“And, um, my grandma was there too?” Annie asks. “When Mamie and my great-grandpa moved here?”
“Yes, your grandmother Josephine must have been what, five years old? Six years old when they moved?” Mrs. Sullivan says. “They moved back to the Cape in 1950. I remember clearly, because it’s the year I got married.”
Mrs. Koontz nods. “Yes, Josephine started first grade when they moved here, if I remember right.”
“And Mamie founded the bakery then?” Annie asks.
“I think it was a few years later,” Mrs. Koontz says. “But your mother would probably know.” She calls to me. “Hope, dear?”
I pretend I haven’t been listening to their whole conversation. “What’s that?” I ask, looking up.
“Annie here was wondering when your grandmother founded the bakery.”
“In 1952,” I say. I glance at Annie, who’s staring at me. “Her parents had owned a bakery in France, I think.” I’ve never heard any more about Mamie’s past than this. She never talked about her life before she met my grandfather.
Annie ignores me and turns back to the two women. “But you don’t know anyone named Leona?” she asks.
“No,” Mrs. Sullivan says. “Maybe she was a friend of your great-grandmother’s from France.”
“She never really had any friends here,” Mrs. Koontz says. Then she shoots me a guilty look and amends hurriedly, “Of course, she’s very nice. She just kept to herself, that’s all.”
I nod, but I wonder whether that was all Mamie’s fault after all. She’s quiet and reserved, certainly, but it doesn’t seem as if Mrs. Koontz, Mrs. Sullivan, and the other women of the town exactly welcomed her with open arms. I feel a pang of sadness for her.
I look at my watch again. “Annie, you’d better get going. You’re going to be late for school.”
Her eyes narrow, and the brief glimpse of the old Annie is gone; she’s back to hating me.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she mutters.
“Actually, young lady,” Mrs. Koontz says, shooting me a look, “she is. She’s your mother, which makes her the boss of you until you turn eighteen, at the very least.”
“Whatever,” Annie says under her breath.
She gets up from the table and stomps into the kitchen. She emerges a moment later with her backpack.
“Thank you,” she says to Mrs. Koontz and Mrs. Sullivan on the way out the door. “I mean, thanks for telling me about my great-grandma.” She doesn’t even look at me as she strides through the front door, onto Main Street.
Gavin comes by as I’m closing to drop off the spare keys I’d given him two days earlier. He has on the same pair of jeans with the hole in the thigh, which seems to have gotten marginally bigger since I last saw him.
“Your pipe’s fixed,” he tells me as I pour him the last of the afternoon’s coffee. “Dishwasher’s running good as new.”
“I don’t even know how to thank you.”
Gavin smiles. “Sure you do. You know my weaknesses. Star Pie. Cinnamon strudel. Hours-old coffee.” He looks into his coffee cup and arches an eyebrow, but he takes a sip anyhow.
I laugh, despite my embarrassment. “I know I should be paying you in something other than baked goods, Gavin. I’m sorry.”
He looks up. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “You’re obviously underestimating my addiction to your baking.”
I give him a look, and he laughs. “Seriously, Hope, it’s fine. You’re doing your best.”
I sigh as I place the last of the day’s remaining almond rose tarts into a flat Tupperware container that I’ll store overnight in the freezer. “Turns out my best isn’t good enough,” I mutter. Matt had brought me a bunch of paperwork that morning, and I haven’t begun to read it yet, although I know I need to. I’m dreading it.
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Gavin says. Before I can reply, he adds, “So Matt Hines has been around a lot.” He takes another sip of his coffee.
I look up from packing away the pastries. “It’s just business,” I tell him, although I’m not sure why I feel like I have to explain myself.
“Hmm,” is all Gavin replies.
“We dated in high school,” I add. Gavin grew up on the North Shore of Boston—he’d told me all about his high school in Peabody one afternoon on the porch—so I assume he doesn’t know about my past with Matt.