Chapter 10
Burnt Brownies
June
The rhythm of their days had shifted since Fourth of July.
First, it was the mornings. Melissa had stopped just hurrying out of the house before anyone else was up, instead taking her time so that she stood at the kitchen island when June came down to make breakfast. She’d be reading the newspaper, actual newsprint that she still insisted on having delivered, her reading glasses perched on her nose in a way that made her look softer, more approachable.
“Good morning,” Melissa would say, and June would pour her coffee—black, with one sugar that Melissa added when she thought no one was watching, as if sweetness were a secret vice she couldn’t admit to.
“Good morning,” June would answer, and start pulling ingredients from the refrigerator while Melissa turned pages.
They didn’t talk much during these mornings.
They didn’t need to. The silence between them had become companionable, filled with small rituals that had accumulated without either of them deciding to create them.
Their hands sometimes brushed when passing the sugar bowl, and neither of them mentioned it.
Lila had noticed the change too. “You and Mom are friends now,” she’d observed a few days earlier, with the matter-of-fact certainty of a seven-year-old.
“We’re… something,” June had said, because she didn’t know what else to call it.
They weren’t friends, exactly. Employers and employees weren’t friends. But they weren’t strangers anymore either, weren’t the carefully distant professionals they’d been in those first awkward days. They were something in between, something June didn’t have a word for.
But whatever it was, it made her heart beat faster every time Melissa walked into a room.
Tuesday morning started like any other. June made scrambled eggs and toast. Melissa read the paper. Lila ate her breakfast and asked if they could go to the library later.
But Melissa seemed distracted, her eyes scanning the newsprint without really seeing it. A small crease had formed between her brows—the one that appeared when she was worried about something she didn’t want to discuss.
“Everything okay?” June asked, sliding a plate of eggs in front of her.
“Fine.” Melissa folded the paper, set it aside. “Just work. The bill is hitting some resistance.”
“The infrastructure bill?”
“Mm.” Melissa picked up her fork but didn’t eat. “There are people who would like to see it fail. They’re getting creative about it.”
June wanted to ask more—about the bill, about the resistance, about the people who were making Melissa’s life difficult—but she could see the walls going up, blankness settling over Melissa’s features.
“Well,” June said lightly, “if it helps, I’m making lasagna for dinner.”
The corner of Melissa’s mouth twitched. “That does help.”
“Good. Now eat your eggs before they get cold.”
Melissa ate her eggs. June tried not to think about the warm feeling that bloomed in her chest when Melissa actually listened to her.
The day passed slowly. June took Lila to the library, then to the park, then home for lunch and quiet time. She meal-prepped for the week, organized the pantry, caught up on texts from Tyler and her mom. Normal things. Summer nanny things.
But underneath the routine, she was aware of a kind of waiting. An anticipation she couldn’t name. Like something was building toward a point she couldn’t see yet.
Melissa texted around four:
Late night. Don’t wait up.
I’ll save you a plate.
No response, which was normal. Melissa wasn’t much of a texter. But June found herself checking her phone anyway, more often than she should have.
Stop it, she told herself. She’s your boss. She’s—
But the litany of reasons was getting harder to remember. Harder to believe.
The doorbell rang just after five, while June was helping Lila with a puzzle at the kitchen table.
She opened the door to find Melissa’s friend Rachel on the porch, still in scrubs, looking hopeful.
“Hi. Is Melissa home? I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d—” Rachel stopped, taking in June’s flour-dusted apron. “But she’s not here, is she?”
“Still at work. She texted that she’d be late.”
“Of course she did.” Rachel sighed. “That woman is going to work herself into an early grave.”
June didn’t disagree. “Would you like to come in? I just made coffee.”
Rachel hesitated, then smiled. “You know what? I’d love that.”
June led her to the kitchen, where Lila looked up from her puzzle with delight. “Dr. Rachel! Are you here to check my ears again?”
“Not today, kiddo. Just visiting.” Rachel slid into a chair beside her. “Wow, that’s a cool puzzle.”
“It’s the solar system. June got it for me at the library sale.” Lila held up a piece. “This is Jupiter. It has sixty-seven moons.”
“Seventy-nine, actually,” June said, setting a mug in front of Rachel. “They keep finding more.”
“Seventy-nine,” Lila repeated, filing away the correction. “I need to update my otter notebook.”
“I didn’t know the otter notebook had space facts,” Rachel said.
“It does now,” Lila said. “We borrowed a space book last time me and Miss Hollis were at the library and it was awesome.”
Rachel caught June’s eye, amused. “Sounds like you and Miss Hollis are having a lot of fun.”
“We are,” Lila said with a quick smile.
She worked on her puzzle for a few more minutes, then announced she was going to her room to draw Jupiter with all seventy-nine moons. She disappeared up the stairs, leaving June and Rachel alone.
“She’s thriving,” Rachel said quietly. “I haven’t seen her this animated in… honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her like this.”
“She’s a special kid. She just needed—” June paused, searching for the right words. “Permission to be a kid, I think.”
“Melissa made a good choice, picking you.” Rachel wrapped her hands around her mug. “You know, when Lila was born, Melissa was scared. She told me she didn’t know how to be soft with someone. That she’d spent so long being strong, she’d forgotten any other way.”
June felt something shift in her chest. “That sounds like her.”
“It is. But she’s trying. I can see it, when she talks about what’s happening here this summer.” Rachel’s gaze was warm but perceptive. “You’re good for them. Both of them.”
June felt heat creep up her neck. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Mm-hmm.” Rachel’s expression suggested she saw more than June was saying, but she didn’t push. Instead, she pulled out her phone. “Swap numbers? In case there’s ever a medical thing with Lila, or if you can’t reach Melissa and need a backup.”
“Sure.” June recited the digits, grateful for the practical shift.
“There.” Rachel stood, draining the last of her coffee. “Tell Melissa I stopped by. And that she still owes me dinner.”
“I will.”
After Rachel left, June stood in the quiet kitchen, thinking about what she’d said. She’d spent so long being strong, she’d forgotten any other way.
It explained so much. And somehow, made June want to understand even more.
After Lila went to bed, June found herself restless, unable to settle. She tried reading, but the words wouldn’t stick. She tried watching something on her phone, but nothing held her attention. She ended up in the kitchen, the way she always did when she needed to think.
Baking was different from cooking. Cooking was improvisation, intuition, adjusting as you went.
Baking was precision—measurements and temperatures and timing.
There was comfort in that tonight. June pulled out flour and sugar and butter, deciding to make brownies because Lila loved them and Melissa had a secret sweet tooth.
She was just sliding the pan into the oven when she heard the front door open.
It was after ten. Much later than Melissa usually came home.
June wiped her hands on a dish towel and listened to the familiar sounds—keys dropped on the entry table, heels clicking against hardwood, the pause that meant Melissa was checking the mail or looking at her phone. Then footsteps, softer, no heels, moving toward the kitchen.
Melissa appeared in the doorway.
She looked exhausted. Not just tired—exhausted in a bone-deep way that June had never seen before. Her blazer was wrinkled, her hair escaping its twist, and there was something hollow in her eyes that made June’s chest ache. Her feet were bare against the floor.
“Hey,” June said softly. “Long day?”
Melissa laughed, but there was no humor in it. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Sit down. I’ll make you something.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Sit down, Melissa.”
The name came out without thought, natural as breathing, and she saw Melissa’s expression flicker—surprise, then something softer, even though she had already given permission. Perhaps it wasn’t so much the name as the order.
Melissa sat.
June moved around the kitchen, pulling out the plate she’d saved from dinner, heating it in the microwave, and pouring a glass of wine. She set everything in front of Melissa and then, after a moment’s hesitation, poured a glass for herself and sat down on the stool beside her.
“Eat,” she said. “Then talk. If you want.”
Melissa picked up her fork. For a while, she just ate—slowly, mechanically, like she’d forgotten food could be a source of pleasure. June sipped her wine and waited.
“The bill is stalling,” Melissa said finally, setting down her fork. “Three committee members who were solid votes are suddenly ‘reconsidering their positions.’ Someone leaked a draft amendment to a reporter who twisted it into a hit piece. And my ex-husband—” She stopped, jaw tightening.
“What about your ex-husband?”
“He gave a quote to a journalist. Something about how I was ‘always more interested in my career than my family.’” Melissa’s voice was flat, controlled, but June could hear the anger underneath. “He was the one who had an affair, and somehow I’m the one being painted as cold and ambitious.”
“That’s not fair.”