Page 4 of Never Let You Go

The nuance doesn’t escape me. It’s nothing new, but it still stings. It always will.

“It’s the village she was from, you know. Where she was born.” Her gaze is on me, soft yet burning. She’s hurting for me.

“I figured,” I whisper before sliding my hands between the loud air blades of the dryer. I run then up and down several times, my skin creasing as I do, then lift them slowly out and turn to face Barbara’s scrutiny.

She takes my face between her soft hands, and her gaze bores into my eyes. “This means the world to her.” She says it as if Rita was still here to watch me make my decision, and in a sense, she is.

I hold back tears. “Why did she do that now? Why didn’t she ever let me in before?”

Barbara pulls me into a hug, her silk scarf caressing my cheek. “She wasn’t good with words. But she did love you, in her own way.”

“I only had you after Mom died, and you know that,” I say after she lets me go.

It’s her eyes that well now. “Oh hush. Now go back there and do the right thing,” she says. “Never mind the boss.”

Of course I’ll do the right thing. Rita was my only family, but I never felt like I was her family. Red Barn Baking, the business she created on her own as a single mother and grew into an empire, was her family. Barbara is right. This is Rita’s love letter to me, and I have no other choice than to act on it.

I’ve been wanting a family forever, and she’s giving me hers—a business.

So because she was my only family, and because this void I always have inside me feels like an abyss right now, I’m going to do what she said.

And also because it’s pissing off Robert. Can’t discard the little pleasures in life.

“Holy shit, Alex! That’s next level,” my roommate and best friend, Sarah, says that evening. She hands me a glass of wine and sits on the couch next to me, curling her legs under her. “That’s where Rita was born? Didn’t you tell me they kicked her out of there when she was pregnant with your mom? Do you think that’s why she wanted you to go? And why did she not ask you to go earlier?”

I have all the same questions, none of the answers. I take a long sip of wine, appreciating the fact that we’re drinking from actual glasses. A celebration of sorts.

“Did you ever visit there? As a kid?” she continues.

“I went once with my mom.” The memory is fuzzy but potent. The air was crisp and smelled of fire in chimneys. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, and it was pretty in an eerie way how it mingled with the leaves that hadn’t quite yet finished falling from the trees.

Mom wiped her cheeks a lot on the drive back, but these were happy tears. “I think she was reconnecting with her dad?” My belly clenches. “Isn’t it messed up that I can’t remember?”

“I’d say it’s normal. It must have been pretty heavy duty. Is it a happy memory?”

“Yeah, it was one of those good times. I wish I could remember more.”

“Why didn’t you ever go back?”

“I guess… it must have been shortly before the accident. Maybe she planned on going back? I’d say that was late fall, and she died right after Christmas. Yeah, it probably was the same year, you’re right.”

Sarah chuckles but pats my hand softly. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re helping me, dude. You’re like the memory whisperer.” I take a long draw on the wine.

“Alright. Enough with the past,” Sarah says, grabbing her phone. “What’s the name of this bumfuck place you’re going to?”

“Hey. That’s my small town you’re talking about,” I say, swatting her arm playfully. “It’s called Emerald Creek.”

“Awww. Can’t make this stuff up. Alright. Here we go. Emerald Creek, Vermont. Kay. Located at the edge of the Northeast Kingdom. Whaaaat?”

“What.”

“That is a cool name. The Northeast Kingdom.”

“I guess. If you’re selling tiaras. Or setting a fantasy movie.”

“Or moving in with a hot baker.”

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