“I … Only if it’s okay to bring Dorothy along.”

“Of course. She’s always welcome. That’s no problem at all. Again, I’m sorry to—”

“Hang tight. We’ll be there soon.”

She rushed to get dressed, glancing at her unkempt image in the bathroom mirror. “I swear, Mom,” she said to her mother, “I have no idea how you did this, day in and day out. Did you just run from one disaster to the next?”

She piled her hair into a ponytail and brushed her teeth, then dressed in jeans, a gray college sweatshirt, and flip-flops.

She hesitated, wondering about lipstick and maybe a more attractive top. No. This was hardly a date. A workman was coming over to deal with her flood. He didn’t care what she looked like, and she shouldn’t care, either.

Across the street, the bakery was just opening for the day. The least she could do was offer Peach and Dorothy a snack. She grabbed some fresh cinnamon rolls and a jug of cider, then went back to the shop and turned on the coffee machine.

Grandy was up, hearing aids in, trousers on, shirt buttoned wrong. He greeted her with a blank-eyed stare. “Did you call the fire department?” he asked.

That cloudy stare always rattled her. It made him seem like a stranger instead of the man she’d known all her life. “Oh—you heard the alarm? There’s no fire. It’s a flood in the basement. I called Peach.”

Grandy frowned. “Peach.”

“Gallagher. The hammer for hire. He’s been working on the building every day, Grandy.”

“Ah, that one. Did the sump pump fail again, then?”

“It’s done that before?”

“It has.” He paused, and in a brief, subtle moment, his eyes seemed to focus on her face, and the endearing wrinkles of his smile appeared. He held out his arms. “And a good morning to you, Natty-girl,” he said, his voice firm now.

She hugged him, taking in his scent of witch hazel and toothpaste, the comforting warmth of his arms. Stay with me, she thought, holding on to the moment.

“Have a seat,” she said. “I brought cinnamon rolls.”

“Lovely,” he said. “We used to have breakfast together every morning before you went away to school.”

She beamed at him, flooded with relief. Each time he mentally left her, she couldn’t be sure she’d get him back. “I remember. You made the best toast, and you let me dunk it in your coffee. Here, let me fix this.” He sat patiently while she unbuttoned and rebuttoned his shirt.

“I always shared a silly book with you,” he said, “because I wanted to send you off with a smile.”

“The Watchbirds,” she recalled. “Babar and the Wully-Wully. And I Mean It, Stanley. We used to laugh and laugh.”