Chapter 21: The Worst Cake in Carrow Harbor

Declan found her.

He said afterward that he had only asked himself where he would hide.

She was under the long table in the bakery, in her pajamas and her yellow raincoat.

Her rabbit was in her arms.

She had kept him in a basket of dish towels on the bottom shelf, for emergencies.

I got down on the floor in my flour-dusted jeans and crawled in beside her.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi."

"Your feet are blue."

"I know."

I took off my sweater and wrapped her feet in it.

She let me.

"Daddy said the marriage is over," Posy said into the rabbit's ear.

"It's a grown-up piece of paper."

I tucked the sweater around her toes.

"It says Daddy and I were friends who thought we had to be married to be a family."

"Aren't you a family?"

"We're the best kind. We don't need the paper."

She thought about it.

"Are you going to live at the yellow house?"

"Two doors down. You can see my window from yours."

"Will you still bake?"

"Every morning at four."

"I don't wake up at four."

"You will when you're ninety," I said. "I'm Mama Steph until you're ninety. It's in writing."

She sniffed.

"Is Mr. Declan staying?"

"Yes."

"Then he has to make my birthday cake."

I looked out from under the table.

Declan was crouched on the floor, ten feet away, with his hands on his knees and his hair standing up.

He had heard every word.

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