Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,20
over the shop to a management company. I know she was closed for a time afterward, until she got through therapy and could use her sewing machines again, but she made it out to be a pretty mild thing, overall. I thought . . .” Honey trailed off, her thoughts scattering in a dozen different directions, trying to replay conversations she’d had with Bea in the months after her stroke.
“I’m really sorry. When the management company took over the shop after she moved into senior care over on the mainland, we just assumed it was being handled as the family wanted it to be handled. I mean . . . I didn’t know. None of us did.”
Honey held up her hands, as much to shield herself from news she really didn’t want to hear, as to slow down the volume of it. “I—wait, wait. She . . . when did she move to the care facility?”
Lani’s mouth dropped open, then closed again. “Oh, I . . .” She trailed off, clearly uncomfortable, not prepared to be the one to tell a loved one difficult news about a family member. “It’s probably not—maybe you should talk about all of this with her lawyer.”
“I tried. He’s away at a family wedding, somewhere in the Caribbean, and won’t be back for another week. The other partner didn’t really know Bea or anything about her estate. He looked into it for me and just told me it all appeared to be in good order.” Honey didn’t mention the paperwork snafu because she wasn’t sure there had been one. Clearly, there was a whole pile of other information that needed to be waded through first. How could Bea not have told her any of this? And how could Honey not have known it, sensed it, anyway?
One of the oddities of the curse was that the closer she was to someone, the more deeply she cared about them, the more it clouded her ability to sense, feel, or know anything. She thought that was a blessing, knowing the sheer terror she’d have felt every time one of her parents hugged or kissed her. Bea claimed Honey’s powers were stunted with her loved ones because her subconscious had blocked it out, knowing she couldn’t handle those kinds of truths.
Bea, on the other hand, always knew everything. And she’d so willingly immersed herself in her special abilities that she didn’t always need to touch someone to know things. In fact, her aunt had always called Honey just when she’d needed to hear from her most. Bea had known about Honey’s father passing even before Honey had, and was the one calling to console Honey when her mother—Bea’s sister—had passed, two years later.
Honey, on the other hand, had buried herself as deeply away from the curse as she possibly could. And what had that cost her? She wasn’t even thinking about her inheritance, but about what her aunt had apparently been through in her final days. Honey had had no idea.
“How”—she paused to clear the ache from her throat—“long was she in senior care?” She immediately lifted her hand to stall Lani’s reply. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t put you in this position, but I just . . . I don’t have anyone else to ask. All I knew was that she’d been recovering very well after her stroke, and was happy to be back ‘in the swing’ as she put it.”
Honey shook her head, then dipped her chin to frown the threatening tears into submission. Oh, Bea, why didn’t you tell me?
Honey thought she knew why. Bea knew Honey would have caught the first plane out. And Bea also would have known that for Honey, being on a plane with a few hundred people in close proximity would have been terrifying. No way could she have withstood that kind of sudden onslaught. Driving cross country, seeing the countryside— and the people in it—from the safe little pod of her car had been difficult enough.
Bea should have told her anyway. “She should have given me more credit. I’d have found a way.”
Lani pushed a Kleenex box closer to the edge of the desk. Honey pulled several free . . . then just crumpled them in her palms, trying to get herself under control.
“I’m so sorry,” Lani said.
“I am, too. I—we talked all the time. She sounded shaky, a little slurred, but she told me that was just a side effect from the stroke that would take longer to clear up.