Page 5 of Rise
On instinct, she reached up and slid the window open a few inches, needing to feel the fresh air against her skin. It moved easily beneath her hand, smoother than it ever had before. Her breath caught and she blinked, staring at the window pane as if it could somehow explain itself.
That window had always stuck on the left side. She must’ve complained about it a dozen times growing up, jiggling the frame, wedging her palm into it with a grunt of effort. She used to tell her grandmother to get someone in to fix it, but she would just wave her off. “It’s fine, it works well enough,“ she’d say. But now, it glided open like new. Someone had fixed it, finally, after all these years.
Hazel stared at it for a moment longer, something soft and uncertain blooming in her chest. Her grandmother had started the work. Quietly, in small, seemingly unremarkable ways. She hadn’t just left the house for Hazel— she’d begun readying it, smoothing the edges, making it easier for her to stay.
And then, something inside of her shifted. Like a puzzle piece that had found it’s perfect partner, pressed into place with careful fingertips.
It wasn’t the kind of epiphany that unsettled the very ground that stood beneath her, instead, it was a quiet realization that she was already doing it. That coming back— staying through the funeral, caring for the plants, watering the house back to life— was the beginning. Her grandmother hadn’t left her a burden, she’d left an offering.
Maybe this was how she made it right.
By staying. By trying. By breathing new life into what had been so carefully prepared for her.
Hazel let out a long breath, soft and shaky. She pressed a hand to her chest, right where the ache had rooted itself since the phone call had come through, back in Boston. It didn’t vanish, but it shifted, anduncoiled just a bit. Became, if only for a moment, something she could carry.
Hazel closed her eyes and breathed it in.
One single, old window had opened, and with it, another had closed— quietly, decisively, as if the air itself had shifted its allegiance. For just a moment, the faint outline of her Boston life shimmered in her mind, all sharp angles and fluorescent light, the clatter of kitchenware and the constant press of time. But she blinked, and the image dissolved like steam against glass.
What was there, really, still waiting for her?
A job that drained more than it gave, where praise came in muttered grunts and her body ached from the endless hours spent bent over prep tables. A box of an apartment that swallowed nearly every cent she earned and gave little in return, less than eight hundred square feet of peeling baseboards, flickering bulbs, and a silence that never felt restful. And the people? She had cared for them, in her own quiet way, had shopped for birthdays and answered late-night phone calls and showed up for split-shift drinks in dimly lit bars. But not one of them had called when it mattered. Not one had reached out after the funeral or asked what she needed, or even how she was. Not one had said,What can I do for you?
Nobody there had ever stayed, not when it counted. So why should she?
There was no real choice to be made. She was here and that life was there, already fading in her rearview mirror.
And so she continued on.
The tin of loose-leaf chamomile sat tucked behind the box teas, its label faded and curling at the corners. The lid stuck, then gave way with a soft metallic pop. The scent rose like memory: sweet, floral, calming. She reached for the tea strainer, the warmth of the ritual anchoring her to the quiet rhythm of being home. When the water boiled, she poured it slowly, letting the tea steep.
She carried the mug into the living room, setting it down on the coffee table for a moment while she folded herself into the corner of the couch. She reached for the quilt that was always settled over theback of the couch and settled it over her legs, smoothing it across her knees. She inhaled, almost instinctively.
Lavender. A hint of cedar.
The scent of her grandmother clung to the fabric, wrapping itself around her like a benediction.
Hazel’s throat tightened again. But this time, it didn’t ache the same way.
She reached for her laptop, positioned in the center of the coffee table, and flipped it open. The glow of the screen spilled across her face. She hesitated— just long enough to feel the pull of doubt in her chest— and then typed in her password.
The browser opened to a blank search bar.
If she was really going to do this, if she was truly going to close the shutters on her life in Boston and stay here, even just for a while, she needed to do itright.
Hazel reached out and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her mug, letting the steam settle over her face as she pulled it close. When she took the very first sip, the warmth bloomed in her chest like the promise of something not yet written.
And for the first time in a long time, she let herself wonder: what if this wasn’t theendof something? What if it was thebeginning?
2
The suitcase landed on the double bed with a dull thump, its wheels catching against the braided rug that had been there as long as Hazel could remember. She had to give it a rough tug to pull it free, a groan slipping from deep in her chest, more aggressive than she’d intended. She let the suitcase tip backward on the bed, rattling the old metal frame, then stood still for a moment in the center of the room.
She wasn’t sure if it was her or the room. One way or another, the space around her felt smaller. The pale-yellow walls seemed closer to the bed than they used to be. Her antique desk still sat beneath the window, pressed slightly to one side, its surface neat but stained with ink and dimpled from years of handwritten notes. The closet door hung a little bit open, revealing half a dozen wooden hangers and an umbrella with a curved handle.
She hadn’t brought much. Just the suitcase, a plastic tote filled with her most important baking supplies, and the letter.
She opened the suitcase and began to unpack without really thinking. A handful of neatly folded clothes. A worn copy ofThe Art of Simple Baking. Her favourite apron, rolled tight and tied with the ends. A cracked tin of sea-salt lip balm. None of it looked right, here in this room, which still belonged to a version of her that kept jars of sea glass on the windowsill and once taped glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling in the shape of constellations.
