Chapter 2 #2
When I hurry past the open door to unlock the bakery, I glance in and catch her holding the framed photo that usually sits on her desk, sorrow etched deep in her face.
It’s the picture with my dad sitting on her lap as a toddler, my grandpa at her side, both of them smiling, my grandpa’s hand on her shoulder and her fingers intertwined with his.
People say that time heals all pain, but they’re wrong.
The grief on Farmor’s face is every bit as sharp today as it was when I came here at fourteen.
The pain of losing the two loves of her life in one year hasn’t lessened—she’s just gotten better at distracting herself from it, or perhaps simply hiding it.
But I know that kind of pain too. It’s a wound that never fully heals.
Like the story about a tree when a woodcutter left his ax embedded in it, never to return.
Over time, the tree grew around the ax, absorbing the blade into its trunk, no longer seen but still there—an aching reminder that the woodcutter was gone forever.
I slip out to the front to unlock the door without disturbing her, flip the sign to Open, and finish arranging the last of the semlor buns.
Right on cue, the bell chimes happily as my roommate, Louise, breezes into the bakery.
She began working as a loan officer at her uncle’s office in the same strip mall as our bakery three years ago.
We bonded over our shared sugar addiction when she started coming in for a daily bakery run.
Four months later, her roommate bailed on her contract, and Lou asked me to move in with her.
After living with both my mom and grandma for years, I jumped at the chance.
I have her daily order of kanelbulle—a Swedish cinnamon bun—ready in a little clear to-go box, a plastic fork tied to the top with our trademark blue-and-yellow ribbon (the colors of the Swedish flag).
“Ah, Livvy, you’re the literal best.” Lou is the exact opposite of what you’d expect someone who is twenty-seven and named Louise to be like.
In fact, she says the reason she dyes the edges of her dark hair wild colors and has triple-pierced ears is to make sure no one mistakes her for a “boring Louise.” “But I actually need a couple of extras today.”
“Oh yeah? Clients coming in you need to impress?”
“Not exactly. My cousin Hunter took a red-eye and landed here this morning. He’s almost to the office.”
This news is delivered with the tone of someone announcing Cruella de Vil was showing up to steal our puppies and skin them for their fur.
She’s mentioned Hunter a few times over the years.
They aren’t close because he lives so far away, but I never got the feeling that she had any issues with him.
In fact, after he and his long-term girlfriend broke up, she claimed she wanted to set us up, though it never happened.
He lives in Florida, so that made it somewhat difficult.
“And this is . . . bad news?”
“It is for us.” Lou flips her hair over one shoulder—it currently has teal-blue tips—and peruses the glass counter.
“Maybe he’ll like a piece of the almond cake?
What says, ‘Hey, sorry you broke up with your girlfriend and that your business partner stabbed you in the back, but this sugary treat will make it all better’? ”
“Yikes. Um . . . cake is always a good option. Maybe a slice of prinsesst?rta. More sugar than the almond.”
Lou lifts a finger in the air. “Good point. Okay. One of those. And I’ll grab a semlor bun too. For Uncle Richard.”
I package the two items and slide them across the counter. “I hate to even ask, but why exactly is it bad news for us?”
“Because, as I already recapped, he’s hit a rough patch in life and needs somewhere to crash while he regroups. He’s coming to work with us at the title company, but there aren’t any extra rooms at Uncle Richard’s. So . . . he’s going to stay in the other half of the duplex.”
“The half that flooded last month and is currently being gutted?”
“Yep, that one.”
Lou is quite the savvy businesswoman. She bought the duplex as an investment property a couple of years ago and rents out the second half as well as the extra room I currently live in.
We were incredibly lucky that the pipe broke in the other side of the building.
The couple renting it was forced to move—it wasn’t exactly habitable at the moment.
They’ve even had to take out most of the appliances.
I actually hoped to convince Talia to move in after the renovation was done, but the contractor told Lou that wasn’t going to be plausible for at least two more months.
“He’s only going to crash there to sleep,” Lou continues. “After the workers are gone. He’ll have to use our half of the duplex for everything else for now.”
“Okay.” I paused. “I still don’t get why this is bad news. I thought you liked him.”
She takes the treats and slides me her corporate credit card. “I do. But living next door to him is a different story.”
“Hopefully he’s not a slob.”
“Hunter?” Lou snorts. “No, I’d put money on him being a neat freak.”
I hand her card back and slide the receipt over for her to sign. Her tip is too generous, as always, but I’ve given up complaining about it. Lou knows she makes way more money than I do and likes to help. Spread the wealth—literally.
“Well, that’s good. I’m not prepared to live with boys’ stinky socks and underwear strewn across all available living spaces again.” Two younger brothers have a way of damaging a girl’s olfactory glands for life.
“He’s twenty-eight, not thirteen.” Lou laughs. “He’s just . . . protective. I don’t need him breathing down my neck and running off my dates. Maybe even reporting my every activity back to the family, you know?” Then her eyes widen. “Wait! Actually, this might be perfect!”
“Having him tattle on you?”
“No, having him move in next door to us! I won’t even have to set you up with him. You’ll just fall for each other watching reruns of Friends while he’s doing his laundry!”
“Lou.”
“Don’t Lou me! It’s gonna happen. You’ll see. Then we’ll be family for real!”
Her enthusiasm is endearing—and so completely off base. “Don’t you think that’s jumping the gun a bit? I haven’t even met the guy. You don’t even know him that well.”
“Well, I know he’s related to me, so he has to be awesome.” Lou flashes a winning grin.
Right then, Farmor comes out from the back. Any trace of lingering sorrow is hidden well; she smiles widely at Lou, holding out a tray of pepparkakor. “Ah, Louise. It’s nice to see you, dear. Want one?”
“You know I can never resist your pepparkakor.” Lou grabs the bag with her purchased treats and takes one of the cookies off the tray Farmor holds. “Better get back to the office.”
“Have a good day,” Farmor says, and I wave as Lou clicks her way out the door in her tight black skirt, red-bottom heels, and multicolored hair. She really is an entity unto herself.
I can’t help but wonder how much Hunter will be like his cousin.
Despite myself, my heart flutters beneath my scarred sternum, a butterfly of hope burgeoning with soft, feathery wings that make me shivery with anticipation.
She showed me a post of him once almost a year ago, trying to convince me to follow him on Instagram, but I refused, claiming it would be creepy—especially since he had a girlfriend.
(I still think I was right, though she was bugged about it for a couple of days.) The picture was a side angle of him looking out over the ocean, but I remember his thick brown hair, strong jaw, and hint of a wide, bright smile.
The kitchen door swings open once more, but this time, Farmor put down the tray somewhere within its stainless--steel depths and is now empty-handed. “Did I overhear Louise saying her cousin is moving in next door?” Farmor’s question sounds innocent enough, but her gaze is sharp.
“It would seem so.”
“And she believes there is a chance the two of you might—what do you call it these days?—form an attachment?”
“That is not what we call it, but yes, something like that. She’s wrong though,” I quickly add. “She’s being dramatic, as usual.”
I don’t have good luck with relationships—or men in general.
I wear high-collared shirts on first dates so I don’t get asked about my scar, but if anyone makes it to a second or third date, I feel compelled to tell them about my heart transplant and lingering health issues.
I don’t want anyone getting blindsided too deep into a relationship, including myself.
Because once any potential boyfriends find out about the heart transplant and my chances of surviving past forty, they are either freaked out or change toward me.
One guy, who I really liked, asked if we did get married someday, what were the odds that I would have a heart attack on our wedding night.
Which I suppose was a valid question . .
. maybe? But the deal killer was the way he’d sounded so .
. . fascinated, as if the idea that something like that might literally kill me was kind of exciting or something.
Needless to say, we didn’t make it on any more dates—let alone to marriage.
The thing is, I get it. I’m a big risk. Taking the leap into any relationship is hard enough, but jumping into one with me is even scarier. There are so many unknowns and so much uncertainty when it comes to my future—for how far out I dare plan for, well, anything.
“I wish you wouldn’t shut out the opportunity for love before you even give it a chance,” Farmor says.
I pause in the act of straightening some boxes on the display shelf. “Are you saying you want me to fall in love with the stranger moving into the duplex next to me?”
A faint blush touches Farmor’s freckled cheeks. “Of course not. I’m saying I want you to at least give yourself a chance of putting yourself out there and seeing what good can come of it. You so rarely go on any dates.”
Ouch. But also true. “We can’t all meet our soulmates in Hyde Park and fall so deeply in love we elope a month later,” I tease gently, thinking of her staring at the picture of her beautiful little family.
You’ve never seen two people more in love than my grandparents.
Well, except for my parents. Finding your literal soulmate and remaining deliriously in love for the long haul is somewhat of a family tradition.
One that I’m apparently going to break. It’ll be up to my brothers to keep the tradition alive.
Farmor sighs, giving me one of her looks. “I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“You’re coasting. You’re letting life pass you by because you’re so scared you won’t get enough of it.”
I flinch and turn away because her words strike true—right through my scarred sternum, delving deep into my stolen heart.
Her gentle touch on my shoulder refuses to let me ignore her.
“You were not saved so you could spend your entire life in this bakery taking care of me and your mom and everyone else. You have a life to live, Olivia. I just want to see you realize that.”
“I love this bakery. I don’t want to work somewhere else.”
“Sotnos, I’m not saying to leave the bakery.” Farmor’s expression is at once tender and firm. “But it shouldn’t be your whole life.”
“Well, like you said, it’s not that simple.”
“No, it’s not,” she allows. “But you have to at least try—go on a date or two. Give someone a chance to make you happy. Promise me that.”
I sigh. She won’t stop until I relent. Though where she thinks I’ll suddenly find a date when I really do spend most of my time in this bakery, I have no idea. “I’ll think about trying.”
Farmor squeezes my shoulder and then releases me. “I suppose that’s good enough for now.”
The swinging door to the kitchen squeaks as I push through it, retreating to the baking that has been my solace and comfort ever since I was fourteen and she started teaching me her recipes after school.
Did you know magic really does exist? She asked me as I stood next to her in this same kitchen when I was tall and gangly and so lost.
No, actually, it doesn’t. I rolled my eyes with all the annoyance a fourteen-year-old girl was capable of mustering. Especially one who had lost her father, her grandfather, and her home all in the same year. I was struggling to believe in anything at that point.
It does—and I’ll prove it, she told me. How else do you explain what happens when you take all these separate ingredients, mix them together in the exact right way, and create something completely new and better?
I didn’t believe her then, but I do now. Baking is a quiet sort of magic that wraps itself around you, an alchemy of comfort and creation.
But just because she was right about that doesn’t mean she’s right to force me into making a promise I can’t keep.
She was lucky; she and my grandpa had a love you see only in movies or read about in fairy tales.
My mom too. She and Dad loved each other so much it was borderline revolting—at least, I felt that way when I was a kid.
Now I know how rare both my parents’ and grandparents’ relationships were.
I wish the family pattern weren’t going to end with me, but sadly, delirious happiness and love forever after is not in my future.
The thing is, I have tried. And every time I’ve let myself hope that kind of love might be within my reach, it’s been snatched away, proving I’m too much of a risk for fairy tales to come true. It’s not in the cards for me.
If only Farmor would realize it and leave me alone instead of reminding me exactly how lonely my future is destined to be on a regular basis.
A sigh escapes me, and I let it slip away like smoke, grounding myself once more in the rhythm of the dough, trusting the quiet magic to weave its spell.