Page 44 of Baking With A Ghost

Simon chokes on his pie and I throw my head back laughing.

"You could say that." Simon's cheeks turn pink and Mary chuckles.

"Well, now. If you two are cooking up the kinky stuff in your kitchen I don't need to hear about it. Although, I'm told food and sex are the spice of life, so good for you."

"Not this kitchen! Nothing happens here just so you know, it's a business and we keep all that to our kitchen."

"Si, you're digging the hole deeper. Stop talking if you don't want Mary to know our kitchen business."

"Oh god." He buries his face in his hands and Mary and I laugh together at his embarrassment.

"I know I'm rather open about things with you both, but please stop there. Tell me about food and not the kind you eat off each other."

She sips her coffee with a grin, delighted with Simon's mortification. She loves him and never misses a moment to make him uncomfortable. It's her love language.

"There's nothing radical planned at the moment. We're just enjoying the routine and I'm so happy we got the bread recipe down. Nothing on the menu for the bakery for now, but you know, we'll take requests."

The three of us sit and chat over the coffee until the cups are empty and the darkness has settled outside. I've thrown my arm around Simon's shoulders and pulled him close while Mary tells us more history of the mill house and the town. I've always found history interesting and had a curiosity about what happened hundreds of years ago in the place I'm standing, but Simon yawns and I know we have to wind our visit up.

Mary notices, too.

"That yawn is a reminder to me I have a big day ahead tomorrow. But I wanted to tell you something interesting I learned about why the name of the town is Hope." I've placed her bread in the bags she brought along and we lead her to the door together.

"What's that?" I ask, flipping the latch to the door.

"Well, the first settlers were young immigrant families, mainly from Germany, but other Europeans, too. Their dream when they came here was to have confidence in the future, hope. But they started building the town, nameless. For many years it was just the town by the old river or something like that, because it was the only town by a river. The story goes, a young man arrived, single and had a bit of an unsavoury past, and was lonely. He hoped a new start would be what he needed to get the future he desired. He met a woman he loved, he had a successful farm and was accepted by everyone and admired. When the townspeople started asking about a formal name for the town, this fellow piped up and said to name it Hope. Because he came here with nothing and believed the future would guide him to what he needed here."

She pauses at the door and looks between us, "So they named it Hope because they thought it represented the town well. It was a perfect representation of what they hoped it would be. Refuge, new starts, new lives, found loves, all of it."

"Wow, that's really cool. Is it one of the guys listed on the plaque at the library?"

"Nope. A guy named Mike. That's all it says, his last name was never recorded." She waves over her shoulder as she gets into her car and Simon and I stare at each other.

"No fucking way."

"Mike is a common name. Could be anybody."

Simon tugs me by the hand back into the bakery.

I chose Hope to move to because it called to me and I didn't know why. Perhaps the mysteries of the universe are best left unexplained and I should listen to Simon. Mike is a common name, he's right.

As I close the door to the loft behind us, and watch Simon as he feeds Snowball while chattering on about making us dinner and how I need to eat something other than pasta, I realize hope means different things to different people.

And mine is standing right in front of me.