2. The Air at the Edge of Home #2
It all looked exactly the same, as though the town had simply gone on waiting for her while she became someone else entirely. And somehow, that hurt more than if it had all disappeared.
She turned up Dodecanese Boulevard, the heart of the Sponge Docks, and the familiarity deepened.
On her right, the little shops stood shoulder to shoulder, whitewashed walls and blue awnings with windows crowded with shells, soaps, and postcards that probably hadn’t changed in a decade.
Greek flags hung still from the streetlights, their colors dulled in the fading light.
On her left, the sponge boats rocked gently against their ropes, their names painted in curling blue letters: St. Michael, Agios Nikolaos, Panagia.
Most of the foot traffic had thinned out by now; only a few tourists remained near the docks, finishing cones of baklava, their voices low and unhurried. From somewhere down the block, slightly muted bouzouki music drifted through the warm air, carrying the last notes of the day.
Jenna eased her foot off the gas, letting the car roll past it all. The docks, the flags, the tidal smell of the river, it was all still here. Tarpon Springs hadn’t changed. Only she had.
She whispered, “You should be here. You should all be here,” but the wind caught it and carried it west over the dark water.
Ahead, illuminated in the fading light, the familiar sign came into view: Welcome to Tarpon Springs—Sponge Capital of the World.
The red light held her there.
Heat pressed through the windshield. Brine. Memory. Loss.
There was nowhere left to go now except back toward Athens Street. Back toward the bakery. Back toward Grace.
For the first time since the call, Jenna let herself cry.
* * *
Pulling into the driveway, she knew she couldn’t go into Grace’s house.
Seeing the porch light glowing over the empty windows made her throat close.
She told herself it was too late, that she’d do it tomorrow.
She wasn’t ready to see the absence of her sister pressed into every corner of that house.
So she turned toward The Blue Cypress instead.
The bakery sat at the end of Athens Street, tucked between an antique shop and a dive bar that had probably changed names three times since she’d left. The parking lot was half-lit, the street desolate with only the hum of cicadas and the far-off sound of water lapping against the docks.
The sight of the sign—The Blue Cypress, Est. 1947—stirred something deep in her gut.
Her grandmother’s pride. Her father’s Saturday chore.
Evelyn Hart had built this place from nothing, naming it for the blue cypress trees that grew near the water with their roots hidden and interlocked, steadying one another beneath the surface.
She believed a family should work the same way.
Grandma Hart believed that the secret to good bread was patience, and the secret to family was the same.
For Grandma Hart, this shop had been a calling.
For her son, Jenna’s father, it had been a burden.
He’d spent his boyhood sweeping floors and hauling flour, and by the time he was grown, he wanted nothing more than a life that didn’t leave him dusted with white at the end of each day.
Evelyn had never forgiven that indifference, though she warmed when her granddaughters came along.
“He might’ve turned his back on it,” she’d said once, “but God gave me two girls who won’t. ”
For a while, she was right. But somewhere along the way, Jenna had turned her back on the bakery, on Grandma, and even on Grace.
Grace had taken to the kitchen like it was written into her bones.
She memorized recipes faster than she could her spelling words and copied them into a floral notebook Grandma kept by the register.
Before long, she wasn’t just following directions; she was improving them.
More zest in the lemon loaf. A longer proof for the sourdough.
Her grandmother pretended to scold her for meddling but secretly called her my little prodigy.
Jenna’s place had been at the counter. She liked talking to people, handing over pastries, and counting the change.
She liked the tiny thrill of being the one who took the orders, called the shots, never realizing the real control was back in the kitchen, where Grace and Grandma worked their sacred magic.
The Blue Cypress had been their world, feelings of warmth, noise, and life. And standing here now, the building dark and still, Jenna could almost hear the echo of it.
She still had keys.
The door stuck a little before giving way. The smell hit her first, yeast and coffee with something slightly sour underneath.
Inside, it looked like time had simply stopped.
Bread still sat in the ovens, shut off mid-rise. Half-empty cups of coffee and half-eaten pastries waited on the tables. It didn’t look abandoned, yet it looked like a day that never got the chance to finish.
Her eyes stung as she set her bag down on a chair and moved toward the counter. She automatically flipped the switches to off, even though everything was already off. The silence hummed.
And then she did what she always did when the world fell apart. She started moving.
Jenna gathered mugs, scraped plates, and loaded trays into the sink. Filling a basin with hot water and soap, she smelled citrus, and steam rose around her like a spell. She moved without thinking, sleeves rolled, hair falling out of its tie. There was comfort in the repetition. Wash. Rinse. Stack.
As she worked, she started to notice things.
The faucet handle leaked when she turned it too far.
A mushy spot in the floor under one of the prep tables.
The edge of the tile cracked near the espresso machine.
Little signs of deferred maintenance everywhere, the kind of things Grace would’ve fixed if she’d had the time or money . . . or help.
Jenna pressed her palm against the counter, exhaling. She’d wanted to scope the property, take inventory, and figure out what it would take to get the place sale-ready. But not tonight.
She was too tired, and there were too many dishes to wash.
When she finally finished, she sat down on one of the corner benches by the window. The smell of bread and soap hung in the air. She stretched her legs out, folded her arms, and closed her eyes.
The hum of the refrigerator filled the silence, low and dull. Jenna leaned her head back against the wall allowing the sound to coax her thoughts into slowing.
The bakery felt alive. Grace is everywhere, in the handwriting on the chalkboard menu, in the flour dust caught between the tiles, in the scent that would never really leave these walls.
Jenna pulled her arms around her shoulders and whispered into the dark, “I’m here, Grace.” Then she let herself sleep.
* * *
Morning came in fragments of light pressing through the front windows, the smell of yeast and detergent still clinging to the air, and with an ache in her neck from sleeping curled on the bench.
For a few seconds, Jenna didn’t know where she was. The hum of the refrigerator and the low drip of the faucet were the only sounds. Then she looked around to the counters she’d wiped down and the trays she’d stacked to dry, and it all came rushing back.
Grace.
She knew this part. The morning after. The way it would stretch on for months. The first thought she’d have every day from now on would be this one: Grace is gone. It would hit before coffee, before consciousness fully caught up.
It had been the same after Brooks. Every morning for months, she’d wake, blink at the ceiling, and remember what day it was. Then the realization would land, heavy and exact: her brother was dead. It became her morning ritual, as predictable as sunrise.
She wondered how long it would be this time, how many mornings before her first breath wasn’t shaped by loss.