Chapter 3: Lefthover Bread

Hazel followed Rosa along the side of the house without a word.

Behind them, the glass doors opened on a wall of light and laughter, and then closed again. Her mother had already gone in. Hazel did not turn to check. They passed the garage and the bins, and a window where she could see a corner of the dining room.

A woman in a sparkling dress was laughing with her head thrown back. A man held up a glass. Hazel kept her eyes on the ground and counted steps. It was a habit from the dorm. Counting kept her from thinking, and she did not want to think yet.

The back door was old and green, with a scratch near the handle that had been there since before she was taken. It was the same scratch. She almost reached out to touch it. Rosa pushed the door open with her hip and pulled her inside.

The kitchen was hot and loud. Two cooks she did not know were arranging tiny pastries on silver trays, and a boy in a vest kept dropping glasses. Everyone was moving and no one looked up. Hazel stood just inside the door, and for once she was glad to be invisible.

"Sit." Rosa pointed to a stool in the corner. "Do not talk to anyone."

"Rosa, you do not have to..."

"I said sit. I have to take a tray out or they will wonder where I am. Two minutes." She grabbed a tray of drinks and then stopped, and her face twisted. "Hazel. I am sorry. I am so..."

"You already said it," Hazel told her. "On the phone."

"Once is not enough."

"It is for me."

Rosa pressed her lips together and went out through the swinging door. The noise of the party burst in and cut off.

Hazel sat on the stool with the bag between her feet. The kitchen looked the same. The long steel counter, the pots hanging from the rack, the window over the sink with a crack in the lower pane. She had stood at that sink at fifteen, trying to wash a single plate because no one had told her she did not have to. Rosa had come in and taken it out of her hands, and Hazel had said sorry, and Rosa had looked at her for a long while and said, "You do not have to say that here."

She had said sorry to everyone in this house for six months. She had said it for the wrong fork, for a late answer, for a dress that did not fit, for a mother who could not look at her without frowning. The word still lived in her mouth, and these days she kept it locked behind her teeth.

Her stomach cramped. The half sandwich had only woken it up.

On the counter by the sink sat a wire rack of leftover bread rolls, sent back from the dining room. Most were whole. One of the cooks tossed a half-eaten one into the bin as she watched.

Hazel got up and crossed the room. She did not feel shame, and that surprised her a little. She took one roll, then a second, and stood with her back to the kitchen and tore into the first. It was soft and a little sweet. It tasted like nothing she had had in three years.

Her eyes burned, and she let them burn. She ate fast, with her free hand cupped under her chin to catch crumbs, and when she was done with the first she tucked the second into her sleeve without thinking about it.

In the dorm, a girl had once pulled a roll straight out of her mouth, because the supervisor said sharing was a lesson. That was why she hid food. She did not need anyone to tell her it was strange.

"Is that what they taught you in there?"

The voice was low and cold, and she knew it before she turned.

Gregory stood in the doorway to the hall with an empty cake knife in one hand. He wore a dark suit with his tie pulled loose, and his face was red from wine. There was gray at his temples now. His eyes went to the crumbs on her sweater, and the lump in her sleeve, and his mouth went thin.

"Eating?" Hazel said. "Yes."

"We feed our staff. We do not have people tearing at leftover bread like dogs."

"Then someone should have sent a plate."

His eyes narrowed. "Watch your tone."

"I am just answering you."

"Three years, Hazel." He set the cake knife on the counter with a click. "Three years to think. I hope you learned something."

She looked at him. She had a thousand things she might have said. The isolation room, the supervisor, the cold, Lily's broken hand. For a long time she had practiced telling him, in her head, in the dark, in a hundred different ways. Not one of them survived the sight of his face.

"I did," she said. "I learned not to ask for things."

Gregory paused. For a moment she thought he might hear it. Then he nodded, slow and satisfied. "Good. Then you will have no trouble staying in this kitchen tonight. There are sixty people out there. The Hendersons have come. Your mother has worked for two months on this evening. Do not embarrass us."

"I will not."

"We will talk in the morning."

"There is nothing to talk about. I will be gone in the morning."

"Gone where?"

"I will manage."

"Do not be dramatic," he said, and left. The door swung shut behind him.

Hazel stood very still. She was not hurt. She was only looking at the door, and thinking that he had said good, and he had meant it, and he had not heard a word she said.

The roll lay on the counter where she had set it down. She picked it up and ate it, all of it, because she was hungry and no one was watching.

Rosa came back through the swinging door with an empty tray. She saw Hazel's face and stopped.

"He was here," Rosa said.

"He told me not to embarrass them."

Rosa set the tray down slowly. "Hazel, I have to tell you something. About your room."

"It is not mine anymore."

"How did you..."

"I did not know. I just guessed." Hazel shrugged one shoulder. "Where am I sleeping?"

Rosa's face crumpled and smoothed. "Miss Vivi's dressing room is in there now. Her college clothes, her gifts. Your mother had the bed moved to the attic a year ago. I put your things in a box, I kept it, I do not know where yet, I will find it." She took a breath. "For tonight there is the storage room by the laundry. I can make a bed. There is a mattress."

"Fine."

"Stop saying fine."

"What else is there?"

"Say you are angry." Rosa's voice cracked. "Say something. You look like you are made of paper."

"I used to be angry," Hazel said. "I do not have it anymore. They took it with the rest."

The two of them looked at each other. Then the door to the hall opened again.

"Rosa? Are you in here?"

The voice was soft and sweet.

Hazel's whole body went cold. It was not a thought. Her stomach turned over, and her hands tightened around the strap of her bag, and she was in the van again for half a breath before she dragged herself out.

Vivi came in carrying a small plate with a slice of cake on it, a white fork balanced on the edge. She wore a pale blue dress with thin straps, and her hair fell in careful waves over one shoulder. She had grown up. She was prettier than before, her skin perfect, her eyes large and a little shiny. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, and her free hand flew to her mouth.

"Oh," Vivi breathed. "Oh, Hazel. You are really home."

Rosa stepped between them. "Miss Vivi, your guests."

"They can wait, Rosa." Vivi's smile trembled. "Mom told me you might be here. I could not believe it. I have been so worried." She held out the plate with both hands. "I saved this for you, sister. It is the cake from the party. The bakery made it just for tonight."

Hazel looked at the cake. It was white, with sugar flowers and a tiny gold graduation cap on top. She looked at Vivi's face, warm and wet-eyed and full of what seemed like love. She waited for some feeling to come and tell her what to do.

"Thank you," she said stiffly. She took the plate, because refusing would make a scene, and she was tired of scenes.

"I missed you so much." Vivi stepped closer and reached out. Hazel's body went rigid. Vivi touched her arm lightly, almost shy, and pulled her hand back as if she had been burned. "Sorry. I am sorry. I forget. Was that too much?"

"It is fine."

"I made your favorite, the vanilla. Do you remember? You liked it when you first came." Vivi was smiling and crying at once. She raised a hand to wipe her cheek.

Something small and green caught the light.

Hazel's eyes dropped, and the plate in her hands began to shake. On the third finger of Vivi's right hand sat a thin silver band with a tiny chip of green glass, worn on one side from years of dishes and garden work.

It was the ring Grandma Mae had pressed into her palm the week before she died.