Chapter 24 of 27·6 min read·Four days, through the next mending-circle afternoon
A Place at the Table
The first tray came out too dark at the edges, and Mrs. Dorr would be here before noon.
I stood with both hands on the counter, staring at the cinnamon rounds through the oven glass. The middle ones looked right. The ones at the back had gone the color of old toast.
Clara waited beside me, close enough to hear the oven door but not close enough to block it. “You can take them out when you’re ready,” she said.
“I know.” My voice came out small. I pulled the mitts on anyway.
The rounds were edible. Probably. I set the tray down and pressed one gently with a spoon. It gave back under the crust. The back edges were firmer than I wanted, but nothing had burned through.
Clara tilted her head, listening to the tray scrape over the rack. “How do they smell?”
“Good. A little too toasted.”
“Then you know what to change.”
I wanted her to tell me what to change. She didn’t. My first thought was to put the next tray in at the same temperature and pull it sooner. Then I remembered the way the back rounds had colored before the middle ones were done. I shifted the tray forward and turned it halfway through.
The second tray came out more even. I checked one with the spoon. The center gave, the crust was soft, and the cinnamon smell stayed warm instead of sharp.
I let out a breath I hadn’t meant to hold.
Clara smiled. “That sounds better.”
“You can’t hear how it tastes.”
“No. But I can hear you stop worrying about it for one whole breath.”
I put the good rounds on the cooling rack and arranged the uneven ones on a plate for us. They weren’t ruined. They just weren’t the ones Mrs. Dorr had ordered.
When she arrived, she brought a cloth bag of sewing things over one arm. She stopped just inside the bakery door, as if giving me time to decide whether I wanted her near the counter.
“Morning, Toby.”
“Morning.” I lifted the covered box from the shelf. “They’re ready.”
She set her bag down and opened the box. The cinnamon rounds sat in two neat rows, their tops golden and soft. She picked one up and broke it in half. Steam curled from the middle.
“I can tell you got the timing right,” she said after a bite. “It’s tender all the way through.”
I waited for her to say more. She brushed a crumb from her thumb. “The circle will be pleased.”
Next
Toby’s name is on the mending circle’s card for the town hall—will he choose to join them in a room where more of Oakhaven can see him?
The words made the bakery feel smaller. The circle. A room of people who knew my name, and now knew I had made something they wanted to eat. I could imagine them passing the box around, talking over one another while they stitched. I could also imagine someone asking where I came from, or how I got hurt, or whether I was going to stay.
“Would they mind if I asked what they’re mending?” I said.
Mrs. Dorr’s expression didn’t change into pity. She just answered. “Mostly cuffs and patches this week. Someone brought a blanket with a tear in it. We can hold the meeting here, if you like. It’s easier for you than going across town with your ankle.”
My fingers found the edge of the counter. “Here?”
“Your bakery has a table. We have our sewing. If you’d rather not, I’ll take the box and we’ll meet as usual.” She waited without filling the silence.
Clara said nothing. I could hear the oven ticking as it cooled.
I thought of people coming through the door and filling the back room with wet coats and voices. I thought of the last time someone had stood too close while I had nowhere to go. Then I looked at the box in Mrs. Dorr’s hands. She’d asked. She was still waiting for my answer.
“Here is all right,” I said. “If I can sit at the end of the table.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Dorr tied the cloth over the box. “We’ll bring the work after lunch.”
By the time the circle arrived, Clara had cleared the back table and I had moved my chair to the end. I kept my splint on and my foot propped on a stool. The doorway stayed open. That was my choice too.
Mrs. Dorr came in first, carrying the rounds. Two women followed with baskets of cloth, and an older fox came last with a folded blanket over one shoulder. They greeted Clara, then each other. Their talk found its own path around the room: a missing button, a stubborn seam, the price of thread.
No one asked about my ankle. No one asked why I was there.
Mrs. Dorr opened the box. “Toby made these.”
The others looked over. A rabbit with silver at her temples paused with one hand inside her sewing basket. The fox nodded once, then took a round when it was offered. The first bite made him close his eyes for a moment—not for show, I thought, because he was already reaching for a napkin.
“These are good,” he said. “Soft. What did you put in the dough?”
I glanced at Clara. She was setting out cups, her ears angled toward the table. She didn’t answer for me.
“Milk,” I said. “And butter. Clara showed me the first time, but I mixed this batch.”
“Then you did the work,” the rabbit said. She lifted her own piece and took a bite. “You’ll have to write it down before I forget how much cinnamon is in here.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Mrs. Dorr slid a needle and thread across the table toward herself, then stopped at the edge of my reach. “Would you like to work on something, Toby?”
My cuff had split at the seam. I had been turning the loose thread under my thumb all morning. I could have said no. The needle was thin, and my hands weren’t always steady when people watched them.
“Could you show me how to fix this?” I asked.
Mrs. Dorr set the needle down where I could take it myself. “Yes.”
She explained each step while I held the cuff open: thread through the eye, knot at the end, small stitches where the fabric still held. My first stitch pulled too tight and puckered the cloth. I loosened it, tried again, and this time the seam lay flat.
The table kept talking around me. Someone asked Clara about the bakery’s new flour. Someone else complained that the fox had been cutting his patches too small. He admitted he’d done it again. Their laughter wasn’t aimed at me, but there was room in it, and after a while I found myself asking which blanket had the tear.
The rabbit showed me a corner where the wool had worn thin. I pinched the edge between my fingers and felt the gap. “This needs a patch underneath,” I said. “If you sew straight across, the tear will keep pulling.”
She shifted the blanket toward me. “You’ve mended before?”
“A little.”
She didn’t ask where I’d learned. She turned the blanket so the damaged corner faced her. We talked about how wide to make the patch.
When the rounds were gone, Mrs. Dorr folded the recipe card she’d brought into a small book of notes. “I’m putting your name beside these, if that’s all right. Then we won’t lose who made them.”
My hand hovered over the card. I could have left the writing to her. I had written my name on an order before; that had been for the bakery, where the counter was familiar and people came and went.
This time the name would stay with the circle.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll write it.”
The pen scratched as I put down Toby. The letters leaned a little. Mrs. Dorr held the book steady without touching my hand.
When the others packed their baskets, the fox placed the repaired blanket over his arm. The rabbit asked whether I might make another batch sometime, and I told her I could try. Mrs. Dorr left the meeting card on the table.
“Next week we’ll be at the town hall,” she said. “The room’s larger. We’re sorting winter scarves for the shelf there, and we’d be glad to have you.”
The town hall was farther than the bakery’s back room. More people used it. I looked down at my splinted ankle, then at the card. Under the date, Mrs. Dorr had written my name as a guest.