6. The Offer #2
The first thing on her list of next steps was Call a contractor. She’d just checked it off without even touching the keyboard.
* * *
Jenna was still at the counter when she heard the hallway floorboards creak. Emmie appeared in the doorway, damp-haired from a shower, wearing one of Grace’s old oversized T-shirts that swallowed her frame.
She nodded toward the white pastry box. “Seriously? Hellas?”
Jenna blinked, then smiled. “You sound just like your mom.”
Emmie laughed once, short but genuine. “She used to sneak over there for baklava when she thought nobody would see her. Said she couldn’t resist it, no matter how loyal she was to her own recipes.”
“Seems she wasn’t the only one,” Jenna said, untying the blue ribbon and lifting the lid. “The guy who brought it felt pretty bad about it once he realized.”
Emmie frowned a little. “Guy?”
“Cole Bennett,” Jenna tried to sound casual. “He went to school with your mom and me. He stopped by to check in. Turns out he’s a contractor. I asked him to come by tomorrow and look at the house and bakery—see what needs work.”
The smile faded from Emmie’s face. “You’re hiring someone? To change stuff?”
Jenna hesitated. “To repair stuff. The roof’s leaking. The floorboards in the bakery are soft. The sink’s rusting through. It all needs attention.”
Emmie folded her arms. “You mean it needed attention for the last ten years. When Mom was patching things herself with duct tape and prayers. You could have done it then.”
Jenna felt the words hit, but didn’t move.
Emmie’s voice cracked. “She couldn’t stop worrying about this place. About every drip and crack and bill. She worked herself sick trying to hold it together, and now, now that she’s gone, you want to fix it? For what? So it can be perfect without her?”
“Emmie—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re not fixing it. You’re erasing it. Every rusted oven, every squeaky hinge, every water stain, it’s all her. That’s what’s left of her.”
Jenna swallowed hard, forcing her voice to stay steady. “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“Then what are you doing?” Emmie demanded. “You should’ve done this for her. Not to her stuff after she’s gone. You think you’re helping, but you’re just—” Her voice broke completely. “You’re just taking away what’s left.”
Silence filled the kitchen. The only sound was Biscuit’s tail thumping once against a chair leg before he disappeared down the hall.
Jenna opened her mouth, but nothing came. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t sound like justification, and Emmie didn’t need logic. She needed Grace.
Emmie wiped her eyes quickly, angry at herself for crying. “I know it’s stupid,” she said, softer now. “It’s just—she was a whole person, and now all we have are her things. The rusted oven. The mess in her office. The unmade bed. And you want to fix all of it like she never touched it.”
Jenna stepped closer, but Emmie backed away.
“I can’t lose any more of her,” Emmie whispered. Then she turned and walked down the hall, closing her door gently this time.
Emmie’s door clicked shut, and the sound felt final in a way that made Jenna’s chest ache. She stood there for a long moment, staring down the empty hall, pulse still quick from everything that had just come out.
Her words had been sharp, but the hurt beneath them was sharper still. Emmie wasn’t wrong, not about Grace, not about any of it. Jenna had left, and Grace had carried the weight alone. Now that weight was falling squarely on her shoulders, and maybe that was fair.
She leaned against the wall, closing her eyes, letting the quiet settle. Somewhere in the house, the old air vents kicked on with their familiar hum, the sound somehow both comforting and lonely.
By the time she finally pushed off the wall and walked back toward the kitchen, the house had gone still, her guilt settling into something heavier and more familiar, sadness maybe, or just the weight of remembering.
The day blurred after that. Calls about the bakery. Emails about appraisals and paperwork. Conversations she barely remembered having. By the time the streetlights came on, she’d checked half a dozen things off her list and felt none of the relief she’d expected.
Now the air was heavy with the sweet smell of pistachio and sugar. The streetlight outside cast a silkened amber glow through the lace curtains, painting thin lines across the kitchen floor.
Jenna sat at the table, the pastry box still open in front of her. She hadn’t eaten a bite. The quiet was almost too full.
Emmie’s voice startled her. “I’m sorry.”
Jenna looked up. Emmie stood in the doorway, arms crossed over the front of that old, oversized T-shirt, her expression raw but calmer.
“I shouldn’t have said all that,” Emmie said. “Not like that.”
Jenna didn’t answer right away. “You were upset.”
“I was,” Emmie admitted, glancing toward the window where the stifled reflection of the bakery sign glowed in the dark.
“But . . . I know Mom wanted to fix this place up. She talked about it a lot, how Grandma Hart always dreamed of you and her running the bakery together. How proud she was when you both started to.”
Jenna’s chest ached at the memory. She pressed the heel of her hand against it instinctively, as though she could physically soothe something there.
Emmie shifted her weight, her voice lower now.
“I’m glad you stayed, you know. If you hadn’t, they’d probably sell everything, the bakery, the house, and who knows where I’d end up.
In Trinity with Great Aunt M, probably. You’re doing the opposite of taking it away; you’re preserving it.
Mom wanted it fixed, and I want that too.
But it’s more than that.” Emmie took a breath, “This is yours too, you know? The house. The bakery. You shouldn’t be sleeping on the couch when we’ve got two extra rooms. One of them barely counts as a bedroom anymore; the bed looks more like a filing cabinet, but you should take Mom’s room. ”
The suggestion landed like a stone in Jenna’s gut.
Emmie waited, searching her face. “It’s weird, you sleeping out here,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. “She’d want you in there.”
Jenna managed a thin smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Maybe,” she said, “just . . . not yet.”
Emmie nodded, accepting that for what it was. “We’ll start our new life tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow.”
And for the first time, the word didn’t sound impossible.
That night, when the house settled, and the hum of the vents was the only sound, she lay awake staring at the ceiling.
The day replayed in fragments. Grace’s laughter in memory, Emmie’s voice breaking, and Cole’s steady gaze at the door.
Grief and something warmer tangled in her chest until she stopped trying to separate them.
Tomorrow, she thought. And for the first time, the word felt like something she could hold.