A few minutes later, Violet set the salad and chicken on the table. Maya cleared away the slips of paper and seashells as Trudy brought in the iced tea glasses, their conversation about future classes and ideas for the shop still floating in the air between them.

Once they began to eat, Violet waited a minute before asking, “Maya, I’d love to know a little more about you. Where you’re from, your family, what brought you to Sugar Bend . . .”

Trudy cleared her throat and caught Violet’s eye. Violet raised her hands and mouthed, What?

Trudy took up her pencil and wrote a note for Maya. Maya read it, then folded it in half. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “I don’t mind.” Maya sipped her tea, then wiped her lips with her napkin. “The truth is, I don’t have any family. Not anymore. My mom left when I was three, and as far as I know, my dad was never around.”

“You mentioned a grandmother the other day,” Violet said.

Maya’s cheeks lifted. “I lived with her after my mom left, but she died a few years later. I was seven.”

She was so matter-of-fact, Violet was taken aback. Much like Trudy and her, this girl was alone. Left behind by parents who should have taken the job more seriously.

Maya went on to explain that she’d been put in the foster system after the death of her grandmother, and she’d lived in ten different homes since then. She’d finally had enough and signed her own papers the day after her eighteenth birthday, allowing her to leave and make her own path in the world. And somehow that path had led her to Sugar Bend. More than that, it had led her to Violet and Trudy.

Violet had never had a strong mothering instinct. She hadn’t played with baby dolls when she was a child, and she didn’t see women with babies or young children and feel she’d missed out on something elemental. But still, focusing on Maya sitting on the other side of her kitchen table, she felt something kick into gear and churn to life. Glancing at her sister, she could tell Trudy was feeling the same thing. They were getting up in years, but here was this young person in their life, working in their shop and eating at their table. It was something neither of them had prepared for.

Later, as they watched Maya drive away in her clanking black car, Trudy pulled a pencil and a square of paper from her pocket. She’s great, isn’t she? I have a good feeling about her.

Violet read the note and let her hand drop, her gaze trained on the spot where Maya’s car had disappeared under the wisteria arbor at the end of the driveway. “She’s had a hard life, that’s for sure.”

Some might say we have too.

Violet tilted her head as her gaze skimmed across the familiar planes and dips of her sister’s face. “At least we had each other.”