by Shirley Jump
“Ah, a truth for baking and for life.”
“So true.” She took another bite of her sandwich. It was good—the bread toasted just right, the pork tender and slightly sweet. The meat was paired with lime-glazed red onions and a dash of cilantro. The French fries had been hand-cut, with that perfect mix of a crusty outside and soft inside.
“So tell me…how do you balance your life these days, Bridget?” Garrett asked.
She scoffed. “I don’t. I go to work. I go to sleep. Rinse, repeat.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like me. I work, I sleep. I have a few properties I own and rent out, and that, in a nutshell, is my excitement for a weekday.”
“You aren’t dating anyone?” Damn it. Why had she asked that? Maybe she could pretend it was a side effect of choking on her coffee or something. She shoved another bite of sandwich into her mouth before she said anything else stupid.
“Not yet.” He gave her a smile. “There’s this stubborn woman I know who puts more thought into the perfect chocolate chip cookie than most people put into planning a vacation around the world. I’d love to see her more often, but she’s really making me work for it.”
For a second, Bridget was going to say, You should try harder. I’m sure she’s interested, then realized he was talking about her. She didn’t know whether to be flattered or scared off. She liked Garrett—liked his smile, liked his eyes, liked talking to him. Did she want to date him?
Wasn’t that kind of what she was doing? The coffee, the late night in the bakery, and now lunch? He’d brought her flowers today, paid for the food both times they went out.
Anyone who could add two and two would call that dating. Was that wrong? Was it too soon?
She caught him staring at her, and desire fluttered through her. She shifted in her seat, which only made her leg connect with his. Awareness zipped through her veins, and she had to remind herself to breathe. There was just something about him—the kindness in his face? The way he paid attention? Something that drew her closer, even as her mind was screaming, Caution!
“I know you probably aren’t ready to date yet,” Garrett went on, as if he’d read her mind. “But I’m hoping we can be friends and maybe get some coffee or sandwiches once in a while. I really like you, Bridget.”
“I like you too.” The wave of guilt that she shouldn’t even be thinking about another man—what did that say about her loyalty to Jim?—hit her again, but this time, it wasn’t a tidal wave, more of a strong surf. It had been more than three months, not a lot of time but enough to edge her toward the thought of a different life.
“Then let’s take this at a turtle pace,” Garrett said. “You need time to go through the stages and changes, and I’ll just be here, a friend, nothing more for a while. Okay?”
Exactly the kind of pace she liked lately. She smiled at him and covered his hand with her own. The connection felt warm, comforting, something she could stand on until she found her footing. For a while. “Yeah. That sounds like a great idea.”
* * *
When Bridget got back to work an hour later, Nora grabbed her arm. Ma was working the cash register, ringing up a sale. She nodded toward her eldest daughter.
“Bridget—”
“Not now, Ma,” Nora said. “I need to talk to Bridge real quick.” She hauled her into the back and pounced the second the swinging door shut behind them. “So…what happened?”
“We had lunch. That’s all. We’re friends for now. More…maybe down the road.” Bridget slid her apron on and knotted it behind her back. “Right now, all I want to concentrate on is work and paying the bills.”
And not think about the too-short walk back to the bakery. How Garrett had held her hand, and she’d felt as light-headed as a teenager. Just before they reached Charmed by Dessert, he had pulled her to him, and just when she thought he was going to kiss her, he instead drew her in for a brief hug. “I’ll call you.”
“Okay,” she said, because she didn’t have any other words right then. She’d walked into work, riding a cloud.
“Well, he was hot, I’ll say that,” Nora said. “And a woman can always use a hot guy friend. Especially one who’s straight.” She grinned and slipped into place beside Bridget, the two of them falling into a seamless unspoken partnership of assembling a three-tier cake and applying a crumb coat of thin, nearly transparent buttercream. “So tell me about him. How’d you meet? What’s the hummingbird thing?”
Bridget explained about making the trip to the bird store and the hummingbird feeder she’d bought. How Garrett had showed her which one to get. “I know it sounds crazy, but ever since I saw that bird the day of the funeral, I feel like that hummingbird is…I don’t know, a message of some kind. Or messenger. But he hasn’t been back in a while.”
“Maybe he had other messages to deliver.” Nora stepped back, assessing the cake.
“A one-bird pony express?”
“Exactly.” Nora cleaned the cake knife and started on the finish layer of buttercream, swiping it onto the cake rounds in smooth, practiced strokes, while Bridget piped tiny pink roses along the bottom layer. “Well, I’m glad you went to lunch with that guy. He seemed really nice. And he bought you a plant.”
“For the hummingbird, not me.” Bridget reconsidered her answer. Maybe saying the plant was for the hummingbird was a cover for buying one for her. The gesture made heat fill her cheeks. Except she had loved the way he’d paid attention, how he’d watched her when she talked, held her hand as they walked. “Okay, maybe that was nice.”
Ma came into the kitchen with an order sheet in her hands. “We have a rush job for a retirement cake we need to deliver this afternoon.”
Bridget took the sheet and scanned the order. A simple vanilla sheet cake with white buttercream. “No problem. I can have this done in no time. Nora, you good for decorating it?”
Nora rose on her tiptoes and peered over Bridget’s shoulder. “Sure. Can you get me a picture of the company logo this afternoon? I’ll go by that to do the design.”
Bridget mixed up the batter, got the cake in the oven, printed off the information Nora needed, and then took a quick break to check her phone. Abby had responded to her invite for dinner that night with an enthusiastic I’d love to come.
Bridget had the guest list. She had the dishes planned. What she didn’t have was a way to defuse the potential bomb that would detonate when Ma walked in, assuming Ma agreed to come to dinner. Her mother wasn’t one of those people who loved surprises. In Colleen O’Bannon’s ideal world, she could see through walls and know what was coming before it hit her. As long as Bridget could remember, her mother had had a predictable schedule—she went to work at four in the morning to get the baking started, came home to wake the girls and get them off to school, then back to work, home again after school, then Mass, then dinner and homework help and bed. Every weekday, exactly the same. On Saturdays, the girls went to work with her, and on Sundays, they all went to church. Rain, sleet, snow—nothing varied.
Same thing went for the rest of her life. Anyone who looked in her closet would see dozens of the same cardigans, skirts, and blouses in a rainbow of neutrals—taupe, navy, white, black. She ate oatmeal for breakfast every day, a salad for lunch, and some kind of meat and potatoes for dinner. She colored her hair on the tenth of the month, saw her allergist on the thirteenth.
Once, the girls had banded together and thrown their mother a surprise birthday party for her fiftieth. She’d walked into the house, saw the group of guests standing there—and walked right back out. It had taken a good fifteen minutes to convince her to come back inside, and only with the promise of never, ever surprising her again.
Bridget headed out front with a tray of cookies to replenish the display case. Her mother was making a handwritten list of supplies to order, her penmanship neat and precise. Maybe it was the bright sun streaming into the shop, but her mother looked more tired than usual, her face more lined. “Ma, you’re still coming to dinner at my h
ouse tonight, right?”
“Of course.”
“Great.” Bridget drew in a breath. “I invited all the girls, you know.” Okay, so maybe that wasn’t being specific and saying Abby and Aunt Mary would be there. But it wasn’t technically lying and thus not technically a surprise.
Her mother nodded, immersed in the task of determining flour and sugar quantities. “I’ll make a side dish.”
“Sounds good. I’m bringing some black and white cookies for Magpie.”
“They’re her favorite.” Ma still hadn’t looked up, nor had she put the pieces together about what all the girls meant.
Bridget leaned against the counter and straightened the pile of Charmed by Dessert flyers. “Why haven’t you talked to Abby in three years?”
Yeah, just a casual question about the nuclear bomb in the middle of the family.
Her mother kept on listing things on the paper but her posture was rigid, her jaw stony. “She made her choices.”
“You’re her mother, Ma. You don’t just cut off a kid like that.” That was the part that Bridget understood least. Except she’d done the same thing. She’d been bitter at Abby for ruining her wedding, angry with her for what she’d said about Jim, and used all that to fuel her grudge. Now, though, after his death, it all seemed so pointless.
“Do you really think I’d do that to one of my children? I love you all.” Ma’s eyes glistened with a sadness that seemed to reach her soul. “I tried, Bridget. I tried several times to talk to her. I left her messages. I sent her a card. I even went to her apartment, rang the bell. She was inside—I could hear her—but she…” Ma paused and shook her head, and when she spoke again, her words had a raw, jagged edge. “She didn’t even open the door. Do you know how much that hurts to have your own child ignore you like that? I tried, Bridget, but she didn’t want to try too.”
“Maybe she had a reason for not opening the door.” Like a live-in fiancée no one knew about.
“And maybe what she said at the wedding was the truth. What she said to me,” her mother added quietly.
In those few words was the crux of why Ma wore that armor over her hurt, why she hadn’t made amends. When Abby had argued with Bridget in the living room that day, Ma had tried to defuse the moment by nudging Abby toward Ned the orthopedist again. This time, Abby had exploded. I wish Dad were here, because he would have cared about why I ran out of the room. Not you, Mom. All you want to do is control my life. Control who I date, who I love, who I marry. I’m not a fucking doll you can manipulate.
The F-bomb was what ignited Ma’s temper. It was the one word the girls knew better than to use. Abby had her mouth washed out with a bar of Ivory soap when she was eleven, and that was enough to convince the rest of the girls they never wanted to say that word in front of Ma.
Ma’s face reddened, and she advanced on Abby, saying things about how it was her house and she wasn’t going to allow her daughter to disrespect her, and how dare she ruin Bridget’s special day.
Nora grabbed Abby’s arm and said they were a family, a team at the bakery, so calm down and let’s work this out. She’d whispered something in Abby’s ear, but instead of calming, it had only inflamed Abby more. She’d picked up the cake, told Nora to mind her own business, and then flung the cake at the wall. Bridget started to cry and screamed at Abby, calling her selfish.
You want to marry an asshole, Bridget, I can’t stop you, Abby had said. But I’m not going to stand here and pretend I’m happy while you do it.
That was when Jim had grabbed Bridget’s hand and convinced her they needed to leave. She remembered casting one last look over her shoulder as they ran out the door. The living room floor was covered with chunks of wedding cake and the fallout from a family fight that had brewed for decades. A fight that had never really ended.
If they didn’t start to settle some of this, tonight would be a rerun of the wedding. “Ma, I don’t think Abby meant half of what she said,” Bridget said. “You know how people say things when they get mad.”
“Drunkenness and anger ‘tis said tell the truth,” her mother said, still listing and planning, the moment of emotion wiped away. “There’s a reason that saying has been around for hundreds of years.”
“Well, you kinda do have a tendency to tell us what to do, Ma.” Kinda was putting it mildly. But Bridget wasn’t up to a full-on battle with her mother, so she couched the words.
Her mother scowled. “I only do it because I care about you girls. If you ever had children, you’d understand.” Ma gathered up the order sheets and disappeared into the back of the shop, leaving Bridget alone.
Yet another thing that Colleen controlled, Bridget realized—the end of a conversation.
TWENTY
The dinner was a disaster before the mashed potatoes ended up on the floor.
Nora arrived early, along with Magpie. They greeted Aunt Mary with joyful hugs and nonstop questions and helped Bridget finish cooking. Aunt Mary sat at the bar while the three sisters cooked, falling into their old rhythms, like lifelong dance partners.
Nora peeled and boiled the potatoes, Bridget basted the roast chicken, and Magpie whipped up a purple cabbage and pecan salad. They chatted and laughed, Magpie sharing stories of people she’d met, Aunt Mary talking about the new trick she’d taught Pedro, and Nora telling about her kids and their upcoming band recital.
A little before six, the doorbell rang. Bridget let Abby in with a hug while the others called out greetings from the kitchen. “I’m so glad you came, Abby. Nora and Magpie are here, and so is Aunt Mary.”
“Ma?”
“Not yet.”
Hesitancy stuttered Abby’s stride. “Do you think she’ll come?”
“Of course she will.” Bridget didn’t add that she never had given her mother the complete guest list. She figured it was good payback for springing Father McBride and his mission work on her a few weeks earlier.
Abby smoothed her hair and glanced down at her light blue V-neck sweater and jeans. “Am I dressed okay?”
“Abs, you’re here. That’s all I care about.” Bridget hugged her sister again and kept her arm over Abby’s shoulders as they walked down the hall to the kitchen. Abby leaned into her, as if drawing strength from her older sister, just like when she was a little girl.
Magpie burst forward and rushed into Abby for a hug. “You came! I’m so glad.”
Aunt Mary joined the hug and then Nora, the five of them bonding in a tight circle. Abby started to cry, Nora teased her, and all of them laughed. Pedro danced at their feet and barked. For the first time that Bridget could remember, her kitchen felt warm and welcoming. Like a home.
Why had she spent all those years alone with just her husband? Why hadn’t she had a family dinner long before this? When Jim had been alive, she’d convinced herself that Jim and Bridget Island was a utopia. As she felt her sisters’ arms tighten around her, she knew she’d been fooling herself. This...this was what she’d been missing.
“Well. I didn’t realize there would be such a crowd tonight.”
Bridget turned at the sound of her mother’s voice. Ma stood in the doorway, holding a casserole dish, looking uncomfortable and angry and shocked all at the same time. The circle dissipated, the girls stepping back with lowered heads, as if they’d been caught raiding the cookie jar.
Bridget took Abby’s hand. Her sister’s fingers tightened around hers, and for a second, she was seven and Abby was five, and she was telling Abby to trust her as they crossed a busy street. She gave Abby’s fingers a squeeze. Trust me.
“I told you it was a family dinner, Ma,” Bridget said. “This is our family. All the O’Bannon girls, together.”
Ma pursed her lips. “You should have told me you expected more people. I would have made more colcannon.”
“You made enough to feed an army of O’Bannons.” Aunt Mary strode forward and took the casserole dish from Colleen’s hands. She gave her sister a smile. “I’m glad you came. It’s far past t
ime we talked to each other, Colleen.”
“A family dinner is not the place for a conversation like that.” Ma turned away, hanging her coat over the back of a chair and her purse off the arm. She crossed to the sink, washed her hands, and checked on the progress of dinner. All actions that put her back to her daughters and sister and the conversations she didn’t want to have.
Bridget glanced at Abby and mouthed, Give it some time. Abby nodded, but there were tears in her eyes. She grabbed the plates and silverware and disappeared into the dining room.
“You are overcooking those potatoes,” Ma said to no one in particular. She grabbed an apron out of the drawer and then picked up the pan and drained the potatoes. When she was done, she raided the fridge for some milk and butter. She drizzled in the milk, then added a hearty slab of butter and started mashing with furious movements. “Don’t add too much milk. It makes them runny. You want the potatoes to have some depth to them.”
Bridget put a hand on her mother’s back. “Ma, did you see Abby was here?”
“Of course I did. But I’m mashing the potatoes right now. I can’t stop and talk to everyone.”
Nora reached over and took the masher out of her mother’s hand. “I’ll mash the potatoes. You go say hello to Abby and Aunt Mary.”
Without the wall of cooking as a shield, Ma stood in the kitchen wringing her hands on her apron. She glanced at the stove as if some other task would magically appear. Bridget moved in front of the oven door while Magpie sprinkled the pecans on her salad—a conspiracy of sisters.
Abby came back into the kitchen and picked up the stack of napkins at the end of the counter. She hesitated. Shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Hey, Ma.”
“Abigail,” she said to her middle daughter. The two of them stood there, statues on the tile.
The room in the air was as tense and thick as a snowbank. The timer dinged, popping Bridget into action. She took the chicken out of the oven while Magpie dressed and tossed the salad. Nora went on mashing, all of them watching the other three.
