Some things never changed, and that was one of them.
She ran her fingers over the familiar phrase. Then she frowned and looked closer. A slight smudge lay behind the word from, as if someone had tried to erase a previous penciled sentiment and written over it.
She stood and held the letter up to the dim attic light, squinting through the old, wrinkled paper, and could just make out two smudged, tightly scrawled capital letters.
T.R.
The paper fluttered from her grasp back to the attic floor. Her chest constricted. The room tilted, and she sank back, the beanbag catching her before she fully collapsed.
Those weren’t her father’s initials.
“I’m sure you’re just misunderstanding, dear.” Mabel poured Bri a second cup of coffee and nudged her breakfast muffin closer to her on the table. “People erase things all the time.”
She stared at the blueberries dotting the whole wheat muffin. She’d gotten up that morning in a trance, still hungover from both the lack of sleep and the surge of emotions from her discovery the night before, and had somehow stumbled into the bakery on time—sans makeup, back in her Wanderlust sweatshirt that she wasn’t sure was clean or dirty, and cutoff jeans with flip-flops.
She hadn’t realized her feet were cold until she was halfway through baking the morning’s orders. Then Mabel and Agnes had come in, a little earlier than usual, and started mothering her after realizing something was wrong. Mabel had even gone out to her car and gotten her pair of hot-pink slippers she’d left in her trunk. They had glittery unicorn horns on the toes.
“Sure, people erase things. But they don’t typically erase their initials from love letters.” Not unless they had something to hide. Bri picked a blueberry from the muffin and popped it in her mouth, unable to taste the tartness.
On that note, she probably shouldn’t have baked this morning—the dozens of macarons and petit fours and sugar cookies waiting to be frosted had probably all suffered from her distracted state. Casualties of war.
“I’m sorry, I can’t even focus with those ridiculous slippers in my line of sight.” Agnes leaned against the counter of the empty bakery, arms crossed. Her no-nonsense, elastic-waisted khaki pants were hiked up a little higher than usual, her feet shod in black loafers. “Mabel, why do you even own those?”
“Because floral patterns are so boring. As are navy and cream. Those were the only options in the store, so I ordered these online instead.” Mabel smiled. “And they matched my new lipstick.”
Bri didn’t even care. “I’ll take them off.” She started to slide her foot from the warmth of the slipper, but Mabel grabbed her arm.
“Of course you won’t. Agnes, don’t be ridiculous. She’s in shock.” She frowned at her sister.
“Because of a smudge on a letter?” Agnes let out a tsk. “Don’t cater to her fantasy, Mabel. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“You’re just grumpy because Mr. Hansen hasn’t been by in a few days.” Mabel rolled her eyes.
Agnes huffed and her neck flushed red. “Poppycock.”
“How do you know it’s nothing?” Bri’s voice cracked and she hated how frail she sounded—how frail she felt. Especially in front of Agnes—who possibly had a point. Everything was speculation right now, and she was very possibly jumping to huge conclusions.
But what explanation was there? Bri crossed her arms, unable to get warm despite the bulky material of her sweatshirt.
“Clearly, your father was starting to write something else, then realized he should stick to the usual.” Agnes shrugged. “Like I always say—if it isn’t broken, why fix it?”
“But they were initials. T.R.”
Agnes crossed her arms. “Fine. What if he had been about to write ‘truly yours’?”
Maybe. But . . . “In all capital letters?” The explanation didn’t ring true.
Mabel nodded eagerly. “Cursive is different—and remember, this was years ago. Maybe he was trying something new. Or maybe he was tired and started writing the wrong word. He’d just poured out his heart, after all. I’m sure that’s emotionally draining.”
Finding out her mother had potentially been receiving love letters from another man was also incredibly draining.
Mabel took a sip of her coffee, leaving a smudge of lip color on the edge of the mug. “People are allowed mistakes.”
True. After all, didn’t Bri make a mistake every time she attempted to re-create her mother’s macaron recipe? Or every time she allowed Gerard to stir her frustration and lashed out verbally?
Wait. Was Mabel talking about the mistake of writing the wrong word or the mistake of an affair? That made a difference.
She really didn’t want to think about this anymore.
Bri stood up, took a bite of the blueberry muffin, and tried to shake off the melancholy that clung like static. “You’re probably right. Both of you.”
Agnes nodded, as if to agree that of course she was. Mabel offered a sympathetic frown. “You’re just tired, honey. You said you were up late reading—everything looks worse when you’re exhausted.”
Also true. Her “aunts” were pretty wise—and they had known her mom well. If they weren’t worried, why should she be?
Yet as Bri headed to the kitchen to resume her baking activities, she couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow everything had just shifted.
And it might never shift back.
Gerard figured Bri would be back at Taylor’s again Friday morning for pizza, and his journalist instincts were correct. Someone didn’t eat pizza for breakfast without it being at least a semi-regular tradition.
He needed to get a few more quotes from her for the second part of the feature and confirm a few of the specifics for Casey’s wedding. He would much rather ask Bri than the bride-to-be. After their false alarm and truce in the bakery last night, he looked forward to seeing her.
He also needed to prove to himself that last night’s mash-up of feelings was nothing more than a bad combination of a late-night sugar rush and platonic bonding over family drama. He found her in the back-corner booth, facing the
