Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“We need to end this. There’s nothing that forgiveness can’t heal.”
I’m all about not letting the demons of bitterness take over your life and wallowing in regret and what-ifs that never helped anyone, but this is too much.
“Forgiveness isn’t just for those who ask for it, or even for those who know they need it,” Dad continues.
I know that. It was my parents who taught me that. I always knew Dad missed Luca. That he had heaps of regrets and wished he could find the courage to call and the right words to say when he did.
My dad is a good person. It’s not just pies that run in his family. It’s this extraordinary kindness, wild loyalty, and naïve trust. That’s one trait I didn’t inherit. Kindness, yes, but I’m not naïve about who I put my faith in. And the loyalty thing? Unfortunately, that’s ingrained deep, deep in my blood. My name stems from the Latin word for sweet, but there’s nothing sweet about me if I can’t save my family. I owe everything I am to my parents.
The truth is, I’d do anything to see my dad happy again. I can’t remember a time when he’s had that light in his eyes that my mom talks about so wistfully.
What if doing this small, incredibly irrational thing could bring back some of his joy? If the bakery closes and we have to move on, at least I could truly say I did everything in my power to try to save us.
Even if it means going to some spooky, probably haunted mansion, finding the villain dwelling within, and coming back here with some bullshit apology that never happened.
The likelihood is that I’ll go and get turned away at a set of wrought iron, monstrously spiked gates. It’ll probably be raining. Storming furiously. And even if I shout and rail, I’ll be denied entrance. That’s how things like this go, isn’t it?
Okay, that’s a little too fairytale, but it could be a perfectly bright, sunny day, and the guy’s house could be all sunshine and blue skies and cheerful flowers with statues peeing onto the fake grass and no scary gates or gothic architecture. I could come bearing one of our family’s famous pies and still get denied entrance. It’s a hundred percent likely, given that apparently, the only person to speak to Luca from the outside world in the past few years was that reporter who camped out on his doorstep for a long arse time.
I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but the one thing I do know, as I stare into my father’s dark eyes, which are wet with a sheen of tears again, is that this man is my hero, and I’d do anything for him. There are smudges of flour all over his apron and a few smears along his cheek, just above the beard net he wears.
For the love of banana cream pies, I already know I’m going to find a way to do this.
The first timer goes off. My dad walks to the bank of ovens and stops it, but he doesn’t remove the pie yet. He inhales deeply, knowing just by scent that it’s not quite done.
“Three more minutes,” I venture.
“Four and forty-two seconds.”
I’m getting closer.
“Dad…” I want to say something. I want to find the perfect words and make him a promise from the depths of my heart, but I trail off, leaving us in silence, with just the hum of the ovens and all our unspent thoughts, spooled-up emotions, the weight of the past, and the shadow of the future. I swallow thickly. Then, I finally just say, “It’s going to be a pietastic day.”
On hearing the words that he’s opened with every day for as long as I can remember, his face breaks into a grin, and the lines carved into his forehead smooth ever so slightly. “Thanks, sweetheart. You’re right. It’s going to be a wonderful day because we’re here, working together as a family.” My mom will be here soon. She helps out every single day.
For better or worse, this bakery is my heritage. It’s my dad’s, and his dad’s before him.
I know the possible closure isn’t on me. If I do nothing, or if I throw my whole self into this place, I won’t fix the real problem. It won’t give my dad the peace he so desperately needs. Curses aren’t real, but pain is.
So.
All I have to do is book a flight to New York, search out some eccentric billionaire, and make an effort to either get him to come back here or record a heartfelt message from him for my dad. Even that would mean something. It might mean everything.
That’s it.
That’s all I have to do.
Why is it that walking to the ends of the earth carrying one of every pie ever made, all heaped on my shoulders and in some old-fashioned pie cart pulled by a big fantasy creature like a troll, because I like trolls, seems a whole lot easier?