Page 79 of Mom Com

CHAPTER24

Raspberry Taken by Surprise Cake—

fluffy vanilla mousse filled with raspberry sauce, messy but in a good way

For a moment, Wilder and I walk in silence. I put my gloves on as we make our way from the parking lot onto the sand. The beach is calm and the water laps lazily at the shore. The air smells of smoothed rocks and damp sand while the moon casts a long bright line across the sparkling ocean. It’s so pretty that I don’t mind the cold.

We take a handful of steps before I figure out what I want to say, and he kindly gives me space to do it. “I know you always got along with my father,” I start, figuring it’s the best way to ease into the bakery itself.

“I did,” he says with a happy nod. “Believe it or not I missed the bakery almost immediately when I went away to college.” He pauses a split second like he feels shy. “I actually wrote your dad letters.”

I stop dead in my tracks, and he stops a step later, turning to face me. “You wrote to him?” I repeat, my voice bright with surprise.

His eyes dip momentarily before meeting my gaze. “Actually... I wrote him once a month for eight years.”

“What?” I say barely above a whisper, not able to process it. Wilder wrote my father letters foreight years?

Wilder’s shyness doesn’t dissipate, only exacerbating my shock. “It started when I was at university. I was studying business, but I would bake on the weekends, and so I used to write him questions about recipes and ask his advice.”

I stare at Wilder, trying to make sense of it. “But afterward you went to Cordon Bleu... if anything, you probably knew techniques he didn’t.”

A nostalgic look appears on his face like he’s remembering. “I did it because I enjoyed it.”

And just like that, the oppressive weight of guilt resumes. But as my initial reaction fades, something softer creeps in—the thought of how much my dad probably enjoyed this correspondence. Wilder knew, like I did, that my father was a relic from a simpler time. He loved his routine and his small circle of people; he didn’t text or make much use of email. I can picture him opening Wilder’s letters at his desk, putting on his reading glasses, and setting about his response enthusiastically. And while part of me wishes I had thought of this, I don’t begrudge them for sharing it without me.

He sighs like he’s debating going on, and I’m grateful when he does. “You know how we used to say that we were born to the wrong parents? That you were much more unapologetically yourself like mine and I more reserved like yours?”

I nod.

He wears a small sad smile. “Your father understood me in a way, maybe because we both kept our feelings too close to the chest, or maybe because we were both rather singular in our focus sometimes. But I always felt close to him. And...” He looks briefly out at the ocean and then back at me. “It made me feel like I was still connected to the bakery, among other things.”

Among other things. I break eye contact, my heart thumping. And for the first time, I see Wilder, too, has residual grief over the loss of my father. “You made the window display, didn’t you?” I start, my mouth suddenly dry and my voice quieter.

He smiles. “I took a chocolate course in Switzerland,” he says, like that explains it.

I’ve taken multiple chocolate courses and I couldn’t manage that display with three months and a magic wand. Also, there’s the bit about the display including details of things that are important to me, but I don’t say that. “You did it before you even owned the bakery.”

“I did,” he says like he understands I’m asking for an explanation. “Owning the bakery is an honor. But even when I didn’t, I loved it just the same.”

A lump forms in my throat.Owning the bakery is an honor. The truth of it hits me so hard that I feel a tingle in my throat, working its way up to the bridge of my nose, my chest rising and falling too quickly. I stand there for a long moment, unable to respond.

“Maddi?” he says, searching my face with concern.

I exhale one long breath, desperately trying to pull back my reaction. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You know it’s okay not to be fine, right?” he says so gently that my chin actually shakes. “That there’s no right way to be when you lose someone.”

And even though I agree with him in the larger, vaguer sense, I absolutely do not agree as far as it relates to this moment. Having a tough conversation is one thing, losing control in front of Wilder is another.

He waits, giving me the space I need to collect myself. And in a way that makes it worse.

“You’re doing that nice thing again,” I say, trying to shift the tone.

But his voice is comforting and steady like he knows I need that. “As opposed to being rude and unfeeling?”

“Exactly,” I agree. “If you were acting like the villain I’ve built you up to be in my head, I’d be able to brush you off right now.” But the moment I say it, I feel bad.

Wilder nods like I’m confirming what he always suspected.