Page 2 of Forbidden to Fall

“How are things at the bakery?” May asked.

“Oh, you know, same as ever.”

She laughed softly. “I’ll bet. Patty Keller was never one for much change.”

I slipped another tube into a dropline. “In her mind, the bakery achieved menu perfection in 1974. She’s been warding off threats to it ever since.”

“She’s lucky to still have you.”

I gave a grateful smile, but that word still hovered in my brain like a pesky fly.

Still was right. I’d been at Keller’s Bakehouse since high school. Almost ten years I’d been working there. Most people climbed career ladders. I marched in place. With a generous helping of flour on my face.

“You’re one of the good ones, Sadie Stevenson,” she said. “You always were. That’ll do, though. Why don’t you come back with me to the house for a glass of tea?”

I opened my mouth to refuse, but she raised a deadly eyebrow, daring me to say no.

As the wise Boromir once said, one didn’t simply refuse May Carver’s southern hospitality.

Pretty sure that was the line.

Whatever he’d said, I didn’t have the heart to say no. Who knew when the last time was that May had sipped her signature tea with someone?

“That sounds great, Mrs. Carver.”

“Good answer. But it’s May.” She winked at me, then led the way to the house.

The Carver home was nestled at the foot of the farm, a two-story, weathered-red farmhouse with a sloped metal roof and a long, covered porch. My heart skipped at the sight. It had been years since I’d seen it up close, but it hadn’t changed a bit.

The two rocking chairs were still on the porch. May and Jim had sat in them every evening—come heat or frigid cold. I could still see the spot where one chair had been jury-rigged.

One summer, James and my brothers, Ryan and Wade, had the brilliant idea to use the chairs as launchpads from the porch onto a pile of pillows. In a twisted turn of events everyone but they could have foreseen, Ryan had ended up with a broken arm and so had one of the chairs.

May led the way inside, and the screen door squeaked in protest when I closed it, like it was trying to warn me to stay out. I ignored the warning because, while Granny was terrified of leaves and ladybugs, I, Sadie Stevenson, was mortally afraid of conflict.

It was dumb, really, because I wasn’t avoiding conflict by stepping into the Carver house; I was just delaying it for the moment Ryan found out. But why deprive my future self of the opportunity to face conflict head-on, right? It would be selfish.

“You make yourself comfortable, darlin’,” May said. “I’ll be right in with the tea.”

“Thank you!” I called as she disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me in the living room.

Floral curtains hung on the windows, but not the same floral pattern of the couch fabric. The coffee table had a large stack of books, while the nearest wall was covered in a gallery of dozens of framed photos, just as it had always been.

I was starting to feel like I’d stepped into a time capsule. Eager for something to jolt me out of the sensation, I walked to the wall and started to browse, curious to see if this part of the house, at least, would be different than I remembered. Gallery walls were family-sanctioned snooping.

The biggest portrait was of May and Jim on their wedding day. They’d gotten married right here on the maple farm. Beside it was a photo of them with baby James in this very room. Both were familiar photos.

My gaze moved to the next one, and my heart skipped.

James and Ryan were standing on the banks of the river that ran through the farm. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders. They must have been seven or eight years old and, based on their wet clothes and hair, had likely just wrestled each other into the river. Both of them were grinning widely, their smiles a mixture of awkward adult teeth and small baby counterparts. It was another familiar photo, but one I’d have expected May to have taken down. She had called Ryan unstable and self-absorbed. Among other things.

Right next to that picture was one of James and Ryan in a nearly identical stance but wearing high school graduation caps and gowns. Two teenagers, ready to take the world by the horns together, blissfully unaware that a few years later, they’d have more drama than MomTok.

My gaze fixed on James’s face, sending a little swoop through my belly—relic of a bygone era. I could remember that exact day. It had been at the peak of my crush on James. The sheer panic of transitioning from seeing him in the school hallways daily to only seeing him at the grocery store a couple of times a week had filled my fifteen-year-old heart with despair. So much that I’d nearly confessed my feelings.

Thank heaven I’d chickened out. I’d already stored up plenty of humiliating memories from high school. Rejection from my brother’s best friend was one I was happy not to have.

“Those were good days, weren’t they?”