Chapter Five
Cora stood in Lolly’s apartment’s kitchen above the café—her kitchen now, she supposed—taking in the familiar chaos that had always felt like home.
The soft glow of the streetlight outside the window illuminated the mismatched mugs lining the shelves, each one a souvenir from one of Lolly’s adventures or a gift from a friend.
They told a story as colorful and eclectic as Lolly herself.
Her fingers traced the rim of her grandmother’s favorite mug, a chipped monstrosity featuring a goat with large, slanted eyes and a half-smirk that made it look like it was about to go on a killing spree.
The ceramic felt cool under her touch, nothing like the memories flooding in, mostly of Lolly trying to convince her that the goat’s expression was thoughtful and not murderous.
It had been six months since the call that had turned her world upside down.
She’d been in New York, knee-deep in research for an article on the next big kale alternative, because, apparently the world needed more leafy greens to feel guilty about not eating.
The shrill ring of her phone had been a welcome distraction from the endless parade of fiber.
“Cora Jean,” Lolly’s best friend Aggie had crackled through the line. “Your grandmother’s gone and done it now.”
Her heart had dropped to her stomach, and she’d immediately pulled out her laptop to book a red-eye back to North Carolina to post her grandmother’s bail. “What do you mean? Is Lolly okay?”
There was a pause, then Aggie had let out a sound that was both a laugh and a sob. “Oh, honey, she’s fine. Well, as fine as you can be when you’re no longer with us. But I’ll tell you what, she went out with a bang. Literally.”
It turned out that Lolly, in her infinite wisdom and unquenchable zest for life, had decided that her eightieth birthday called for something special.
Not content with a quiet dinner or even a rowdy party at the café, she’d gotten it into her head that skydiving was the perfect way to celebrate her eight decades on Earth.
“She said she wanted to touch the sky before her arthritis got any worse,” her friend Bea had told Cora later, misty-eyed but smiling. “I suggested yoga instead, but Lolly said downward dog was for quitters.”
Lolly had made it out of the plane just fine, whooping with joy as she’d plummeted toward the ground.
It was the landing that got her. She and her tandem partner missed the designated drop zone by a good quarter mile and had the misfortune of crash-landing right onto a jagged rock in the heart of Old Man Peterson’s tomato patch.
“Darned woman took out half my harvest,” Peterson had grumbled at the funeral, his eyes suspiciously red.
Cora shook her head as she remembered. It was so perfectly, ridiculously Lolly. After all, this was the same woman who’d once entered the county fair pie contest with a “special” recipe that had included enough bourbon to get the entire judging panel drunk off their rockers.
That was Lolly, though. Larger than life, unapologetically chaotic, and somehow always one step ahead of everyone else.
She’d raised Cora with that same fearless spirit—equal parts grit, grace, and glitter glue.
There were no bedtime stories in their house, only tales of Lolly’s adventures told over midnight snacks.
Cora hadn’t been back to Sunrise since the funeral, which had been a whirlwind of polite hugs, wilted carnations, and enough casseroles to feed a small army.
The whole thing had blended into a blur of faces she couldn’t place and condolences she’d barely heard.
She’d packed up her grief and flown back to New York before the thank-you notes were even written, convincing herself that distance made it easier. But none of it had been easy.
She swallowed hard as she stepped into the living room, the familiar scent of vanilla potpourri wrapping around her like a warm hug from Lolly herself.
Welcome home, baby girl, the room seemed to say, echoing the same upbeat Southern drawl that had greeted her every day.
Sit down and tell me everything. The faded floral wallpaper and the bright, mismatched art and sculptures on the walls captured Lolly’s irreverent, bold personality.
It was like walking into a Jackson Pollock painting, if Pollock had been into Southern comfort food and yard sale finds.
And the cookbooks. They were everywhere, overflowing from the floor-to-ceiling shelves, stacked in haphazard towers on the coffee table, and even perched on the edge of the clawfoot tub. Cora smiled, remembering how Lolly kept buying them even though she hardly ever used them.
“They keep me company,” she used to say. “And they’re great for pressing flowers and scaring off nosy men.”
Cora ran her fingers along a dusty spine.
When was the last time they’d sat together, flipping through one?
The thought landed hard. It had been years.
Years of quick phone calls and hurried visits, always with one foot out the door, rushing back to her real life.
At some point, without meaning to, her visits had dwindled into digital check-ins, texts sent between meetings, and calls made while wedged between strangers on the subway, her voice half lost in the roar of passing stations.
She had always told herself she’d come down for a proper visit soon, maybe spend a weekend just the two of them.
But “soon” had turned out to be too late.
Her gaze drifted to a worn book tucked at the end of a shelf, and a sad chuckle escaped her lips.
It was Lolly’s personal recipe book. The one she’d guarded like a treasure, always tucked into her apron pocket.
Cora had begged her grandmother countless times to let her peek inside, but Lolly would swat her away with a kitchen towel.
“They’re my secret recipes, baby girl. You’ll have to come up with your own.”
Cora had always imagined that one day Lolly would hand her that book with a knowing smile and a wink, as if to say, Now you’re ready.
But that day never came. Instead, all Cora had were memories of her laughter and the wisdom she’d imparted between sips of tea.
Tonight, those memories were more bittersweet than comforting.
Later, tossing and turning beneath Lolly’s favorite purple afghan, Cora finally gave up on sleep and padded to the apartment’s kitchen.
The fridge greeted her with nothing but a bottle of ketchup and a can of sparkling water.
Undeterred, she made her way down the stairs to the café’s kitchen, bracing herself for more of the same emptiness.
The place had been closed for months, so there shouldn’t have been anything to eat, even if Jack Harlow had been squatting there in the evenings.
But to her surprise, not only had Jack left the place spotless when he’d quietly departed earlier, he’d also left a plate on the counter, wrapped tightly in foil.
She peeled it back, revealing a stack of donuts filled with Lolly’s famous strawberry jelly. Her heart clenched as she picked up the paper resting beside them. In messy handwriting, it read:
In case you changed your mind.
Cora woke to the sound of laughter seeping through the floorboards. Groaning, she squinted at the clock. 8:37 a.m. Way too early, especially after a night spent wrestling with sheets that felt like they’d been soaked in swamp water, courtesy of the world’s most useless air conditioner.
The smell of coffee coaxed her downstairs, overriding any desire to burrow back under the covers.
As she descended, her fingers brushed the notches Lolly had carved into the doorframe to mark her height over the years.
Another wave of memories hit her: Lolly’s proud smile as she’d noted each growth spurt and her warm hug the day Cora had left for college, promising to return soon, even though she’d known she wasn’t planning on moving back.
Lolly knew Cora’s dreams were bigger than Sunrise long before she did.
She saw it in the way Cora devoured books, scribbled down stories, and collected postcards of city skylines that she kept in a special photo album, each one neatly labeled, dated, and tucked into its own sleeve like a tiny piece of the future she was already planning.
“You’re meant for more, baby,” Lolly would say with that knowing smile.
But “more” meant leaving the town, The Spoon, and Lolly herself, with that kitchen that always smelled like cookies.
Cora shook her head, pushing the memories aside. There was no time for a stroll down memory lane. She was here on a mission: sell the café, get the cash, restart her life. Simple.
She pushed open the door that separated the stairs from the café, and another wave of nostalgia hit her square in the chest. The old ceiling fan whirred overhead, casting flickering shadows across the sunlit room.
The air was thick with the familiar scents of coffee, old books from the tiny lending library, and a hint of pine floor cleaner that couldn’t quite overpower decades of bacon grease and vanilla extract baked into the walls.
Sunlight streamed through the front windows, warming the mismatched café tables.
Some were round, some square, and none of them were quite level.
The chairs didn’t match, either, but that was part of The Spoon’s charm.
Residents of Sunrise had been gathering there for decades, and nobody minded that some people sat in metal chairs while others got painted wood.
There was even a former barstool in the corner with sawed-off legs and a red gingham pillow duct-taped to the seat.
Lolly always said it was perfect for anyone who dared to get their knickers in a twist when she sold out of the day’s special.