Chapter 19
On Friday morning, Summer stood in the hallway with her coat on and her bag still on the kitchen table. Jonah watched her check her phone again.
“You’re going to be late,” he said. He was wearing jeans for the first time that week. “Macy knows you’re coming.”
“I was checking whether she needed anything,” Summer said. She put the phone away, then took it out again; Macy hadn’t written since breakfast.
“She needs you to decide if you’re leaving.” He sounded irritated, which was a relief until it hurt.
Summer went back for her bag. “I told her I might not come. It wouldn’t make any difference.”
“She’s expecting you,” Jonah said. “Go. You’ve had your coat on for twenty minutes.”
She stood with the strap over her shoulder. He’d slept badly after his first appointment the day before, waking twice and apologizing both times. At breakfast she’d wanted to cancel the bakery and also wanted, so fiercely she felt ashamed, two hours somewhere she knew what to do.
“I’ll be back before lunch,” she said. “You can come and get me.”
He looked at her. “That was already the plan,” he said, less sharply.
Summer nodded. She kissed him, and he put a hand at her neck to keep her close for another second.
“Go,” he said against her forehead. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
The bakery smelled of coffee and warm chocolate.
Macy had opened a window despite the cold; the draft cut through the heat from the ovens, reaching Summer as she stopped inside the kitchen door.
There was a tray of cakes on the workbench, a bowl left to soak beside it.
“They’re the usual ones,” Macy said, laying an apron beside Summer’s bag. “I haven’t changed the recipe.”
“I wasn’t checking,” Summer said, too quickly. She took off her coat before Macy could answer. “How are we doing for chocolate?”
“There’s enough until Tuesday,” Macy said. “The stock sheet’s in the book. I put the things we need on the next order.”
Summer opened it. Two orders canceled, three moved, one handed to another bakery; the cost of the week was there in crossed-out names and new dates. She noticed the money before she remembered to ask whether Macy had had a day off.
“Monday,” Macy said. She brought a bowl to the workbench. “Like last year. Nobody thought we’d gone under.”
Summer smiled, grateful for the ordinary impatience. She put on the apron and tied it twice before the knot felt right.
For twenty minutes she could work. The butter was too cold, the mixer made the small clicking noise it always made at the lowest speed, and somebody at the counter wanted to know whether ginger cake had ginger in it. Summer closed her eyes briefly at that, almost laughing.
Then she heard Jonah’s name. Her hand stopped on the mixer switch. “Well, I only wondered how she was.” The customer’s voice carried clearly through the open doorway. “My sister was there. Such a horrible thing to walk in on.”
Summer could see a blue sleeve and a handbag on the counter. She knew the woman: lemon cake twice a month, always a slice from the middle.
“I’m not discussing it,” Macy said. She moved across the doorway. “Do you want that boxed?”
“Of course. I just meant she ought to have some time to decide what to do about him. Ruth was there and saw the whole thing.” The woman lowered her voice, too late. “Nobody would blame Summer for leaving him.”
Summer put down the spatula. She walked to the counter with her hands shaking and folded them beneath its edge before the woman turned.
“My husband was assaulted,” she said. The words came out steadier than she felt. “Please don’t repeat that he was having an affair.”
The woman’s mouth opened. She glanced at Macy, then at the box she had already paid for.
“I didn’t say affair.” She adjusted the strap of her handbag. “I was only saying you must be upset.”
“Then leave it there.” Summer pushed the box across. “I’m not giving you anything else to tell your sister.”
The woman took it and left. Summer kept looking at the door after it closed, aware of a man by the window studying his coffee. Macy came beside her. “Come through,” she said. She touched Summer’s elbow. “The butter’s waiting.”
Summer made it as far as the workbench before she had to sit. Macy loosened her apron strings for her, and she pulled it over her head.
“How many people are saying that?” she asked. She looked at Macy. “Don’t tell me nobody if it isn’t true.”
“That’s the first anyone’s said to me,” Macy said. “People have asked after you. I don’t know what they’re saying elsewhere.”
Summer reached for her phone, already trying to remember whether she had the woman’s number in the order book. Then she saw Jonah’s message from that morning, asking what time to collect her.
He was expecting to meet her for lunch. She’d told that woman before she’d even thought of asking him.
“He’s supposed to come in and get me,” Summer said, opening his number. “I need to tell him before he walks in here.”
Macy put the butter in the refrigerator. “Do you want the door shut?” she asked. Summer nodded, and she closed it.
Jonah answered after two rings. “Hi,” he said. “Everything all right?”
“Can you come early?” Summer pressed her fingers against her forehead. “Someone was talking. I said you were assaulted.”
He was quiet. She could hear a cupboard close, then the sound of his keys.
“What did they say?” he asked. His voice had changed.
Summer told him, briefly, without repeating every word. Then she waited with the phone hot against her ear.
“I’m glad you told her,” he said at last. “I just wish I didn’t have to walk in there now.”
“I’ll come out.” Summer stood. “Call when you’re here.”
In the car, he kept his hands on the wheel. She watched the small movement of his thumb against the seam, wishing she had found a different way to get through the morning.
“She doesn’t get to say you cheated.” Summer turned toward him. “I couldn’t listen to it.”
“I know.” He took the key out of the ignition. “I don’t want everybody knowing what happened to me either.”
“I didn’t tell her details,” Summer said. A delivery driver rolled a cart past their car, blocking them in.
Jonah looked at her then. “I’m not angry with you,” he said. “I hate that I have to think about people buying a cake and talking about this.”
Summer looked down at her bag. “So do I,” she said. “I don’t know how to leave it alone.”
He held out his hand. She took it and rested it against his thigh, both of them watching the driver unload boxes.
“I’ll say you didn’t cheat,” Summer said. “I can’t let them keep saying that. But I won’t tell them anything else.”
Jonah squeezed her hand. “All right. I hate thinking about what she might have said if I’d gone in.”
The driver moved the cart away, leaving the exit clear. Neither of them reached for a seat belt.
“Do you still want lunch?” Jonah asked. He glanced at her. “We don’t have to go home.”
Summer wasn’t hungry. “Yes,” she said anyway. “I want lunch.”
They found a small place near the waterfront where no one greeted them by name. Jonah chose a table at the side instead of the window, and Summer sat opposite him without asking why.
For a while she couldn’t stop looking at his face. He picked up the menu, read it, put it down, and finally met her eyes.
“I’m going to have a sandwich,” he said. His voice was dry. “You can stop trying to find out how I am from the soup list.”
She laughed unexpectedly, then put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m doing it again.”
“I keep looking at your water,” he said. “You haven’t touched it. I’ve been wondering whether to ask for something else.”
She drank, and he smiled faintly. When the waiter came, they managed to order without apologizing.
The food arrived quickly. Summer discovered she was hungry after all; Jonah took off his coat halfway through his sandwich and put it over the spare chair.
“Yesterday was awful,” he said. He was looking at his plate. “The second therapy appointment.”
Summer put down her spoon. “Do you want to tell me?” she asked. She kept her hand near the bowl so she wouldn’t reach for him before he answered.
“I talked about work again.” He gave a short laugh without amusement. “About a kitchen estimate. I knew I was doing it and couldn’t stop. I still wanted to talk about anything except that night.”
“Mine’s Monday,” Summer said. “I’m hoping they’ll cancel it. I keep answering numbers I don’t recognize, in case it’s them.”
“I nearly left,” he said. “I’d got my coat on before I went in. I kept it on for about half the appointment.”
She nodded. Outside, gulls wheeled over the water, and one settled on a roof beyond the window with its wings lifted against the wind.
Jonah looked at his empty plate. “I’m getting something else. That sandwich was tiny.”
“Have some of this.” She pushed the bowl toward him, and he took it without asking whether she’d finished. She watched him eat, then went back to the counter for another spoon.
They walked back to the car without going down to the water. Summer was tired and still angry about the customer; when they passed another cake shop, she looked in to see whether the woman had taken her business there.
On Monday, Summer spent most of her first therapy appointment trying to give an accurate account of Saturday night.
Each time she reached the sitting room she went back to something she’d forgotten downstairs.
She left with another appointment arranged, a headache, and a fierce wish to work for an hour without having to remember the color of anyone’s dress.
The bakery was closed to customers on Mondays now, but Macy was inside preparing the next day’s orders. Summer found her at the window, lifting the last raven out of its display. The bird’s claws had caught in a strand of black thread, and its wings swung as Macy tried to free it.
“Don’t pull it,” Summer said. She put her bag down. “You’ll take the foot off.”
“I wasn’t pulling it.” Macy held the bird still while Summer found the scissors. “I can see what’s caught.”