The bakery equipment arrived on a Friday.
Phil sent a photo at seven in the morning — the commercial oven installed against the back wall, the proofing rack beside it, the counter surfaces gleaming under the new lighting. Aria looked at it on her phone before she got out of bed and felt something shift in her chest. Not grief. Something adjacent to readiness.
She texted Phil: It looks right.
He texted back: It is right. Your dad would say the same.
She put her phone down and looked at the ceiling for a moment. Then she got up.
She had not told Ethan she was going to try.
That felt important — doing it first without an audience, without the weight of being watched attempting something she had no right to attempt. Her father had been baking since he was nine years old. He had learned a
