Chapter 6 - An Olive Branch in the Rain
The Charleston sky broke open at noon, dumping buckets of warm, relentless coastal rain that cleared the protesters off Church Street faster than any police dispersal order.
I spent the afternoon with Becca, using industrial solvent and razor scrapers to clear the spray paint off the front glass. Grant never showed up. When I checked my phone, there was a single, icy text from him sent at two o'clock:
*I am meeting with regional investors in Columbia to discuss refinancing the bridge loan. If you haven't opened the doors by Tuesday, my attorney will serve you with an injunction for corporate waste. Do not contact Ruth.*
I deleted the text without responding.
At five-thirty, my phone rang again. It wasn't Grant. It was Ruth Delaney, and her voice was frantic, trembling with panic.
"Nora? Is she with you? Did Sadie come to the bakery?"
The hair on my arms stood up. "No, Ruth. I haven't seen her since yesterday. What happened?"
"We had an argument," Ruth sobbed, the stoic Southern grandmother completely unraveling. "Grant called the house an hour ago. He was screaming at her over the speakerphone, telling her she had ruined his business, that she had disgraced the family name, and that he was sending her to a boarding school in Virginia if she didn't apologize to you on video! She ran out the back screen door into the rain, Nora! She didn't take her coat! Her phone is sitting right here on the kitchen counter!"
"How long has she been gone?"
"Forty-five minutes! I drove through the neighborhood, but I can't find her, and with this storm—"
"Call the police and file a missing minor report immediately," I interrupted, already pulling my keys out of my pocket. "Ruth, listen to me: does she have a place? Somewhere she goes when she feels cornered?"
Ruth paused, her breath catching. "When Lillian was in hospice, Sadie used to hide behind the old bakery. Violet House. The building on Queen Street. There’s an old delivery alley behind the kitchen."
"I’m five minutes away," I said. "I’m going there right now."
I sprinted out of Harbor & Honey into the torrential rain, not bothering with an umbrella. The rain was blinding, water pooling inches deep along the gutters of the historic district. I ran down Queen Street, my sneakers sliding against the wet brick sidewalk, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.
The old Violet House storefront had been vacant for five years. The display windows were covered in brown butcher paper, faded and peeling at the corners. A rusted "For Lease" sign hung crookedly from the wrought-iron transom.
I slipped down the narrow, narrow brick passage between the bakery and an antique bookstore. The alley was dark, smelling of wet brick, ivy, and damp earth.
At the very end of the passage, tucked beneath a rusted metal fire escape and half-hidden by a sprawling azalea bush, was a small, shivering bundle.
Sadie was curled into a ball, her knees pulled tight against her chest. Her thin cotton hoodie was completely soaked through, plastered to her skin. Her teeth were chattering audibly in the damp chill of the coastal rain.
I stopped ten feet away. I didn't rush forward. I didn't try to pull her into an embrace she hadn't asked for.
I simply slid my back down the wet brick wall and sat down directly in the puddle beside her.
Sadie lifted her head. Her hair was soaked, clinging to her face, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.
"Are you going to tell him where I am?" she croaked, her voice barely carrying over the drum of rain on the metal fire escape above us.
"No," I said softly.
"He said I ruined your life."
"Sadie," I said, wiping rain from my forehead, "your father lied to me. He lied to you, he lied to your grandmother, and he lied to this entire city."
Sadie pulled her knees tighter, burying her chin in the soaked fabric of her sweatshirt. "He said you wanted Lillian's recipe because you weren't good enough to make your own."
A sharp, searing pain tore through my heart, but I kept my voice entirely calm, entirely gentle.
"I have been a pastry chef for sixteen years, Sadie. I went to culinary school in Paris on a scholarship where I washed pots for eight hours a day just to pay for my flour. I don't need to steal your mother's recipes. Your mother was brilliant, but so am I."
Sadie blinked at me through the rain, surprised by the firmness in my tone.
"Then why did you make them?" she whispered.
I reached inside my waterproof jacket, pulled out the unopened pink envelope I had kept tucked safely against my chest, and held it out toward her through the curtain of falling water.
"Because your father told me it was a public classic," I said. "And because he kept this locked in his office for three weeks instead of giving it to you on your birthday."
Sadie stared at the handwriting on the envelope. The color drained from her face, leaving her completely motionless.
"Mom?" she breathed.
"She wrote you one for every year," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "There are four more in his desk. He hid them, Sadie. Not because she forgot you, but because he wanted to control what was left of her."
Sadie reached out a trembling hand, taking the envelope from my fingers as if it were spun from spun sugar that might dissolve in the rain. She pressed the dry paper against her cheek, closed her eyes, and began to weep—not with the theatrical rage of a teenager, but with the deep, quiet, shattering grief of a little girl who had finally been found.
May you like
I leaned over through the mud and the rain, and for the first time since I had entered her life, Sadie didn't pull away. She leaned her soaked forehead against my shoulder, and I held her tight against the storm.
***
