She giggled. “Right, like you weren’t planning on it, anyway.”
“Actually, I was going to get one of the orange cranberry muffins but the pancakes sound way too good now.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had breakfast out. Most times when I stopped at Maggie’s, it was for a burger or a wrap. Not breakfast, and certainly not sticky pancakes.
The books will be fine, I assured myself, looking at my clean hands as I contemplated my earlier decision.
I’d never messed up a single page inside any of my books and I wasn’t about to start now.
“Why not get both?” Cassidy asked, returning to what I’d said before. “Eat the short stack here and take the muffin for later.”
I sat back when the hostess dropped off our coffee. “I like the way you think.”
Once we placed our order, we fell into easy conversation with one another. Most of it had to do with the store, when my father passed, and why I was the only one working there. In all honesty, it wasn’t any of her business, but just as she needed someone to talk to, I was much of the same. So I talked, possibly more than I had in months, especially to my sister.
“The bills pile up,” I said, adding some cream and sugar to my coffee. “But it isn’t something I can walk away from.”
“That’s how I felt about my mother’s house,” she said, adding milk to her own drink, “but just walking in that front door was too much. I was essentially covering the bills so it could sit there as someone else’s over-sized lawn ornament.
Once I realized how much of a waste it was…” She shrugged.
“I threw a ton of stuff into storage and am just starting to go through it now.”
“How long has it been?” I asked, hoping I didn’t overstep.
“My mother passed away in the summer.”
“But weren’t you—”
“On tour?” She forced a smile, then looked into her own coffee. “Yes. We had to cancel a few shows due to my getting sick, but even when we were here to handle her things…”
“It was still work,” I finished for her.
“My manager insisted on keeping to my old routine. He said it was healthy, but in the short time I was home, I didn’t get to grieve. I was a machine, going through the motions and feeling nothing at all.”
“I think that happens to a lot of us,” I said, looking back on my own loss. “I didn’t cry at my Dad’s funeral. I know people expect you to, but to be honest, I was still expecting him to pop up in the shop somewhere. It’s childish, but I just didn’t feel like he was gone.”
“When did it hit you? The loss?” she asked, looking right at me while balancing her spoon between her hand and the edge of her cup.
“Not until months later. I was trying to unpack a box that refused to open. I got frustrated and, well, that’s when everything hit.”
“So then this is normal,” she said, her voice being one I couldn’t read. “I keep thinking if I just get rid of one more box, maybe it’ll help, but it seems like the more I throw out, the more stuff piles up.”
“It’s a lifetime of things you’re trying to replace. The best way to handle it is one brick at a time.”
“And how’s that wall coming along for you?”
I considered her question along with the collection of items I had tucked away in my apartment. “Very slowly.” Slower than I’d like. Granted, with me running the shop, it wasn’t like I’d ever get rid of it all. Anything not store-related, however, had gone to Goodwill or a local thrift store, one piece at a time.
“I didn’t realize he died,” she said, oblivious to my thoughts. “Your dad. I try to pay attention to the paper when I can, but—”
“We didn’t publish anything,” I said, staring into my coffee.
My voice was hoarse and felt terribly small in such a large space. “Only the immediate family knew, and because I’d already started to work the front of the store, the locals didn’t notice.”
“I would’ve,” she said, offering me a small smile from across the table. “It might not have belonged to me, but that shop gave me a lot of wonderful memories. My mom and I always came there whenever she had off from work, which was rare. She worked two shifts just so we could get by.
I told her I could skip school and get a job to help her out but she wouldn’t hear any of it. Her long hours and absence at home were what put me through college. But on the weekends? I got to spend as much time with her as I liked, which included a trip to your dad’s shop. Your shop,” she corrected herself.
“It’s still his,” I said. “Even if he isn’t the one paying the bills, I’ll always think of it as my dad’s store a