Текст книги "Hemlock Veils"
Автор книги: Jennie Davenport
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
“Beth,” Willem started, bringing her eyes back to him. He blurred, but not from tears. Her head spun, viciously. “I know I never—” He couldn’t get anything out.
“Will, don’t talk, okay? Someone’s coming to help and you’ll be just fine. You need to save your breath. You need to be strong. For once, I need you to be strong for me. Can you do that?”
His eyes began losing focus and she shook him. “Willem, look at me.”
He barely shook his head.
“Willem Ashton, don’t you dare give up!” She pressed so hard on his chest he grunted.
“Move!” Two medics shoved her aside as they surrounded her brother. She tried inching her way back in, but the woman pushed her aside again, exchanging a look with the officer, and before she knew it his hands were on her, pulling her back.
“No!” she shouted, fighting him. She couldn’t see Willem’s face anymore, only a limp hand. “Willem! You fight, Willem!”
“We’re losing him,” one of the men said.
“Willem, no!”
“Ma’am,” the police officer said in a gentle hush, hands firmly on her arms.
Her chest collapsed as though a sob wracked her, but nothing came out. They lifted him onto a stretcher and wheeled him into the back of an ambulance with a great hurry, and that was when she found the strength to break free of the officer. She ran after them, just as they were closing the doors. “You have to save him!”
The woman, the other medic, nodded with hesitation and closed the door, and they sped off. In the ambulance’s wake, a handcuffed Juan was being led to the police cruiser. The officer leading him was out of breath and blood dripped from a gash on his forehead. Juan Paddock, who up until shooting Willem had been invincible—untouchable by the cops. Juan Paddock, who was caught by a mere case of bad luck. Or had it been?
She shot toward him. “I had the money!” she yelled, just as the officer grabbed her from behind again. “I had it!” She clawed at the officer’s arms, taut around her waist.
Juan half-smiled. “You know why I didn’t shoot him in the head?”
She grunted, still struggling.
“I wanted you to be able to say goodbye, sis.”
She screamed, the skin of the officer’s arms accumulating beneath her nails, and then Juan was safely in the car.
***
White Memorial Medical Center in Boyle Heights was a place of many memories for Elizabeth. She’d trained here, spent nights with Willem here after overdoses and even one stabbing, and now she’d lost her brother here.
She sat in a maroon vinyl chair in the hall just off the emergency room waiting area; she’d pulled the chair here, away from the rest. It wasn’t long after she’d arrived that Doctor Gates had come out to greet her. Back when she trained here, she’d been close to Doctor Robert Gates. He wasn’t much older than she, but had been divorced twice. He’d been one of her closest confidants in the beginning, even stayed late with her one night when Willem got stitched up. He’d asked her out soon after, and though she’d never had time to date, she’d agreed. He was charming and charismatic, and made her feel important. She liked him, more than she’d liked anyone as an adult.
But they hadn’t even made it halfway through dinner before Willem called, arrested on minor charges, and needing her to bail him out. She’d left the date on the spot. Anytime she’d run into Doctor Gates since then, with his short, blunt answers and avoiding eyes, she was reminded of the night she had tried to have a normal, happy life.
But not tonight. Tonight he had faced her with the look of bad news. She had expected as much. Willem was gone, she felt it. He’d been gone since before they’d arrived at the hospital. Emptiness lingered where his ties used to bind her. When Doctor Gates had opened his mouth to speak, Elizabeth had raised her hand. “Don’t,” she said. “I know.”
With her head down, he put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Beth,” he said. And he was gone. That was when she’d caught her reflection in the large blackened window. Willem’s blood bathed her sweater and pants, stained her hands, and even speckled her cheek.
With that, she had sunk to the chair. She’d sat there for countless, unmeasured minutes, her vision focused on the multi-toned linoleum. Then on her bloodied hands. Could she have saved him if she’d given the money to Juan from the start, instead of denying she had it with her? She wanted to think if she’d done it differently, he’d still be here. But the truth was, even if she had, Juan still would have asked for more, she would have refused, and the end scenario would still be the same. Only then, Juan would have Mr. Vanderzee’s money, too.
A figure entered through the swinging doors at her left, but her vision remained on the crusty, bloodstained tips of her shoes.
Then a chair scratched across the floor, jarring enough to grab her attention.
Mr. Vanderzee, in a sweater and slacks. She straightened as he sat in the chair he’d pulled beside her. What was he doing here at two a.m., and how did he know where she was in the first place? Her stomach turned and she folded her arms across it.
She looked back to the floor, keeping her eyes indifferent. “Mr. Vanderzee,” she said.
He cleared his throat, something he did a lot recently. “They told me he’s gone.”
She closed her eyes. At that moment, hate and love were smeared together inside her, indistinguishable from each other. “I’m done, Mr. Vanderzee.”
He sighed, a sound of expectance, not surprise. “I imagined you would say that.”
Her heart pounded, but her soul remained numb as she reached behind her, under her shirt, and retrieved the envelope that had been safely tucked away beneath the band of her bra. Her eyes fixed on her knees as she handed it to him. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it. “It’s all there.”
“All $100,000?”
She looked at him. Blinking, she swallowed deeply. “How…?”
“I knew you were going to take it before you knew yourself.”
“But…?”
“You know I’m not a merciful man. You know what you did was vile and unforgivable, so I’ll spare you the lecture. But let’s get one thing straight, Elizabeth: I won’t be taken advantage of.”
The maroon, almost brown residue beneath her fingernails matched the color of the emergency-room chairs and accents. “I accept every consequence of my action.”
“Here’s the consequence.” His fierce tone demanded she meet his gray eyes. “I want you to run away, far from this place. You ever so much as step foot inside Southern California again, I’ll see to it that you’re put away for what you did.”
“But, Mr. Vanderzee, I want to be put—”
“Are we clear, Elizabeth?”
She stared, unblinking.
“I never want you near my money again, and this will be the last time we meet. As soon as your sorry excuse for a brother’s funeral is at its end, you are to pack up your things and leave California, do you understand?” He handed her the envelope of money, heavy and bulky.
“No, I don’t understand.”
He stood. “You spend it on you, Elizabeth, on starting a life. Not a life for anyone else—a life for you.”
“You’re not making sense, Mr. Vanderzee. You said you don’t want me near your money again.”
“It’s not my money.” He adjusted his pants and shifted his jaw as he looked at her with a hatred that seemed born of love. Perhaps the same hatred with which she’d looked upon Willem. “That account was yours. I was putting it aside for you so that one day you could make your own way.”
Her heart sank, deeper inside her than it ever had. Her eyes burned with such intensity she was sure they’d spill over. But her self-hatred kept them from doing so.
“I still intend for you to make your way, Elizabeth. More than ever now.”
“Why?” she barely managed.
“You were good to me. You were good to those who didn’t deserve your goodness. It’s your turn to be good to yourself.” He walked away, hunched over as usual, but before reaching the doors, he turned back, lifting a finger. “And don’t think this generosity leaves you off the hook, Elizabeth Ashton. Mark my words, I won’t hesitate to throw you in prison for what you’ve done if you ever come back here again.”
Desperate to get the money out of her hands, she shot to her feet. “But Mr. Vanderzee, please. Take it. I don’t want it.”
He glanced at it. He’d once said that when someone makes trouble it follows them the rest of their life. That’s what he was ensuring for hers. “I want you to live with it. Know the things you enjoy come from betrayal.” He paused. “You will use it, Elizabeth.”
“And if I don’t…”
“I’ll know.” A silent exchange passed between them and she believed him. Somehow, he would know the whereabouts of every last cent. “And if I find out you haven’t, I won’t just have you thrown in prison for stealing, I’ll make sure you’re a part of your brother’s scandals. You’ll go to prison for illegal drug possession, conspiracy to murder—”
“Conspiracy to murder?”
Silence, just briefly. “As you’re aware, I know people. I could have you tied to the murder of your brother with a single phone call.”
Pain wracked her chest. “Please,” she whispered. “Just let me pay for what I’ve done.”
“But isn’t that what I’m doing?”
Words escaped her.
“Use your reward.”
“This is no reward,” she said, holding up the envelope.
“No, not for you, is it? For you, spending that blood money—on yourself no less—would be your greatest punishment. So enjoy it—with all its dark reminders. If not, I’ll see to it that your life is far more miserable than a guilty conscience.”
He turned and left, and the life of punishment she’d imagined for herself was replaced with a $100,000.00 reward.
Chapter 13
Neither Henry nor Arne said a word during the entire hour drive from Portland to Hemlock Veils. Henry because every ounce of his will had been depleted, and Arne because he knew how to read Henry better than anyone ever had. The day had been long and counterproductive, abnormal for the triple life he lived, and gave him more time to dwell on what he’d actually done that morning. What had he done, giving in to Elizabeth Ashton? Regardless of the way no one better deserved the old cottage and his mother’s bakery, he felt like a fool. He was Henry Clayton and hadn’t given in to anyone in Hemlock Veils in years.
He had been fifteen the last time, and Astrid had been the one to change it all. She was one year younger than he: a tan-skinned blond with blue eyes like the sky, and just like him, she came to Hemlock Veils every summer. He to vacation with his mother and father, and she to stay with her grandmother. She was his first love, the girl who led him to believe it actually existed, and though it had lasted only a summer, it had been enough to change everything. He hadn’t understood then how the following summer she could look at him with such indifference. She had another boy, she’d said, the third since Henry, and that very boy came to Hemlock most days after that. Henry had to watch them, walking through the same trees they had carved their initials into the summer before.
I thought you loved me, he’d actually been foolish enough to say.
Henry, she tittered, as though his very name was ridiculous, it was just a fling. And she walked away, back to the diner with the boy named Bishop. It was the last time Henry had ever spoken to her, and that was the last summer she’d visited Hemlock Veils, since her grandmother had passed away that same year.
And that was the last time Henry had been irrational enough to fall in love.
It was when he’d decided all females were the same, especially the pretty ones. And the rest of his life he’d been proven right. If they were going to be shallow enough to love him for his father’s money, then he would love them for their looks, and do it in the form of one-night stands. There was a time he had loved that lifestyle, and when that lifestyle was over—stolen from him—he’d even longed for it at first.
But now it held nothing of the Henry Clayton he knew. They were simply memories of someone else’s life, left to taunt him: red lips of every shade, painted eyes from across a room, the way the delicate zipper of a dress could rip in the heat of passion, the sound of his name in a satisfied moan.
Though Nicole didn’t have the class of those women from the past that wasn’t his, she reminded him every time she flaunted her assets. She reminded him of what he could still have, and even more, that it was the last thing he wanted. It reminded him life was no longer about satisfying every appetite.
But Ms. Ashton reminded him of things he’d always dismissed, things he was never willing to believe women possessed. Things that perhaps made a woman worth caring about.
She reminded him he could never be the man to do the caring.
Now, driving down Clayton Road, the low sun to his right, he wondered what repercussions might come of his weak decision to allow her to stay. Ahead, the black awning’s rounded flaps fluttered in the wind, as if waving to an old friend. In that instant, every time he’d approached it as a child flashed in his mind. The same excitement settled in his chest as it had then, ever so subtly. He could almost taste his mother’s cookies, could almost see her smile when he ran through the door, could almost smell the bread. Maybe now, with someone here to change it, someone else to make it their own, he wouldn’t be so haunted by memories from another life that was innocent and joyous and detrimental all at the same time. His mother, the one woman he knew who actually deserved to be put on a pedestal, and his father, the man least qualified for such a job; nothing had ever been more wrong.
But the closer to the bakery they came, the more that familiar awning didn’t look familiar at all. “Stop,” he said to Arne, the breath knocked from his chest. Arne did, and with the car at the bakery’s curb, his eyes narrowed. Ms. Ashton had already moved hastily to make it her own, which was annoying in itself, no matter how much he wanted to forget it. The awning flaunted its newly painted, white, cursive letters. Jean’s, it simply said, with a steaming, blithe cup of coffee above the name. If Ms. Ashton had been inside the bakery at that moment, he would have stormed inside and demanded she change it. But darkness blackened the windows.
“Henry…” Arne began in warning, as though he could hear Henry’s teeth grinding.
“What does she think she’s doing?”
“She’s making it her own. Maybe this is how she wants to do that. It’s hers now, to do what she wants with it.”
“Exactly. It’s hers. Not my mother’s.”
“You can’t make her change it.” Arne sighed, and with their eyes on the black-and-white awning, and Henry’s anxiety calming—out of mere exhaustion, probably—Arne pensively added, “It does look great revived like that, doesn’t it? She’s quite the artist, among other things.”
Henry sat back, too tired to stew. He only stared, his mind drifting to the way she may have looked standing atop a ladder and painting the letters so carefully they looked professional. The storm had passed just before lunch, and he would have bet as soon as it had, she was ready with the paint. In the beginning, he’d thought nothing good could come of her staying. Now all he could think was the opposite: good for the town, and bad for him. He felt something inside he hadn’t felt in a lifetime. And it was all so infuriating, how much he felt. It was infuriating how much she interfered with his plan. He wanted to shut her down and ban her from town, for simply being who she was.
Yet he found himself watching her at night, acting on what was initially just curiosity, but now a perplexing impulse to protect her. Would there ever come a time she would be afraid, as people were supposed to be? Sure her heart rate had been elevated like all the rest, but her eyes held no fear. He deserved fear, not acceptance. And now she had sore ribs to show for such acceptance. He hated himself for it, but mostly for the way it had begun to turn him over inside.
Arne was driving again, Henry realized, because now they neared the tiny cottage—the home that now belonged to Ms. Ashton. Regina was there too, and they chatted next to their cars, a mop bucket under Regina’s arm. They laughed and Ms. Ashton’s hair was in a ponytail, a few runaway strands dancing lightly in the breeze. In the setting sun, her brown hair owned a golden shine. Her smile, her laugh lines: she was exquisite, even in the way she infuriated him.
“Now’s your chance to tell her off,” Arne teased. “Go on, show her who’s boss. Demand she change it.”
Henry glared at the eyes in the mirror—the eyes that had remained the same over all these years. The eyes of an eighteen-year-old, garnishing the body of an elderly man. “Drive.”
Ms. Ashton’s eyes caught the car and she straightened. They held his, even though she couldn’t possibly see through his darkened window. He found himself straightening as well, regardless of the way he was hidden. Then she lifted a hand and smiled, giving a polite wave. Henry assumed that’s what neighbors were supposed to do.
***
The coffee grounds bloomed in Elizabeth’s French press, the one she’d bought herself in L.A. and just pulled from her box the night before. She skimmed the grounds away with a spoon, the task strangely satisfying. She’d learned years ago in her rigorous pursuit for the perfect brew that covering the press tended to yield an uneven extraction from the cake of the coffee. Leaving it exposed and allowing the grounds to “bloom,” then skimming them from the top, made an amazing difference in the consistency and taste.
After plunging the press, she poured the coffee into a thermos, inhaling every air molecule she could, and closed the lid immediately. The rich and robust aroma made this place home. She looked around, at the walls now hers. Someday soon, there would be things on them, decorations—even pictures—that would make it officially her own. For now, just one box sat on the floor, and on the tiniest kitchen counter she’d ever seen sat her French press. In her bedroom—the only bedroom—were two suitcases and a lumpy mattress, one Regina had loaned her.
Hot thermos in hand, she hung her purse on her shoulder and grabbed her keys. It was early, just after seven, but because of her excitement, she hadn’t been able to sleep from the moment the sun had risen. Her shop supplies, the ones she’d ordered online yesterday, were supposed to arrive today since she had paid extra for next-day delivery. She felt like a child on Christmas morning.
After exiting the house and locking the door behind her, she turned, slightly electrified at the sight of Mr. Clayton walking by. She shouldn’t have been surprised, since he did this every day. But it was a quarter after seven and, according to Regina, he usually arrived at the diner by seven sharp. He didn’t seem like a man who was ever late for anything.
He paused too upon noticing her, and she readjusted her purse. His suit was black today, as well as his tie, and the sight of him out here, with dew-covered leaves and a bird’s morning song, felt…fitting. He nodded at her, and she said, “Good morning, Mr. Clayton.”
“You said I would never know I had a neighbor and here you are, infringing on my morning walk again.”
The appealing image her mind had created of him deflated, but instead of despising him, she reminded herself of all he’d been generous enough to do for her. She backed away, closer to her door. “I’m sorry. I can wait before I—”
“It was a joke, Ms. Ashton.” He scratched his forehead. “I suppose it’s been a while. I’m a little rusty.” Was he actually trying for small talk?
She approached with hesitancy, but couldn’t help chuckling at the way he appeared uneasy with a social skill as simple as teasing. “I suppose you are,” she said.
They walked side-by-side, which surprised her since every other time they had walked in remotely the same direction he’d intentionally stayed ahead of her. But he stopped before her house could disappear from sight. “Ms. Ashton.” Something seemed to be bothering him.
“Yes?” For some reason, when looking into his eyes, her mind drew upon the night before, when she’d been unpacking her box in the kitchen and standing by the only window at the back of the house. She had felt the beast again, and looked out the window in time to see him emerge from the trees. He stayed mostly hidden, but in the small clearing around her back porch, moonlight bathed his tail and front paws. No matter how many times she’d seen him, a shiver still shot down her spine, simply from his horrifying yet majestic presence. She wanted to go outside, badly. But instead she stood at the window—where they exchanged the same understanding with their eyes as the night before—reminding herself of the deal she’d made with Mr. Clayton.
Perhaps that’s why she thought of the beast now, when stuck in Mr. Clayton’s captivating brown eyes (for the first time she admitted to herself they were quite captivating) because it was he who would deprive her of all interaction with the so-called monster.
“I want to know why you didn’t change the name.” He released a breath, one that suggested he’d been holding it since the night before.
Blinding yellow shards of sunlight broke through the towering branches of a fir at horizontal angles. The crisp morning nibbled at her nose. “It…felt wrong to.”
“I hope you didn’t do it on account of me, Ms. Ashton, because—”
“It’s not about you, Mr. Clayton. It’s about Jean, whoever she was. It was her bakery. It still is. I want to keep it alive. The only title that feels right is Jean’s.”
“But you didn’t know her.” He seemed frustrated by this fact.
“I know.” It was all she could say.
“I just don’t understand.” His soft voice became lost inside his mind, and his brow tensed, as though he was trying to figure out the deepest of mysteries. “What drives a person to show such respect to someone they’ve never met, to someone they know nothing about?”
“I guess I just feel her there. I feel the whole town there, and how it used to be. Why would I want to change that?” She shrugged. “It’s not just because of you I got this opportunity. It’s because of her. Without her bakery…I’d have nothing.”
Gradually, his eyes moved from hers to the asphalt. Was this man standing here even Henry Clayton—this vulnerable, brooding man?
“The question is, Mr. Clayton, what drives a person to be so skeptical of such respect? You’ve been wronged a lot in your life, haven’t you?”
He recoiled, and began to walk.
“Is it all right I keep it Jean’s?” she asked, making him slow. “I can change it if—”
“No. It’s…it’s fine, Ms. Ashton. It’s what she would have wanted.”
They walked at a leisurely pace, and his mind still seemed far from him. She swallowed deeply before her next question, hoping she wouldn’t make his dark side emerge. “Who was she?”
He looked at her, then back at the street. “Jean was…” He hesitated. “My grandmother.” She had suspected so, since the boy in the picture she found last night looked so much like him. That silly, boyish smile, arms wrapped around a slender, well-manicured woman wearing an apron: it had to be Mr. Clayton’s father, whom Regina said he looked so much like. The boy even had the same dimples that appeared in the rare instances Mr. Clayton smiled.
She allowed him a moment to drift. The soles of their shoes ground rhythmically against the wet, gritty road—a most relaxing sound. After a moment, she said, “Mr. Clayton, if you also don’t mind me asking…who lived in the house before me?”
Then it happened: the Mr. Clayton she knew emerged. He became rigid, placing his hands in his pockets and eyeing her with that same annoyance she saw only when he looked at her. “Do you want me to have Arne type you up a historical report, Ms. Ashton?” Ah, that clipped, impatient tone.
“Yes,” she answered matter-of-factly.
His eyes shot to her in a mix of surprise and repulsion. He had no words.
“It’s a joke, Mr. Clayton. I suppose I’m a little rusty myself.” She smiled at him, regardless of the way he stared with a harsh brow.
However, he relaxed after a second. “I did, if you must know. My mother and I lived there, every summer from the time I was a baby to the time I was eighteen. And my mother lived there every summer thereafter, until she passed away ten years later.”
“But…you didn’t live at the mansion with your father?”
He laughed, just a short burst, and his smile grew famously condescending. “And intrude on my father’s lifestyle?” He shook his head. “We weren’t to interfere, ever—especially in the summer months. Summer was his time, to fly in business clients and mistresses. Imagine what a damper that would put on things if my mother walked in on him and his harem. That would just be awkward, wouldn’t it?”
She looked down sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s no matter. I’d rather have boarded-up in a tiny shack with my mother than share a mansion with that man. He put us out like animals. Worse, in fact, since his dogs stayed with him. At least he allowed her to pick paint colors at the cottage, though. Red was her favorite.” He paused, and she dared to glance up at him, his temples pulsating from the clenching of his teeth. She actually felt true and genuine compassion toward him, for the first time. He didn’t notice her observance, though, since his eyes were suddenly distant again. “You know why I hate that house, Ms. Ashton?”
She didn’t answer.
“I have nothing but fond memories there, since my mother and I made a good team. The house always smelled of bread or cookies, of course. It was all she did, bake. But not just at the bakery. She did in the cottage, too, in that tiny kitchen. Always trying new recipes, or trying to perfect the ones she already had. There I lived by my mother’s rules, not my father’s. The kitchen was her playground, and that forest mine.”
His eyes met hers, the sadness in them startling. And in that moment she forgot about her question—about the way she found it strange that his mother baked at his grandmother’s shop.
“But to me,” he added, finally answering his question, “it’ll always be the dog house. It will always represent just how my father felt about us.”
They stood before the doors of the newly renamed Jean’s. And now, the name fit with the special fondness she felt for it. “Mr. Clayton…”
“Ms. Ashton, I want to make something clear. I didn’t tell you these things to get sympathy. It was a very long time ago and I’m certainly over it. This doesn’t change anything about the professional relationship we have, nor does it mean we can start sharing juicy secrets.” She narrowed her eyes, picturing ever so briefly the way it would feel to wring his neck. “I told you so you would get your curiosity out of the way and move on. I told you so you would know I don’t want to hear anything about that cottage again, do you understand?”
“I understand very clearly, Mr. Clayton.” He turned, walking toward the diner. “Mr. Clayton?” she said, making him turn back with that same expression that said he didn’t have time for her nonsense. “Will you come inside with me for just a minute?” He began to sigh. “It won’t be long, I promise. There’s something I want to show you.”
He shifted his jaw. She took his stillness as an answer, since he would be walking away if he’d refused. She put her key in the lock and jiggled it, but it didn’t give. It had stuck yesterday, too. Mr. Clayton moved behind her now, his sigh close to her hair. A sigh of impatience, probably. He reached around her and took the keys from her hand.
“There’s a trick to it,” he said, his voice surprisingly genuine and close to her ear. It gave her chills—good or bad, she didn’t know. She’d never known anyone to switch moods so quickly. Not even a high Willem.
He slid the key in then pulled it out, just slightly. “It catches.” He inserted it all the way again. “Here.” He brought her hand to the key, and this caught her off guard, his touching her. Instantly, her chest filled with a heat comparable to the one radiating from his hand—radiating from his entire body. “You can feel it, right…” He guided her hand, pulling the key back ever so slightly, and she felt the subtle click, almost indecipherable. “There,” he finished, then did it again. “That’s when you turn it.” He did, and the door successfully unlocked.
He seemed to forget he hated her in that moment, or perhaps he’d just forgotten it was her altogether, since he actually touched her without the slightest trace of abhorrence. She seemed to forget too, because the man who spoke so closely to her sounded nothing like the cold Mr. Clayton she knew. It was almost as though he’d forgotten who he was, dropping a life-long act. She twisted her neck and looked up at him, just to make sure he hadn’t been replaced by some imposter. He stared down on her, and it was beyond annoying that someone she despised so much could also make her heart feel faint. That she could feel so magnetized to the mysterious beauty in his eyes and the ruggedness of every attractive feature. Despite the way his arrogance poisoned whatever brewed between them, he was still one of the most attractive men she’d seen, leaving her opposition to him worthless.
That was when he seemed to realize the same thing she had: that this was out of character and he was too close. He cleared his throat and backed away, ushering her inside. She walked right to the counter, wanting to get this over and done with so she could be alone and work through all the confusion with which Mr. Clayton’s presence filled her.
Antique frames, ivory in color with fancy vine trim, encased the eight-by-ten black-and-white photos. She’d found them yesterday when cleaning, in a box behind the counter, and hadn’t been able to make out a single face until she’d wiped away the thick layer of dust. There were three grayscale pictures in all: one of the bakery from the outside, a street view; one from the inside, every table full of happy customers in vintage clothing; and one of the dark-haired, elegant Jean and the little boy that was a spitting image of Mr. Clayton. Perhaps one day she may be lucky enough to see that boyish smile on Mr. Clayton himself, though she doubted it. She’d studied the pictures for unmeasured minutes the day before, absorbing the memories. This place was special. And now she knew it was special to him, too.
