Chapter One
HOW TO MAKE SOURDOUGH brEAD
Four months earlier
Simone
“See, most people think you have to knead the dough for a million years.”
With efficient movements I’d mastered over the years, thanks to plenty of bedside conversations just like this one, I dealt a new hand of solitaire onto my patient’s tray.
“But that’s not actually true.” I settled the remaining cards into my hand.
“Sourdough has a higher hydration percentage than yeasted bread. Mine is usually seventy-five, sometimes eighty percent when the sun’s out.
Either way, the higher water content means you should limit your handling of the dough to occasional stretch and folds for the first ninety minutes of your initial rise.
No ‘knead’ for standmixers or sore knuckles. Get it?”
I grinned at the patient, an old man with a surprisingly thick mane of white hair, as if he would laugh at my bad pun.
In response, he breathed through an oxygen tube sticking out of his nose. His closed eyelids didn’t even twitch.
I wasn’t offended. After all, what else could he do while unconscious?
I turned over the top three cards from the deck and went on as if the man had asked more about my favorite topic. “After that, just let the dough rise. The secret sauce is in the duration. Three days at forty-five degrees is ideal in Boston, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
I continued to explain my theories on gluten strengthening while playing cards with myself. Then I read the man’s horoscope out loud and listened to the chorus of monitors beeping in response.
In other words, just the average afternoon shift of a candy striper, aka a patient care volunteer at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Three days a week, I provided emotional support to elderly people whose family or friends couldn’t be with them for whatever reason.
I didn’t have candy in my pockets, and instead of a striped dress, I wore a set of thrifted scrubs.
Today’s shapeless pair was cerulean blue, printed with sunglasses-wearing pineapples.
According to the Cardiac ICU staff, he was something of a celebrity. A business mogul who was a frequent flyer on Fox News, had probably been married five times to women a third his age, and fired people just because he didn’t like their names.
Right now, though, he looked like any other elderly man in a hospital gown and grippy socks, smelling of astringents and sleep. Heavy bags wreathed his closed eyes, age spots dappled his paper-thin skin, and frown lines creased the sides of his downturned mouth.
“What do you think, Mr. Black?” I asked him. “Or does a man of your esteemed wealth and notoriety prefer to be called Niall? Should I try a ninety percent hydration, Niall? Or blend a little less Einkorn into my dough?”
A strand of spittle fell from the corner of his mouth.
Lord. Would I ever end up this way, alone and helpless?
And so chugged on the second most predictable train of thought I had during my shifts at Mass General: wondering how long I’d live.
My mother died when she was thirty-two, only four years older than me, in this very hospital.
I’d missed her last moments—she’d been alone while the rest of us were asleep at a hotel, thinking we’d see her again the next day.
Once I’d moved to Boston, I swore at least some of these people would have someone with them in their hardest, possibly final moments. Even if they were unconscious.
Former therapists accused me of a healthy dose of survivor’s guilt. Maybe they were right.
All I knew was that, despite terrible lighting, constant beeping, and low-key terror that permeated the ICU, coming here made me feel good, and it did some good for the world too.
What was so wrong with that?
Typically, I spent less than thirty minutes with patients like this—long enough for their loved ones to arrive and take my place.
Today, I had been sitting with Niall Black for more than four hours.
Given that the man had a wife and four children who all lived in Boston, the fact that he’d been alone for so long was concerning, to say the least.
The head nurse had mentioned that he was one of the “most hated men in Boston.”
Did that extend to his family too?
I kept watching the door for someone to prove us wrong.
Nothing.
“Any change?”
I looked up to find Cameron, the nurse on duty, entering the room. He flashed the bright grin that usually preceded another attempt to ask me out.
I shook my head, causing my ponytail to tickle my shoulders. “Nope. Still sleeping.”
Cameron nodded, then went about checking Mr. Black’s vitals while giving me the occasional wink. I couldn’t help but blush. My sister would tell me I was silly—that there was no reason to act like a nun when I had the opportunity to play out a scene from Grey’s Anatomy right here, with a hot nurse.
It didn’t help that I hadn’t had a boyfriend in, oh, years.
Selena would say my standards were too high, but that wasn’t it.
The truth was, none of us knew how long we were going to be around.
Some people thought that meant we should do whatever we wanted, in the guise of “living life to its fullest.” Me, I just didn’t want to hurt anyone if something did end up happening to me.
It was better not to get attached at all.
“Have you tried the new falafel place by the park yet?” Cameron asked as he jotted down the current numbers on the whiteboard next to Mr. Black’s bed.
“No, is it good?”
“Don’t know. Want to go later?”
And there it was.
I shook my head again. “Sorry, I have plans tonight.”
Plans to work at my actual paying job and prep the starter for about thirty loaves of unbaked bread, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Let me know what you think,” I added as Cameron headed for the door.
“Will do.” He winked again, undeterred, and left me alone with my patient.
“What do you think, Mr. Black?” I asked. “Should I take him up on his offer one of these days? It has been a long time.”
His thinning hair waved in the breeze from the overhead vent, and another bit of spittle dribbled down his cheek.
I wiped away and squeezed his hand. “Yeah, I’d rather get more sleep tonight, too.”
I was about to continue my lecture on the merits of ancient grains versus refined flours when my phone buzzed with an incoming text. I pulled it out of my pocket.
Selena
Hey, are you busy?
I frowned. I hadn’t heard from my twin in months, since the last time she blew through Boston, but not without leaving me with a bill of several thousand dollars for her car repairs and a stain on my couch that still hadn’t come out.
Sel had a tendency to move through life like a small tornado, rambling around the world like she wasn’t half responsible for the situation our family was in.
Selena did as Selena wanted. Always had, always would.
But while those therapists I mentioned said my relationship with her was more than a little codependent, she was still my sister. Plus, she had an adorable four-year-old daughter who deserved to have someone care about her. I had a responsibility to make sure they were both okay.
I typed out a quick reply.
I’m at work. Is it an emergency?
“If she’d ever answer my calls, she’d know this.” I informed Mr. Black, whose eyelid twitched in response.
My phone lit up with her face—our shared face—including the blue eyes and caramel-colored hair inherited from our mother, the straight nose with a slight button end from our dad, and the too-full lips and dimpled chin that was all our own.
I glanced at Mr. Black. He could wake up at any time. Some patients his age struggled when they came out of surgery, to the point where they didn’t know where or even who they were. They needed help.
But while Selena might have been calling to brag about a new boyfriend, there was an equal likelihood she—and therefore, Kylie—legitimately needed help.
Nope, I couldn’t risk it.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Mr. Black, then slipped out of the room to answer the call.
The pretty contact picture of Selena was replaced with her snarling real-time face, complete with overdrawn eyeliner, a reddened nose that told me she’d been drinking, and deep circles under her eyes.
“Sel,” I greeted her in the low tones appropriate for ICU. “I can’t really talk—”
“Oh my God, finally! I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”
“Shh. I’m at work.” I frowned, keeping my eyes glued to Mr. Black’s room. “And you have not. I’ve been trying to reach you, and you never call me back.”
Two weeks ago, our father had mentioned the most recent (and dire) notice from the bank, letting him know that he had been rejected for another loan against the farm.
Dad had struggled to maintain the dairy since our mother had passed, but the last few years had been particularly bad.
From what I could glean, he was on the brink of losing everything, but Selena was so absorbed with her own stuff, she hadn’t even asked about him. Or me, for that matter.
“I have. You just never answer your phone.”
I bit back a retort. Selena was better at gaslighting than anyone, so there was no point in arguing with her. She wouldn’t hear a thing.
“Anyway, I got into town yesterday, and you’re the only one I know here anymore. Please? I’m with Kylie. Can you just meet us at—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted. “You’re back in Boston? Why? What happened to your job in Providence? Are you guys safe?”
“Oh my God, Twenty Questions, just meet me! I’ll tell you everything when I see you, I promise.”
I glanced at Mr. Black’s room again. “I’m at the hospital right now, Sel. I can’t just leave.”
“Why not? I thought you were a volunteer.”
“I am, but—”
“So then leave, who cares? What are they going to do? Refuse to take free labor from you in the future?”
I took a deep breath. Of course she wouldn’t understand. If there wasn’t anything in it for her, there was no reason to stay.
She’d never even gone with me to lay flowers at Mom’s grave.
“I’ll meet you,” I said. “But not until I’m done with work here, okay? It’s not an emergency, is it?”
“Not exactly, but—”
“Good. Because after I’m done at the hospital, I have a shift at the bar.” I picked at an invisible bit of lint on my scrubs. “I’m glad you’re in town. We really need to talk about Dad, and—”
“Fine, sure, whatever. I’ll see you at the bar after your shift. We’ll wait for you outside.”
We. Of course, Kylie was with her. So, not only was Selena racing into town like she was in the Indy 500, but she also didn’t have a place to stay now that she was here, despite having a four-year-old whose sleep needs wouldn’t be served by waiting for her auntie to finish work at two or three in the morning.
I should have known.
Do not let her into your apartment. You know what’s going to happen. She’s going to take it over, run up your utility bills, ruin the one sanctuary you have…
“Come ten minutes before instead,” I said with a sigh. “I start at six. I’ll give you the keys to my place, and then I’ll see you at home.”
“Awesome, see you then.”
The call ended as abruptly as it had started. I found myself staring at my phone, as if she might be bothered to ring back and end the call the way sisters should.
“You’re welcome. Love you too. Can’t wait to see you.” There was only a little bitterness in my voice as I slid my phone back in my pocket.
I returned to Mr. Black’s room and went back to my solitaire game with a little more intensity than was necessary.
“Maybe you should be grateful you don’t have any family here today, Niall,” I told him as I slapped cards on the tray.
“If they’re anything like my sister, you’re better off with me.
Now, would you like me to tell you how to maintain a starter?
It’s really easy. They are surprisingly hard to kill. Kind of like you.”
“What the fuck?”
A deep voice boomed through the little hospital room, drowning out the monitors. A man strode into the room, his eyes frantic and wild as they landed on my patient with the fear I’d witnessed all too many times.
“Jesus. Dad.”
Something about hearing that deep voice turn to a croak turned my heart inside out.
Family, then. Possibly one of the four children.
Though this man was very, very grown.
He was also the most beautiful person I had ever seen.
Not in a classical way, per se. His appeal reminded more of some of the older buildings in Boston, like the nineteenth-century townhouses that lined the Common and the streets of Cambridge.
The ones that were gorgeous in their restoration, but still bore marks from the past that could never be completely erased—and were better for it.
He dripped money, but seemed slightly wild just the same.
His tailored suit couldn’t quite mask the tense stance of a fighter, and his angular face, carved with high cheekbones, was marred with a scar just over his right brow and a nose that had to have been broken at least once in his life.
A shock of untamable dark reddish-brown hair brushed his ears, and a stubble shadowed his jaw despite the fact that it wasn’t even close to five o’clock.
The custom clothes, the diamond-encrusted cufflinks, the mirror-polished shoes were all very nice, but they couldn’t quite mask the sense that there were very sharp claws beneath the layers of refinement, ready to unsheathe at the slightest provocation.
He blinked, and his eyes, so green they were almost black, immediately became the most remarkable thing about him. They darted over his father’s state with quick intelligence and a well of emotion flashing in their depths.
Then they turned on me.
“Who the fuck are you?”
His cold words were laced with fury and a thick Boston accent that felt so at odds with the suit and tie. If I hadn’t been frozen in place, I would have hidden behind Mr. Black’s slumbering form. Instead, I jumped, sending playing cards into the air like confetti.
I swallowed hard as I gathered them back together under his steely gaze. In my experience, there was only one response for a grieving family member. It happened to be the same one I used to calm my sister when she threw tantrums or to ease my father back from the brink of his own misery.
I set the cards on the tray, then held up my palms and flashed the gentle smile I’d honed so carefully in my twenty-eight years. “Hello. I’m Simone Bishop. And I’m here to help.”