basket with a folded cloth draped over its contents, and in the other, two mismatched teacups clinked together gently, porcelain tapping porcelain.
“Hi, Hazel,” she said, with a warm, velvety voice that reminded Hazel of slow jazz and thick wool blankets. “I’m Sylvia. I was a friend of your grandmother’s. From Northlight.”
Hazel hesitated for a breath— not because she minded the company, exactly, but because it took her a second to place the name. Not from memory, but from guilt. Sylvia Shaw. Her grandmother had mentioned her once or twice, always in passing. She had been at the funeral, too.
“A friend from the studio,” she’d said during one of their rushed calls, back when Hazel had been juggling twelve-hour shifts and squeezing her grandmother’s voice into the in-betweens.
She hadn’t asked questions then, just nodded and half-listened as she laced up her shoes or packed up plated pastries.
She remembered thinking it was nice that her grandmother had a friend to keep her company.
Even better that her grandmother had taken an interest in yoga; she’d always felt better when she was moving her body.
And now here that friend was, on the porch, carrying tea like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Hazel pulled in a steadying breath and opened the door wider. “Of course, hi. Come in.”
Sylvia stepped inside with quiet confidence, the creak of her tall boots soft against the floorboards.
She moved like someone who’d walked this house before— recently, too, like she remembered its rhythm.
She paused just long enough to glance across the entryway as she toed off her boots, or as if she was remembering the clatter of Hazel’s grandmother’s keys in the ceramic bowl on the console table by the door.
Hazel led Sylvia into the living room, adjusting the hem of her faded, oversized sweater.
She brushed a hand through her hair, tucking some of the wilder strands back behind her ears.
The space had shifted in quiet, subtle ways: Hazel’s coffee mug on the windowsill, a stack of cookbooks resting on the arm of the couch, the faint smell of cinnamon and flour clinging to the air instead of solely lavender and eucalyptus.
It was still her grandmother’s house, but it was beginning to carry Hazel’s weight, again, too.
Sylvia set the basket down on the coffee table, unwrapped the cloth, and pulled out a thermos like this was something they’d done before.
“I hope this isn’t too forward,” she said, pouring the tea into the porcelain mugs she’d brought along. Her kind, blue eyes remained trained on her own movements. “I just figured you might want some company. And Wendy always said mint helped you think.”
Hazel blinked. “She said that?”
“All the time.” Sylvia smiled, handing Hazel a cup. “Said you liked it strong, with a little honey. I brought some.”
The scent curled upward, mint and something floral, gentle and warm. Hazel wrapped her hands around the cup slowly, as if afraid it might vanish.
She felt the words before she found them. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet before.”
Sylvia’s eyes softened, but she didn’t rush to reassure. “We almost did, once, a few years back. Wendy invited me over the week you were supposed to visit. Something came up last minute— she said you’d gotten called into a shift or to help with an event, maybe.”
Hazel’s stomach turned, low and quiet. She couldn’t place the memory, but only because there had been many instances that sounded just like that one.
“I’m glad to meet you now,” Sylvia added, and her tone made it sound like grace— not forgiveness, just truth.
Hazel nodded once and sat, her body folding down onto the edge of the armchair as if pulled there by something heavier than gravity.
Sylvia didn’t push. She sat across from her with ease, the steam from her own cup curling upward like breath.
A comfortable silence settled between them and Hazel was grateful for it— grateful that not everyone tried to fill the quiet with apologies or too-earnest condolences.
Sylvia seemed to understand something about grief that others didn’t, that it wasn’t always loud.
That sometimes, it just hummed low in the background, like the soft tick of the clock on the wall or the groan of pipes as hot water travelled through them.
“She loved spending her evenings here,” Sylvia said at last, her gaze drifting toward the window and remaining rooted there.
“She used to walk to the end of the driveway just to feel the sea air. Even in winter, if you can believe it. Used to say she wanted to leave the house in the mornings, instead— something about waking up her bones.”
Hazel smiled faintly, her fingers tightening around the cup. “That sounds like her.”
“She told me once,” Sylvia said, tilting her head as if remembering the exact moment. “That you sometimes forget to take care of yourself because you’re too busy trying to make yourself small. Too busy trying not to get in the way.”
Hazel looked up, startled— not because it wasn’t true, but because it was. Her grandmother used to say things like that all the time in passing, like it was nothing. Like she hadn’t just cut through Hazel’s armour with a warm knife.
Sylvia reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a folded slip of paper, the edges softened by time.
She set it on the coffee table between them.
“She prepaid for a full year of classes at Northlight for you. Told me to wait until things had settled a little before I brought it by.” Her voice lowered, almost conspiratorial.
“Said if I came by too soon, you might be too overwhelmed to accept it.”
Hazel didn’t reach for the paper right away.
She just stared at it, a strange tightness building behind her eyes.
Her grandmother’s handwriting peeked out on one corner of the receipt, looping and familiar.
A breadcrumb. Another quiet gesture left behind like a lighthouse blinking through fog, just enough to guide her back.
She didn’t know what to do with the softness of it, with the idea that someone had planned care into her life like it was something she deserved.
Self-care skated too close to help, and help had always come with weight.
With expectations. With the possibility of being a burden.
With the possibility that just once she’d settled within the heaviness of it, the rug would be pulled out from beneath her, sending her sprawling to the floor. Alone.
Even now, with her grandmother gone, she could feel it— like the walls had been quietly moved inward around her, narrowing the path.
Within the fog, something else began to stir.
Pressure, thin and pointed, settled against her chest. A sense of being steered, gently but unmistakably, by a woman no longer here to answer for it.
She’d chosen to stay, yes. She’d opened the doors to the bakery, poured herself into the work, tried to root herself in the quiet rhythm of this place.
But now she wondered if the choice had ever been entirely hers.
If the path had already been swept clean and laid out in front of her like something sacred. Or strategic.
Why? The question cut through the fog with a sudden, sharp edge. Why had her grandmother done all of this— why build a life for Hazel she hadn’t asked for? Why believe so deeply that she needed to be here?
Hazel blinked hard, jaw tight. The receipt stayed where Sylvia had left it, humming with significance. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or crumple it in her fist.
“She didn’t tell me,” Hazel said, her eyes on the paper, though her voice didn’t seem tethered to anything. She held the teacup in both hands, letting the warmth seep slowly into her fingers, her palms, as though she could absorb something steadier from it. “That she thought it might be soon.”
There was no judgment in Sylvia’s silence. Just a pause, like a space being held open, and then she nodded. “No, she didn’t. She wouldn’t have.”
Hazel hesitated. She wasn’t sure why she was asking, except that she needed to, now that someone was finally here— someone who’d been there, in those last days. “Did she tell you?”
Sylvia’s answer was slow, but sure. “She didn’t say it outright. But… I think she knew for a little while before.”
“She was always careful not to scare me,” Hazel murmured, giving her head a gentle shake. “Even when I was little. I think… if she said it out loud, it would make it real. And she never wanted to burden me with that.”
A memory surfaced, uninvited but vivid.