Page 7 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“I’d prefer a rack of lamb myself—there’s enough sugar around here,” Bernie says. I smile at him and tell him I’ll see what I can do. I say my goodbyes, wave to Heather, and make my usual rounds. Even though I don’t need to, I like to make my way down each hall and check on the folks who like to keep to their rooms. I hear Elvis’s “Blue Christmas” play from Lucinda’s cracked door, and strings of colored lights flicker from Wally’s miniature tree. There’s a creepy Santa statue that has a motion detector so he waves and shouts Merry Christmas at you when you pass by, but the mechanism stopped working and now it sounds like he’s choking on something instead. I finally unplug him and watch the light inside of him dim and then die, and I bring him outside with me to toss him in the dumpster. His time is up.

When the frigid air hits me, I decide to just leave him in a snowbank for now and rush to my car to get the heat going, but as I approach the car, I see something stuck from under my windshield wiper. For a moment I think it’s a take-out menu, but who would be out here in this weather passing out menus? When I get closer, I see it’s a red envelope. My hands begin to shake involuntarily.

The wind howls and snow whips at my face, so I grab the envelope and jump into my car, locking the doors. I turn on the ignition and just look around a moment, giving the back seat a paranoid glance even though the car was locked and no one could be there. I look up and down the snow-covered two-lane road on either side of the building. Nobody.

I look at the envelope in my hands and can’t imagine what it could be except maybe a Christmas card from, I don’t know, Chris, the janitor who left earlier. Something,anythingthat would just make perfect sense and have me laughing at my paranoid self in a minute, but my gut is telling me something very different.

I open the envelope with my heart in my throat and read the words scrawled on the small square of thick paper tucked inside.

“I told you what would happen if you went public. I won’t kill you, I’ll make everyone around you pay, remember?”

5

MACK

The snow never seems to stop. There are flurries this morning as I pull on my parka and push my feet into snow boots. I take a deep breath before I step out into the dark, frigid 5:00 a.m. air. My feet crunch and squeak over the packed snow on the sidewalk I haven’t had the energy to shovel because who can keep up? I sit shivering in the driver’s seat of my car, blowing on my hands, waiting for it to warm up and then drive the short ditance to open the Firefly.

When I get to the cafe, I plug in all the strings of fairy lights hung over the window frames and click on the flameless candles on each table. Even though it’s early January and Christmas is over, I keep the cozy feel people have come to expect from the place year-round—the wood tables and chairs and roaring gas fireplace in the corner next to stacks of hardcover classics. That was Leo’s idea—make the place an experience—fuzzy blankets on the leather couch near the fireplace, throw pillows, dark, moody colors. If an Irish castle and a New York bookstore and a ski chalet all had a baby it would be this place, he’d say. It never made much sense and never mind asking him how all three of them would achieve procreation together, but nonetheless, it is the coziest place probably in the tristate area, and that’s a comfort to me now.

I preheat the ovens and turn on some Billie Holiday that pipes softly through the speakers. Before I take off my coat, I make the first pot of dark roast, pour myself a generous mug, and sit in front of the fire to thoroughly warm up before getting to work.

I stare at the flames and think about Leo the way I do most mornings. The tears don’t come anymore, though. Now that it’s been over a year and I learned what I have come to learn about him, the tears have just stopped, which is worse, I think. At least crying was a short-lived catharsis, and now…there’s a stir of something inside that builds with nowhere to escape. I can’t tell if it’s anger or unthinkable loss, or the deep, unsettling torment of not knowing what the hell happened.

He left us broke and I haven’t even managed to be able to really, fully admit it to myself, let alone tell anyone. I haven’t even told Shelby, God help me. Twenty years ago, fresh out of college, we opened our first pizza place. I was a baker. He majored in business and finance, so it was kismet. We opened a few more locations, and then sold them five years later for a hefty payday. A comfortable life. Then, he opened a few other businesses and did some investments, but this cafe was my baby, so I ran it. I was happy to settle into one place and we were stable enough for him to dabble in other businesses because we kept a solid nest egg and that was the deal—the promise. We were happy, we were looked up to.

I didn’t know right away. Mercifully, I got to go through the initial stages of shock and police and interviews completely ignorant of his theft and deceit.But then a few weeks in, auto payments on household stuff were missed, and I started trying to delve into the finances myself until we could find him. Because of course we will find him. What a shock I was in for. I found credit card statements—secret cards that he went into debt on to pay bills and payroll on the two pizza shops he bought. Everyone knows he lost those businesses a couple of years ago, but that was post-COVID—that was the same hardship every restaurant dealt with. At least that’s what everyone thinks. Thank God that’s what they think, because it seems nobody knows about his gambling addiction and that he lost all of our savings, retirement, and multiple businesses and hid it from everyone.

Sometimes I wonder if he ran because it was only a matter of time before I found out we had nothing left. I’ve spent months and months wondering and sobbing into pillows and hating him, then forgiving him and begging God for him to come back and that we would work through anything—that he had an addiction and we can get help and make it right…and then the next day I think of Rowan and what he’s done to her future, and I hate him again, and it’s all so exhausting I can barely breathe.

I close my eyes, sip my coffee, and take a nice long sigh before walking the creaky wood floor to the back kitchen to start gathering ingredients for cranberry scones and apple turnovers. I top off my coffee and pop a very small Lorazepam under my tongue to get my nerves through another day. I touch my fingertips to my favorite blue bowls—porcelain delftware, and feel a sort of indescribable ache. Maybe it’s gratitude that it’s still mine—that the house and cafe were paid off, and so far I can’t dig up any second mortgages or incurred debt I don’t know about. But I fear every day that some other shock like that could surface. The length he went to steal and hide it all is astounding. He cooked the books like the finance expert he was and took out payday loans.For Christ’s sake, he actually borrowed from loan sharks, which I thought was something that only happened in B movies. Or maybe the aching feeling is simple hatred for a man who lied to me for years and stole everything I ever worked for out from underneath me.

I hear the bell above the front door jingle and Mort and Herb from the Oleander’s shuffle in, shivering beneath their giant overcoats. They sit on the burgundy leather couch in front of the fire, and Mort picks up the paper.

“Hiya, Mack,” Herb says, pulling off a scarf and shaking snowflakes out of it into the floor.

“Morning.” I smile. They don’t need to order. A black coffee, and a chai tea with milk. A cheese Danish for Herb, and a plain bagel for Mort because he could do without the diabetes, thank you very much.

“Twenty-two below zero this morning, oofta,” Herb says as I place their usual on the coffee table in front of them.

“You’re wearing flip-flops,” I say, staring at Herb’s feet.

“Well, but I got the socks on with ’em,” he says, biting into his Danish.

“You sure do,” I say, and pat his arm before making my way back to the coffee bar. A few very cold patrons rifle through the door and take a window-front two-top. I used to run this place like an owner, and now I’m waiting tables and making lattes with hearts on top, and earning tips every day until I have to bring in a few sparse staff for lunch rush. But I try not to think about that now. I don’t need to put on a happy face; but I need to arrange my features in an acceptable way as to not scare off the customers. Small towns are funny. I have the undying support of many, but still a lot of folks who feel uncomfortable and don’t know what to say to me because I am a reminder of tragedy. The fact that it’s all still out there unresolved makes people uneasy. And there are probably a few who think I killed him and am bound for an episode ofSnapped,but today I am trying to just get through today.

On my way to bring a teapot to the window table, I see Shelby barrel in the front door with the twins. She tells them to pick something from the pastry case and continues to peer out the front window, sporting pajamas under her parka with her hair standing in a wild side ponytail. It’s her usual fashion statement these days, so that part’s not shocking, but she looks frazzled.

I know coming here at all has been a slow process for her. She waited six months to step foot back inside these doors, but in true Shelby style, she wasn’t going to let some psychopath take her away from her best friend’s businessandthe place the girls practically grew up in. He didn’t get to have that, take that away from her, so she’s done a better job than I would have of coming back and compartmentalizing the trauma.

Still, it can’t be easy, even after all the time that has passed.

“What are you looking at?” I poke her on my way back to top off Herb’s and Mort’s drinks.

“Billy Curran.”

“Everyone’s always looking at Billy Curran—he has a nice peach,” Mort says, and we all look to Mort. “That’s what Millie tells me anyway.”

“He’s in the construction business, why would he have any peaches?” Herb asks.

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