When You Were Older by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Author:Catherine Ryan Hyde [Hyde, Catherine Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 1480266515
Google: wAY9aYaqCN8C
Amazon: B007D15LIU
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

13 October 2001

I LET MYSELF into the bakery at 6.51 a.m. But not through the kitchen door. With a distinct sadness, and a physical feeling of loss that seemed to be wedged up under my ribs, crowding my heart and making it hard to draw a full breath, I used the customer entrance.

Anat looked up from the kitchen. Waiting. Waiting, I suppose, for me to come back and talk to her. The way I always did.

I didn’t.

I took a table in the darkened seating area up front.

A long moment passed, during which she did not cut any donuts.

Then she wiped her hands on her white apron, and came out and stood behind the counter and stared at me in silence for another moment, and I looked at her in the dim light.

‘You’re angry with me,’ she said. Alarmingly, she sounded as if she was forcing back tears.

‘No!’ I said. Shouted, really. ‘No, of course I’m not! Why would I be angry?’

‘I shouldn’t have come to your house.’

‘No, it’s fine. That was fine. It’s not that at all.’

‘What is it, then?’

I looked out the window for just a second or two as a car cruised by, its headlights cutting through the civil twilight, half-necessary and half-not. I pointed to the car as I spoke.

‘People will notice,’ I said, ‘if they haven’t already. Which wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. But it’s obviously a problem for you. And I don’t want to make problems for you. I want to be a good thing in your life. I don’t want to bring you trouble.’

Then I just sat and breathed for a moment, unable to bring myself to look at her, to see how my words had been received. When curiosity overcame fear, I looked into her face.

What I saw there could only rightly be described as … it frightened me to use the word, but there’s only one word that will finish that sentence. Love. She looked at me with love. Or, if not love, something that lived close by.

‘You’re sweet,’ she said. ‘No wonder …’

I waited for her to tell me no wonder what, but she never did. Too bad. I’m guessing I would’ve liked it.

We survived a long, awkward silence.

Then she said, ‘Well, at least let me put the light on for you. Don’t sit out here in the dark.’

‘The dark is OK.’

‘That will look as odd as anything, don’t you think?’ She marched around the counter as she asked this. ‘You’re my customer. I put the lights on for my customers.’

And she did.

And so, of course, she saw. Sooner or later she was going to see. I’d just somehow been hoping for later. Not enough to make me stay home. But some.

Her mouth fell open, and she stared at my face for what seemed like an eternity. I remember thinking I must have looked even worse than I’d thought. I’d brushed my teeth and combed my hair in the mirror that morning. But I purposely hadn’t turned on the overhead light.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.