Chapter 6: The Bakery Line

Willa's POV

By the fourth Monday the line outside the bakery ran past the hardware store.

I stood behind the counter with flour on my forearms, bagging cinnamon rolls for people who had stopped asking me why I was there.

The baker had told them I was her niece from the city, and nobody argued.

A man in a fishing cap tapped the counter.

"Two dozen for the dock crew, Willa. And tell your auntie the radiator's fixed."

"I will."

I was fifteen weeks along by then, and the dizziness had finally gone.

My apron had started to curve out in front, and the baker had moved me onto a stool without a word.

I had been to a clinic in town twice, and the doctor had shown me two small shapes on a screen, both kicking.

I kept the printed strip in my apron pocket, and I touched it every hour of the day.

The bell over the door rang.

I looked up with the next bag in my hands.

Stuart stood in the doorway in his black coat, unshaven, with the cold on his shoulders.

Nobody in the line knew who he was.

I knew every line of his face, and I had never seen it so thin.

His eyes found me over a rack of loaves.

The bag slid out of my fingers.

"Willa," he said.

The line went quiet, and then it kept going, because nobody in a small town pretends not to listen.

"Next," I said to the man in the cap.

"Willa, please."

"The man ahead of you is buying twenty-four rolls," I said. "You can wait."

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