Chapter 5: The Slick Edge of the Dock

Forty people were waiting to see what I would do.

I picked up the coffeepot again, because my hands needed a job.

"Please finish your breakfast," I told the room. "The pancakes are getting cold."

Nobody moved.

Then, at a back table, an old fisherman who had come every Sunday for three years picked up his fork and took a bite.

A woman beside him did the same, and the sound of the room slowly came back.

Joelle was still standing in the doorway with the cardigan hanging open.

I walked over and stopped in front of her, close enough that nobody else could hear.

"The cottage key is on the hook by the back door," I said. "You have until Friday, like I told you. Take your mixing bowls. They're yours."

"Hanna, I didn't know how to tell you."

"You told me this morning in front of everybody. You knew how."

"I wanted it to be out in the open. I didn't want to lie anymore."

"You lied to my face for months," I said. "You lied in my kitchen at six o'clock in the morning. You brought me coffee."

She started to cry, quietly, without wiping it.

I should have felt something large and clear.

What I felt was tired, and under the tired, a small hard place that I had not known I had.

"Go home, Joelle," I said. "If you want to be helpful, do it from somewhere else."

She buttoned the cardigan over her stomach and went out.

The bell on the door rang once behind her.

At two that afternoon, when the brunch crowd had cleared, Frances sent me to the Anchor Diner for a bag of the good rolls.

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