Hannah had just finished slipping the pans of Triple Chocolate Cookies onto her revolving racks in her industrial oven when there was a knock at the back door. She listened for sounds from the coffee shop before she went to answer it, but there was only the buzz of conversation. Lisa had finished telling her story for this hour. If Delores was at the door, Hannah would keep her in the kitchen and warn Lisa not to start anther performance until she’d left.

“Loretta?” Hannah was clearly surprised when she opened the door and saw Loretta Richardson standing there. Loretta would have been the inspiration for the old song, “Silver Threads Among the Gold.” She was a pretty woman in her middle fifties and her blond hair had begun to gray. Loretta had chosen not to color it because, as she’d told Carly and Michelle, Loretta’s mother had possessed the most gorgeous head of silver-white hair she’d ever seen and Loretta was waiting to see if she had inherited the same lucky genes from her mother.

“Hi, Loretta,” Hannah said, greeting her warmly. “Are you on break?”

“I am and I wanted to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes you can spare for me?”

“I’ve got all afternoon as long as you stay in the kitchen with me. All I’m doing today is baking.”

“Smells good in here,” Loretta said, stepping into the kitchen and taking the stool at the workstation that Hannah indicated.

“It’s my second batch of Triple Chocolate Cookies. Would you like a couple from the first batch? They’re cool by now.”

“Thanks, Hannah. I’d love to taste them.”

“Coffee with cream and one sugar, right?”

Loretta was clearly impressed that Hannah had remembered her preferences. “Do you remember how everyone who comes into the coffee shop takes their coffee?”

“No. Sometimes I goof. And that’s why I always check.” Hannah poured coffee from the kitchen pot, added cream and one sugar, and carried it over to Loretta. Then she took two cookies from the bakers rack, placed them on a napkin, and delivered those as well. “What’s up, Loretta?” she asked.

“It’s Carly. We had a talk last night and she told me that she confided her fears about Jennifer to you and Michelle.”

“That’s true. She did.”

“She really doesn’t think that Jennifer is her sister and I don’t know what to do about that.”

Hannah was silent, waiting for Loretta to go on. There were times to talk and times to listen, and this was a time to listen.

“She gave me her reasons and they do make some kind of sense, even to me, but it’s simply not true, Hannah.”

“What were her reasons?” Hannah asked, even though she already knew some of them.