Page 2 of Rise
And then she turned the key. The lock let out a soft click and her hand lingered on the knob, the cold metal warming beneath her palm. She pressed her lips together and then stepped over the threshold, moving inside.
The scent clinging to the air inside hit her first.
The walls held the smell of wood and plaster and time. The kind of scent that lingered long after the work was done. Sun-warmed floorboards, a single, brown-papered window, and the faintest ghost of lavender still hovered in the bones of the building, like her grandmother had pressed it into the very walls.
The door clicked shut behind her with a soft finality.
For a moment, Hazel stood in the quiet and let her eyes adjust. The brown paper on the front window muted the morning light, letting it spill in soft and golden, diffused like fog over water. Dust motes floated through the air in slow spirals, unbothered by her presence.
The space that opened up around her held no hint of what had come before. Gone were the rusted metal shelves and tackle boxes decorated with association stickers and filled with neon-feathered baits. Instead it was bright, open, and clean. But not sterile. It breathed.
Dove gray walls, soft sage accents on the trim, worn white oak stretching out beneath her feet— polished, but creaky. Familiar in that old-house way, like it remembered footsteps that had long since gone quiet.
Her sneakers echoed against the wood as she crossed to the center of the room. The front counter curved to her right— new, clearly custom-built, with a white-trimmed pastry case that was still empty and waiting. Waiting forher.The glass gleamed despite the dust, pristine and untouched.
She could already picture it full. Flaky galettes in the summer, cinnamon knots in the winter, those plum and almond tarts hergrandmother used to make when the fruit truck came up from Augusta in August.
Behind the counter, the kitchen opened up through a curved archway. Hazel could see the soft sage cabinetry from here, the butcher block counters, the matte black accents that grounded everything. It was all there, all ready. Like someone had imagined exactly what she would need and stopped just short of telling her:this is yours.
Her throat tightened and she looked away, unable to fight the sudden and overwhelming rush of emotion that swelled low in her chest.
But itwasn’thers yet, not really, not until she decided. Not unless she wanted to stay. Not unless she was willing to give up everything that awaited her, back in Boston.
Along the opposite wall of the shelves, there was a low antique console table, and that was where her breath caught.
The clock.
It was old, wood polished smooth with time, the brass hands paused between minutes. She remembered that chime. Every hour on the hour, soft and low and as warm as a lullaby. Her grandmother’s bedroom had smelled like cedar and fabric softener and this clock’s gentle toll.
And next to it, leaning against the wall, were photos. Black and white, framed and faded, their faces just slightly turned, just blurred enough to be almost anonymous. But Hazel knew them. Knew the curl of her own hair at eight, the way her mother’s hands had always looked mid-motion, caught in a laugh or a stir. Her grandmother, centered in them all, anchoring the frame like she had always anchored the house.
And then, the tin.
Hazel stepped forward and reached for it before she meant to. It was square and dented at one corner, the ivory enamel painted with tiny violets, edges chipped from decades of use. Her fingers brushed the lid, cool and familiar, and when she opened it, there they were. Recipe cards, dozens of them. Her grandmother’s handwriting again, annotated in the margins with notes liketoo dry last time, add milkorHazel liked this one best.
That same ache pressed against her chest so fast, so sharp, that she had to lift a palm to her sternum, trying to soothe the pain from the outside. The letter crinkled softly in her grasp.
She closed the box and set it down with both hands.
And when she turned back toward the rest of the bakery— the built-in bench beneath the window, still bare; the empty bookshelf next to it, waiting to be filled; the menu board untouched, slate gray and silent— Hazel felt it all rise in her at once.
This wasn’t just a building, it was an offering. A quiet, unspoken promise.
Hazel lingered there for another moment, fingers still curled loosely around the edge of the letter, the paper growing damp from the warmth of her palm. But the pressure was rising again at the back of her throat, too fast this time. Grief and regret and a thousand unsaid things pressing in at the edges of her ribcage like storm surge.
She turned on instinct, feet carrying her to the front door before her mind could argue. When the outside air met her skin again, she breathed it in too sharply— cool wind edged with memory, and a sting that settled into the hollows of her cheeks.
She crossed the threshold and sank down onto the stoop, knees bending until she was folded forward, her elbows on her thighs and her forehead resting against the heel of her hand. She let her breath tremble out of her, slow and uneven. Her body pressed in on itself, like she could hide in her own shadow, disappear into the shape of someone smaller.
Someone who hadn’t left. Someone who visited more often. Someone who’d answered the phone sooner.
There was too much of her grandmother in there. Too much intention. Too much love. Hazel didn’t know if she was worthy of any of it.
The scent of lavender was still in her hair, somehow. And still in her lungs, a cruel reminder threaded in every breath.
The sound of footsteps didn’t register at first. They came light and certain up the sidewalk, more rhythm than interruption, and then they paused. And stayed paused. Just long enough to suggest that she wasn’talone anymore— that someone had stumbled upon her here, like this, and had chosen to stay. To wait.
Hazel didn’t lift her head. She didn’t have it in her. It was taking everything she had just to keep the tears at bay, to fight against the burning that prickled behind her eyes and at the back of her throat.
