Page 3 of Knot Your Sugar Rush
“You okay, sweetheart?” she asks gently.
I nod, then shake my head. “It’s just... a lot.”
Gram reaches over and pats my hand. “Grief doesn’t stay in boxes. Even ones in the attic.”
I press my lips together, fighting the sting behind my eyes. “I didn’t think it would hit this hard. I mean, it’s been five years.”
“It’s not about time. It’s about space. And this place holds a lot of Zae.”
Yeah. Too much. Her laughter is still in the walls. Her presence still lingers in every corner—painted on the doorframes in dandelion yellow, scribbled in notes tucked inside cookbooks, half-finished embroidery loops, and a cracked record of our favorite summer song still tucked behind the radio.
And now there’s a fresh layer of ache. Not just from missing Zae. But from the life I thought I had built. The one that crumbled in an office doorway, right before my eyes.
I stare down at my tea and say, “I thought I was just coming back to help you for a few weeks. Clear out the attic, eat some scones, then keep wandering.”
“About that,” Gram says, setting her mug down with a gentle clink. “I’ve been thinking.”
Here it comes.
“You’re the only grandchild I’ve got. And you’ve been through hell these past few years. I want to give you something—your inheritance. Early.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
She smiles, soft and a little mischievous. “I want to see what you’ll do with it. I think maybe it’s time you had something of your own.”
She slides forward and old fashion cheque, signed carefully by her hand. I blink, the words slow to register. “Gram, that’s... a lot of money.”
“It’s just money. You’re the treasure.”
The tears that threatened earlier slip loose. She always knows exactly how to knock the air out of me—kindly, gently, like she's brushing dust from a shelf.
“But,” she says, handing me a napkin like she always does when I cry, “I have one request. Stay in Starling Grove for a few months. Help me finish clearing out the house. After that, if you want to go, I won’t stop you.”
I nod slowly. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to decide anything today. Sleep on it. Let the idea breathe.”
We finish our tea and delicious scones in silence. The kind that only exists between people who love each other completely.
Later, after Gram’s gone off to call one of her bridge friends, I wander back upstairs. The attic is quiet again, the shadows longer, more golden.
I sit down on the cedar chest and pick up the photo album Zae labeled. It opens to a picture of us at fifteen, in hideous taffeta dresses, grinning like fools. She had bubble-gum pink braces, and I had a pimple the size of a marble on my forehead, poorly disguised by pressed powder and wishful thinking.
I run a finger over our faces, tracing the memory of freckles and mischief.
“We were going to open a candy shop,” I whisper. “Remember that?”
Zae had the recipes—caramel brittle with sea salt, peppermint fudge, sugar cookies decorated like tiny spring blossoms. I had the stubbornness, the business spreadsheets, the color-coded binders.
And maybe... maybe I still do.
The thought roots in me quietly, curling into something warm. Not quite hope. But maybe something like it.
I close the album, hold it to my chest, and for the first time in years, I let the spark of an idea take root.
Maybe it’s time to come home for real.
Maybe it’s time to build something sweet.
