was painted a deep shade of moss green with amber trim.
I took a moment to blow my nose and mop up my eyes, but in the end there wasn’t much I could do to make it less obvious I’d been crying. Hopefully, Mr. Frankel’s eyes weren’t as sharp as Lanette’s.
At the front door, I knocked three times. Less than a minute later, Mr. Frankel pulled it open. His face lit up. “Blair!” he exclaimed. “I thought you’d left town!”
“I’m on my way out,” I told him, “but I remembered I’d promised you a visit.”
“Have you come for tea?”
“I have,” I said, holding up my empty hands. “But I’m afraid I’m sans apple pie.”
“Oh, that’s all right. My housekeeper, Mrs. Moon, made some lemon cookies this morning. They’re not as good as anything you bake,” he added in a stage whisper, “but they’re better than nothing.”
I smiled. “That sounds lovely. Should I wait out here or help you with the tea?”
“I’ll get the tea and cookies. You have a seat out here on the porch.” He started to go back in the house and then smiled at me again. “I’m so glad you came by. I was about to go down to the store just to have someone to talk to.”
“I’m glad too, Mr. Frankel. I could use a friend today as well.”
He nodded like he understood. “Some days are just like that. I’ll be right back.”
Two hours later, I was still sitting out on the porch with him, finishing a third glass of iced tea, laughing at his terrible old man jokes and listening with rapt attention to all his stories about growing up in Bellamy Creek. I especially loved hearing about how he’d fallen in love with brown-eyed Betty Brinkerhoff the day he first saw her in the second grade, but he hadn’t worked up the nerve to talk to her until high school.
“Her family owned the diner, and I’d go there every day after school for a chocolate soda just to see her behind the counter,” he reminisced. “I didn’t even like chocolate soda.”
I laughed. “True love.”
“I finally invited her to go to a movie with me, and her answer was, ‘Well, it’s about time, Charlie Frankel.’ I think I asked her to marry me on our first date,” he said, chuckling fondly. “And she said she would.”
“That’s sweet,” I said. “Sometimes you meet someone, and you just know.”
He nodded. “Exactly right. And if you know, what’s the use of wasting a whole lot of time hemming and hawing about it? Everyone said we were too young to get married—we were only eighteen—but I’m telling you, we just knew. And we had seventy years together. Isn’t that incredible?”
My throat tightened. “Yes. It is.”
He sighed. “I miss her every single day. But I feel lucky I had her as long as I did.”
“I’ve heard wonderful things about her baking,” I said. “That apple pie must have been something else.”
“It was. It was.”
“Do you know that’s what brought me to Bellamy Creek? I saw the sign on the highway advertising the best apple pie in the Midwest since 1957, so I got off the road and came looking for it.”
“Isn’t that something?” Mr. Frankel looked pleased.
“Of course, I was sad to learn the pie doesn’t exist anymore.”
He shook his head. “No one can replicate it, although plenty have tried. But Betty had a secret recipe she never shared with anyone. It won a national contest. That’s how she got such a big reputation.”
“Wow. I’m impressed.”
“I always told her she should open up her own bakery, but she never wanted to. She said she was content baking pies and things in small batches for the diner just like her mother had, and raising her family. She volunteered a lot too. She loved this town. And people loved her.”
“I can tell.”
“She was special,” he said, getting misty-eyed. “And I want people to remember her. If just anyone could bake that pie, they’d forget her.”
I reached out and put my hand on his arm. “I don’t think this town will forget her. I never even met her, but I can picture her behind the counter just like you described, with her big brown eyes and curly dark hair, wearing a white apron and waiting every day for you to come in for a chocolate soda you hated.”
The smile was back on his face. “She knew I hated it too. Later she confessed she and her sister Louise would laugh about how funny my