Chapter 19 - THE ANNIVERSARY DINNER
Ten years after the night in the cellar, my parents invited me to dinner.
Not an anniversary celebration.
Just dinner.
I was forty-five.
A bakery owner.
A law-school graduate.
And, after passing the bar, an attorney specializing in small-business and financial-abuse cases.
I did not abandon baking for law.
I refused the old belief that choosing one future required killing another.
The fifth bakery had become eight.
Professional managers ran daily operations.
I still visited kitchens before sunrise.
I still corrected icing with my own hands.
That evening, my father brought out a small bakery box.
Inside was a replica of the first cake I ever sold.
Uneven frosting.
Crooked flowers.
Too much vanilla.
My mother smiled.
“We followed your original recipe.”
“That explains the vanilla.”
We laughed.
The sound did not contain Marcus.
Some memories had returned to me.
The first bakery floor.
My grandmother’s inheritance.
The celebrity tweet.
The long nights counting bills.
Marcus had been present.
He was not the sole owner of those years.
After dinner, my father asked whether I regretted staying instead of attending Columbia.
I thought carefully.
“I regret giving up the choice without understanding what I was giving.”
“I regret allowing love to become a reason not to protect myself.”
“But the bakeries are not a consolation prize.”
“They are my life.”
“And law is part of it now too.”
My mother touched my hand.
“You built two futures.”
May you like
“No.”
“I stopped treating them as mutually exclusive.”
