The inn passed down to my great-grandmother when the innkeeper died, and she turned it into a bakery she called Salt. My home.

And here Mom and I are now, a few generations down the line, but still feuding with the Molinas.

You see, in my neighborhood, where people rarely move out of their family homes, time stands still and old wounds don’t close. Perhaps it’s best they don’t—these wounds are a reminder of who I can and cannot trust.

Mom tries to pull me back to Salt and I’m shaking as I take the first step, my legs still frozen.

“Alice,” Seu Romário calls out behind us. “If you have a minute, I’d like to speak with you.”

I glance at Mom, waiting to hear her say no. She can’t walk into Sugar. The Molinas will throw her into a pot and serve her for dinner.

But, despite the anger in her eyes, she looks at Seu Romário and nods in agreement.

“Mom?”

Dona Eulalia looks just as surprised as I feel. “Father, no. This isn’t a good idea. These people, they’ve already caused a huge scene. I don’t want them to upset you.”

He ignores her, still looking straight at Mom. “Alice, please, this way.”

I pull on Mom’s arm to stop her.

“Let’s hear what he has to say,” she says, like a challenge.

In her grief, I’m afraid Mom wants an opportunity to blow everything up between our families, once and for all.

5

FRIDAY, APRIL 22

I’ve lived my whole life across the street from the Molinas, but this is the first time I set foot in Sugar.

The theme inside is very gaudy. Twinkling lights shaped like icicles hanging from the ceiling. Red walls, just like the facade, the shade of Santa Claus’s clothes. Glass shelves and counters polished until they sparkle, not one sign of fingerprints or kids’ fogged breaths.

There’s a translucent wall in the back with display slots. Most are empty by now, but an assortment of bolos de rolo, Seu Romário’s famous cakes, takes the main spot at the center. The special lighting shows off the traditionally super thin spiral layers—twenty layers in this roll cake, he claims—filled with guava and sprinkled with sugar granules that glisten like a dusting of crystals.

The shelves to the right and left are packed with jujubas, bright candies, condensed milk puddings, cookies, broas, and sweet buns, filling the air with a strong, sweet perfume, the type you can actually taste. It’s like being inside a candy factory.

Some of the Salt and Sugar customers that watched the cake disaster outside rush in after us at the pretense of getting the pastéis de nata samples a junior baker is offering at the counter. When the baker sees us walking into Sugar, she freezes, a hand still stretched out with the tray.