Chapter 5

By ten, the parking lot behind Maple Street Community Hall was full. Women crossed the cracked asphalt carrying canvas bags printed with the names of local florists, bridal shops, and churches.

Inside, a coffee urn hissed beside the entrance. Folding chairs scraped across the floor as mothers pulled them closer to their daughters. The florist had brought three galvanized buckets of leftover roses, and a woman from the church office was trying to keep loose petals out of the heating vent.

Behind the sample table, I cut narrow rectangles from five sheet cakes made in the same flavors as the display models. A woman in a denim jacket came back for a second piece of honey cake.

"My daughter never likes honey," she told Mara. "Sophia must have worked on this forever."

Mara set another slice on the woman's plate. "The kitchen has made versions of it for years."

"But this version is Sophia's?"

Mara adjusted the stack of napkins. "The shop is serving it today."

The woman carried the plate back to her daughter, already asking whether they still had an opening in June.

I looked toward the front. Lucas remembered which bride was getting married at St. Luke's and which mother needed a nut-free sample. He asked the bridal-shop owner whether her daughter's knee was healing after surgery. She touched his arm and thanked him for remembering.

A bride in a yellow sweater stopped Lucas near the coffee urn. "Is June fourteenth still open?" she asked.

"The noon delivery is," Lucas said without checking his tablet. "I can hold it until the tasting ends."

The bride caught her mother's hand. "That's our date."

Her mother looked toward Sophia and the five cakes. "Then don't let anyone else take it."

On the platform, Sophia sat on a stool next to the display. My mother's recipe book lay open on a side table beside her. Sophia smiled into the microphone. "The lavender notes in the first cake were inspired by summers at my grandmother's place near Traverse City. It's a flavor that captures the quiet start of something that lasts."

A mother in the front row dabbed her eyes. "Imagine having that kind of history in a cake."

Sophia waited for the mother and daughter to settle before turning toward the second display cake. "The honey sponge came later," she said. "My grandmother kept a jar of clover honey beside the stove. She used to say the mixture had to be warm enough to loosen, but cool enough to hold the air."

I knew the sentence before she finished it. Ruth had written those exact words beside a brown ring left by her coffee cup. Underneath, in smaller handwriting, she had added: If the bowl feels hot against your wrist, wait.

Sophia smiled at the women in the front row. "She never used a thermometer. She could tell by touch."

A bride lifted her sample toward the light. "Is that why it's so soft?"

"Exactly," Sophia said.

Behind the sample table, Sarah stopped with the knife halfway through the next slice. Yesterday, she had folded the honey mixture at one hundred and four degrees and destroyed the batch. Now Sophia was using Ruth's warning to explain the replacement Sarah had spent half the night making.

Renee sat beside Ben near the aisle. When Sophia said my grandmother, Renee looked toward the sample table. Our eyes met. She lowered her plate but said nothing.

I set down the cake knife and walked around the sample table. Lucas saw me before Sophia did. He put his coffee on the windowsill.

"There are forty brides in this room," he said when I reached him. "Don't turn their tasting into our breakup."

"You already did."

"Then don't make them pay to watch it."

I walked past him. The wooden platform had two shallow steps. Sophia stopped speaking when my shoes touched the first one. Ruth's book lay open beside her. My mother's coffee stain showed beneath Sophia's hand.

I faced the microphone. "You said your grandmother taught you the honey sponge," I said.

Sophia moved her hand from the open book and held the microphone with both hands. "What temperature does the honey-butter mixture need to reach before it touches the whipped eggs?"

A woman near the front lowered her paper plate. Sophia looked at me. Then she glanced at the open book. She didn't turn a page. She raised the microphone.

"It needs to cool to—"