Page 13 of Meet Me at the Fudge Shop

Declan peeled off his backpack and dropped it on the bench in the entryway. His leather jacket still hung on the hook there—funny Mom had never moved it. He touched it a second, and just like that, a memory rose—the scent of summer, laughter, a feeling of freedom.

Lily.

Stop. That wasn’t him—was never really him.

“Declan? Is that you?” Mom popped her head into the hallway from the kitchen, a big black serving spoon in her hand. A dark green apron draped her heavyset figure, and a true smile graced her face. “My boy! You made it.”

“Hey, Mom.” He walked down the hallway, past the wall of historic family portraits, and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. “Good to see you.”

Declan glanced back into the kitchen, where his aunts Jill and Whitney were chopping vegetables. They waved, knives in hand, before returning to their conversation. At the four-person kitchen table, Patrick’s kids—including Declan’s eighteen-year-old cousin, Olive, and her two younger brothers, Scott and Donovan—played a round of UNO.

Brandon inched past Declan, giving his mom a squeeze on the shoulders before settling into the seat beside Olive and tapping the spot in front of him. They dealt him in.

Meanwhile, in the great room, Isaac and Patrick watched the Tigers baseball game, cans of soda in hand. Patrick, at least, offered a grunt and wave to Declan before turning back to the game.

His brother glanced at him, raised a chin, as if to say hey.

He raised his back. Hey.

But his gaze landed on the frail figure in the large, fraying recliner.

Grandma.

Even from here, he could sense the weariness in her—and not just because her eyes were closed, her mouth open in a clear indication she was dozing. But also, her graying hair, once a source of such pride, was unkempt, the curls too long for her perm. She wore a sweatsuit, so different from the slacks and blouse she used to wear even when cleaning her house—Because you never know who will stop by, dear—and her cheeks were sunken, the same pale color as her lips.

She looked, in a word, defeated.

“She’s been excited to see you, but is still tired out from her stay at the hospital,” Mom said in a low voice as she tucked a lock of her graying, dark hair back up into her messy bun. “Speaking of that, I think I’ve got a solution to her housing dilemma.”

He blinked at her. “Already? We just talked yesterday.”

“And I was just sitting around a hospital all day considering solutions. Nearly drove me batty.”

Maybe Mom didn’t need him at all. Which would be great, actually. “Do you want to talk now or wait until after dinner?”

Mom peeked inside the oven. “The lasagna still has about fifteen minutes. Let’s go in the front room and chat. Ladies, can you watch the pasta on the stove for me?”

“Of course.” Aunt Jill’s bright red hair stood out in the muted colors of the room as she sliced another tomato. She winked at Declan. “You two just go solve the world’s problems.”

“One of us has to,” Mom muttered as she ushered Declan back down the hallway and into the small sitting room at the front of the house.

Despite the seventy-degree weather outside, the fireplace flickered, a blaze fighting for life. Two bookshelves flanked the mantel, holding an assortment of tomes and crystal figurines that held some sort of special meaning for his mom. As a kid, he’d never been allowed to sit in this room—the “fancy room”—and it felt all kinds of wrong as he sank into the white couch with a white crocheted blanket folded along the back. “So what’s the idea?”

Mom sat, swinging her legs to the side so she faced him, hands folded in her lap. “As you know, I’m on the town council, and our plan to bring new businesses to town has been threefold: rebuild the Grand Hotel by the end of next year so our seasonal workers have housing and tourists have more options for where to stay. Number two, promise low rent on Main Street storefront leases for the first two years, and three, offer town-owned homes in this very neighborhood to new business owners for one dollar.”

“Yes, it’s quite the plan.”

Behind Mom, Dad appeared in the doorway. He leaned against the frame, hands in his pockets. Bald, with pale blue eyes, he glanced at Declan, no smile. Declan didn’t expect one.

“So, while I was pacing in the hospital waiting room, I had the thought—what if we could convince the county to release Edna’s house to the town of Jonathon Island?”

“Why would they do that?”

Mom waved her hand. “It means nothing to them. I know for a fact—my old friend Sandy works at the bank and told me so herself—that they’re overrun with foreclosed homes. Right now, they can barely give homes away here, let alone resell them. The house is more trouble than it’s worth. Of course, they can’t just give it back to Grandma, because they don’t get a tax break doing that, but this way, they will.”

Declan did the math, came out at net zero. “But that doesn’t benefit us at all. So when the town owns the property—it’s still out of Kelley hands.”

“It does if the town ties Edna’s home to the revitalization program. If the council attaches it to a storefront.”

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