If It Makes You Happy(6)

“She was crying,” Emily explains.

“How’d she even leave without someone seeing?”

She shrugs. “Recess? I don’t know.”

Although both girls have their mother’s honey-blond hair, they couldn’t be more different. Emily inherited my pin-straight locks, and it’s longer than it’s ever been, cascading over thin headphones hanging around her neck and hitting halfway down her jean jacket. She’s wearing a striped, cropped T-shirt, a sliver of exposed skin above her denim pants. I definitely told her not to wear that, but she’s always been a little defiant, and I love that about her.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s my six-year-old, Brittany, wearing white overalls and sparkly sneakers. Her curly ponytail is pulled back with a neon-pink scrunchie. She’s not nearly as rebellious as Emily, but she mimics her sister enough that confidence isn’t a problem.

I cup Brittany’s cheek, thumbing over the streak of tears. “Britt, what happened?”

“Luke said …” She rubs her sniffling nose with the back of her hand. “He said that Steve was going to lose his match.”

I squint. “Steve? Who’s Steve?”

“Steve, Daddy.” She pokes at her T-shirt. Peeking above the top flap of her overalls is a bald man in a leather vest.

“Oh.” I playfully knock my palm against my forehead. “D’oh. Steve.”

Brittany giggles through a sniffle.

I forget we’re on a first-name basis with the wrestler of the year. Carol got her hooked on Steve Austin—of all people, Christ—and he’s edging higher on my six-year-old’s list of admirable men, right over those Backstreet Boys. Either way, her mother would kill me if she knew. If she ever called on time.

I squeeze Brittany’s shoulders. “Now, come on. You know he’s not going to lose.”

“But Luke says he will.”

“Okay, well, you can tell that little punk Luke that he’s wrong, and he’ll always be wrong, and he should just get used to it now, okay?”

My daughter starts mouthing my words back to herself, as if reciting lines for a play.

“Don’t actually tell him that,” I rush in. “What’s said in or near the bakery is kept in the bakery, all right?”

“But we told Birdie everything.”

Emily and I exchange a look.

“Right,” I say slowly, swiveling back to Brittany. “But remember that Birdie was an exception. What’s said in Bird & Breakfast also stays in Bird & Breakfast.”

Birdie Cadell and her endearingly quiet husband, Paul, ran Bird & Breakfast for the past year. Since we live next to the inn and because Brittany’s never seen a yard she didn’t like to run through, we grew close to the Cadells quickly. Birdie would watch Brittany after school, and Emily would take advantage of their biscuit surplus. It’s been a weird adjustment for my girls since she passed.

“I miss Birdie,” Brittany murmurs.

Emily cringes.

“Hey, she’s in a better place now, remember?” I tell her, though I hope my words carry to Emily too.

Brittany nods slowly, and I wonder if she’s reliving our conversation about death outside the chapel at Birdie’s wake. We took a big summer road trip out to Seattle to pay our respects, but I have no clue how much Britt remembers about death. All I know is, she loves bringing it up.

“Do you think Sara will be fun?” Brittany asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Hopefully.”

When we called Birdie in the hospital before her bypass surgery, she mentioned that her daughter Sara would take over the inn. I jokingly told her it was too early to make contingency plans, but she must have known something I didn’t. I can only assume Sara will show up eventually, but with no calls or letters from Paul yet, we’re in the dark.

“Cliff!” I look up to find Betty peering out her sandwich shop door. “You need help?”

I wave with a grimace. “We’re all right, Bets.”

She glances down at Brittany, then back up. “Are you sure?”

I shake my hand harder. “I’m good, Bets!”

“Well, let me know—”

“Sure will!”

My face heats. Betty is only the start; more heads will poke out from their stores soon. Copper Run residents insist on helping like that. Hell, I insist like that. But the last thing I want is to burden my kind neighbors with our silly issues.

“Do I have to go back?” Brittany asks.

“What, to school?”

She nods. I sigh. God, my kid looks pitiful with her puffy eyes and out-of-breath chest rising and falling like she ran a marathon.

“No,” I say on an exhale. “You don’t have to go back to school. Head inside. I baked cookies.” I playfully tug on her ponytail. “I’ll call the school so they don’t think you’re dead.”

Her eyes light up. “Really?”

“Really.”

I pat her on the back, and like I’ve flipped a light switch, she’s laughing with her arms straight out by her sides, making airplane noises as she zooms into the bakery.

“Only one cookie, okay?” I call out, but she doesn’t hear me—or doesn’t want to.

I click my tongue and peer at Emily. “I just got played, didn’t I?”