Still daydreaming about that bakery of mine. I think I would call it Hester’s—does that sound conceited? I think it would be just the nicest thing, having a little shop that’s all my own. I’ve even been doodling designs—see them below?

Sadie gasped. Hester’s. It was the name she and Renee had selected. Amazing.

Sadie traced her fingertips over three logos. The first was “Hester’s” written inside the shape of a rolling pin. The second was an illustration of a pie, complete with squiggles of “steam” overtop, and the third featured the most darling sketch of a woman, presumably a self-portrait of a young Hester, wearing an apron and proudly presenting a pie. “These are wonderful,” she murmured.

January 21, 1974

I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been avoiding you, Diary, and it’s because I don’t want to pass along my sour news. When I write things down here, they feel more real. Hank isn’t on board with my bakery idea. He actually laughed when I first told him about it, thinking I was only pulling his leg. When he realized I was serious, he grew quite serious. “But Hester, who will watch the children?” he asked me.

Do you know what’s silly? Here I thought we’d come up with a plan for that together, somehow. Foolish and naïve.

“You aren’t foolish,” Sadie murmured, quickly flipping ahead in the diary. Had Grandma owned a pie shop and Sadie had just never known about it? Grandma Hester was so confident, so capable. If the woman had wanted to run a bakery, by God, she must have done it.

She stopped on October 19, 1975. That seemed like a good amount of time for Grandma to have gotten things up and running.

I just adore the children’s Halloween costumes this year—Jack is being a cowboy, Brent a scarecrow, and Melissa a puppy dog! What a funny crew! I’ve been busy for weeks now sewing their ensembles. They’ll make quite the trio.

Sadie’s pulse quickened as she turned to a year from that date, and then six months past that. She flipped through the diary, landing at its last page: June 30, 1978.

Made my signature pies for the Fourth of July celebration! Getting to sell my creations is the highlight of my year. It makes me a little melancholy thinking about my own shop, but oh, how I love watching my happy “customers” take their first bites.

So, that was as far as Grandma Hester made it. An annual bake sale.

It wasn’t fair.

Echoes of her conversation with Ethan pinged in her brain and her body burned with frustration for her grandmother all these years ago. Grandma Hester had deserved that bakery of her very own. She would have been a badass business owner. No one was as charming or as quick-witted as her grandmother. And her baked goods! They were Cranberry Cove legends.