Sitting together, eating dinner as a family was nice. I had missed this when I was in the city. Meal times consisted of dinner for one more often than not in the apartment I shared or in the car during surveillance with Ginny. She’d complained on the last job that I always chose what we got to eat, where we’d go and I told her that the next time she drove she could pick the place. That next time was never going to come now.
“Ollie, you okay?” The concern was etched on my mother’s face, her fork was halfway to her lips when she turned to me. I hadn’t heard her first two times she’d asked me. “Ollie?”
Snapping back to reality I turn my face to see the worry in her eyes. “Tired, I guess, it’s been a long day on the road.” Releasing the fist I hadn’t realised I had been clenching I push the chair back, standing before collecting my plate to carry through to the kitchen. Looking down at it, I had hardly eaten anything. It had become my norm over the past week. My appetite had become non-existent. I was told it was to be expected, as well as trouble sleeping and the anxious feelings, they’d given me something to take to combat it. I had become a textbook study and a statistic but at least I was alive and that, folks, was the silver lining.
Drew met me in the kitchen before I had the chance to escape to solitude. “I’m glad you’re here, Ollie.” His words struck a chord with me, I knew he didn’t just mean he was glad I was home, he meant in the bigger picture. He was glad I got to go home after the drug bust that went wrong and got my partner killed, that’s what he meant. I could only manage a nod before turning to leave, swallowing over the lump that had yet again begun its mission trying to choke me.
2
daisy
* * *
After a long day at the shop, turning the key in the lock filled me with a huge sense of satisfaction. Sweet Nothing’s had been my Grandmother’s dream, so using our most favourite of her recipes I’d opened the dessert shop, all my hopes, dreams and inheritance were wrapped up within those walls.
I loved this time of year when the night was still warm, the delicate scent of peonies drifted through the air always caused me to smile. They were her favourite flower and I’d come to love their scent. When I was a kid I would spend summer holidays with my grandma exploring her garden and the blossoms always reminded me of her.
I had loved going there as a child, she had spent countless hours with me baking in the kitchen whilst telling me stories of when she was a child. She had a romantic outlook and a special way of storytelling.
More than once she had packed me a picnic for my adventures in her garden looking for the wood nymphs and she’d always made sure to pack extra so there was enough for me to share if ever I found one.
I had been named after her, a fact of which I had been immensely proud of. In school, when my friends had been complaining about how they didn’t like their names I boasted about loving mine.
In the summer before Grandma had died, I was baking in her kitchen whilst she sat watching me and talking, she’d told me how it was our destiny to have our own dessert shop, the good Lord had not given us Sweet as a surname to become butchers after all, she’d told me.
* * *
Munchkin greeted me at my front door, rubbing her little furry body against me as I wrestled the key from the lock. She nuzzled my hand as I bent down to scratch her chin.
“Hiya kitty. Had a good day?” She yowls at me in reply, rubbing against my legs again before I scooped her up into my arms and we walked into the kitchen.
Flicking on the kettle, I fill Munchkin’s bowl while waiting for the water to boil. Happily, she purred while she crunched on her kibble.
With a steaming cup of tea, I continue my nightly routine of sorting my mail and checking the late night news. The second story had been coverage of a police officer’s funeral, she had been killed during a raid last week, I remember it had been the lead story at the time. She had been only a year older than me and was due to get married next month. My heart broke a little for the family all over again at the sight of the casket draped in our national flag being carried by six men in dress uniform down to the white gloves.
Returning from the kitchen after washing out my empty cup I catch the tail end of the weather forecast. Groaning at the late rain prediction, the summer heat and a rain forecast were sure to bring a thunderstorm, Munchkin hated thunderstorms and I didn’t blame her in the slightest.
Picking her little body up from where she had curled up on the couch I carry her off to bed, she settles again without any fuss whilst I pull on a pair of shorts and singlet for sleeping and turn the fan on at its highest setting.
The hum of the fan as it circulates the air is soothing and the cold draft it creates welcome. It was still far too warm to sleep under the covers; instead, I lie on top and listen to the monotonous whir as I drift off to sleep.
* * *
Like every morning, Drew was on the doorstep of the shop, waiting for me to open so he could pick up a coffee and some morning tea for him and his pa.
“Good morning, Daisy.” He called to me in a sing-song voice he’d used on me every morning for the past year.
“You know what, I should just give you a key, then maybe you could open up for me and I could get a little extra sleep in.” I say, turning to smile at him before pushing the door open for us.
“You do that and I can practically guarantee the dessert cases would be empty before you got here.”
“You’d end up the size of a house.” Walking through I flick the lights on before tucking my handbag behind the counter.
“It’s getting that way now.” Drew pats his very flat stomach and smiles down at me.
“Yeah, I can see that.” I arch an eyebrow at him, the flirting had become part of our routine lately as well, and maybe once when we were younger I would’ve considered something with Drew, that is if I hadn’t known him since kindergarten or fallen head over heels in love with his older brother. “So what’ll it be today?” I turned the coffee machine to warm whilst Drew makes his choice and I collected the milk from the little kitchen in the back. It wasn’t big enough to swing a cat, not that I would test the theory because, well, you know Munchkin, but it fitted my needs perfectly.
“Got any more of those fudge brownie things, you know with the raspberry jam in them?” Drew’s voice carried to the kitchen, his request made me smile because of the day before I had the foresight to put a couple of extra brownies aside for his exact request.
Removing them from the fridge I carried them out in their takeaway containers in one hand with the milk bottle in the other.
“Do you mean these ones?” Pushing the container across the container at him I watch as his face lights up.
“You’re fucking amazing, Dase. When will you give in and agree to marry me?”
“Ah, never. I think that ship sailed a long time ago. Besides, you Coxen brothers are more trouble than you’re worth.” Doing my best to make light of the comment, thinking of Oliver still felt like a knife being driven into my chest. It had been five years since I’d seen him and the wound still felt as fresh and raw today as if it had only been yesterday. I watch as the smile falls from his face, feeling a pang of guilt that I had offended or upset him.