“Didn’t think we had it in us, did you?” said Kenneth, and his eyes were kind. “It’s okay. You’ve been gone a while. I’ll come find you later, after the thing tonight. We’ll catch up then.”
“That would be great,” Mae said, meaning it. “For now—coffee? Please, Patrick? I’m following you right now. I’ll make up for lost time.” He smirked, but it was a friendly smirk, and Mae felt like she was getting off easier than she deserved. “And maybe a couple of those muffins? We’ll take some to the kids. They’re just at the playground.”
Patrick returned to his station behind the espresso machine while Kenneth loaded a bag with chocolate chip mini-muffins. As he handed Mae her mocha, Patrick looked over at Barbara, who was heading for the door, leaving her empty cup on the table. “Want me to make some pies to send over tonight?”
Mae jolted to a stop. This had been going so well—what was Patrick doing? Horrified, Mae waited for her mother’s explosive response to the suggestion that she would need outside pies, but Barbara instead looked thoughtful. “You get started this morning,” she said. “More blueberry, I think. And strawberry rhubarb. I’ll check in on you later.”
Patrick seemed unperturbed by this opaque response. “Sounds good,” he said.
Mae, carrying her coffee and the muffins, followed her mother out onto the sidewalk. The fat dog stood up, too, nudging at Barbara’s hand with her square black-and-white head.
“He’s going to make you pies?” Honestly, if things got any weirder, she was going to have whiplash from all the mental double takes. She ran a few steps to catch up with Barbara, being careful not to spill her coffee.
Barbara rubbed the dog’s head. “A little after they moved up here, when they were redoing the place, Patrick asked if I could teach him to bake pies like mine, so I did. He’s very good at it now.”
Mae tried to imagine Barbara and Patrick, side by side, matching rolling pins in their hands. Mae and Amanda were customers of their mother’s pies, just as dependent on her whims as anyone else. Mae dreamed about her mother’s chocolate cream, Amanda loved apple, they would both take a slice of lemon meringue, but Mae hardly dared to request a flavor, let alone a baking lesson. Pies were Barbara’s department, and she accepted no help.
Well, damn. Maybe Patrick would teach her. If nothing else, it would make a hell of an Instagram post. Which reminded her—she stopped to point her camera phone down into the white bakery bag. The muffins inside glowed, lit by the bright sunlight. Breakfast in my hometown, she typed with a practiced thumb, #yum. She used her keyboard shortcut to add one of her strings of set Food Wars hashtags: #FoodWars #hometowngirl #midwesteats #foodtrip #bestfriedchicken #worththecalories.
“Good, then,” she said, ready to move on, her mind halfway to Mimi’s already. What if they started outside? Replant the planters, power wash the patio, her mother couldn’t mind any of that, and then Mae would carefully, delicately approach the counter and the rest. “We’ll have even more pies tonight. Sounds like we’re going to need them.” She reshared Patrick’s clever Facebook post of the pie special, text over what must have been an image of pies on the Inn’s counter, then took a muffin for herself. All this talk of pie was making her hungry.
“We’ll see.” Her mother stopped, still out of sight of the park, and sat down heavily on the bench outside the craft store, which had not yet opened for the day. The dog sat too, then flopped down as though her bulk was just too much to hold up. Barbara looked at Mae, her friendly expression replaced by one of cautious interest.
“Now, before we go any further, tell me exactly what you have planned, because I know there’s something.” Unexpectedly, Mae heard an echo of Jay in her mother’s words, with the same resignation, and it annoyed her. She made good plans. People just needed to give them a chance instead of getting so caught up in doing things their way.
“It’s only minor details,” she protested. “We can just get started. And I know you want to see the kids.” Her mother was not a small-children person, but still.
“Mmm-hmm,” said Barbara. “I saw them at Christmas, in New York, where they were far more interested in presents and their babysitter than me. Today they will be more excited by the