Chapter 4: Dusting off the Past
The bakery became their sanctuary. The pay was meager, but Mrs. Higgins let them live in the small apartment upstairs. Sarah traded her designer dresses for flour-dusted aprons. The physical labor was grueling, but there was an honest purity to it. Kneading dough became her therapy. She poured her grief, her anger, and eventually her hope into the bread. Leo, meanwhile, sat in the corner booth every afternoon after public school, doing his homework and drawing quietly. The trauma of his father’s rejection was still there, but in the warmth of the ovens, he began to thaw.
