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or shine, and came in twice a week for half a dozen muffins—two corn, two lemon poppy seed, and two blueberry. The door jingled, Mrs. Jenkins vacating the shop. Her clear bonnet-covered gray pin curls bounced from sight.
    If the day ever came when Katherine felt inclined to cut her hair and strap on a plastic bonnet, she’d give Celeste the combination to her safe, permission to make use of the .22, bring her out back, and put her out of her misery.
    Celeste sent her gaze across the shop and then came over with a blueberry muffin centered on a plate, like a crown on a cushion. “Try it, you’ll like it.”
    And, Katherine imagined, if she were to ask Celeste today, she’d shoot first, ask questions later.
    â€œDid you tell Mrs. Jenkins you altered the recipe?”
    â€œAnd give her a heart attack?” Celeste asked, her tone ripe with annoyance. “Of course not.”
    Celeste’s voice lowered and sweetened. “One bite?”
    â€œNot now. Later, when I’m hungry,” Katherine said, even though she was pretty much always hungry. She was an emotional eater. If sales were up, she was inclined to celebrate with a slice of devil’s food cake or an extra helping of apple pie. She’d polish off the leftover cannoli filling with a spoon and a grin. Way to toot her own horn, ring her bell, and tighten her waistband. A bad day? What was better to salve sadness than a good old chewy, gooey chocolate chip cookie dunked in a glass of iced milk? Some impulses were better off ignored.
    Like Celeste’s insistence on changing up recipes, ringing Katherine’s bell, and pushing her buttons.
    â€œZach liked the muffin. Didn’t you, Zach?” Celeste directed her question at Zach, but the little display was for Katherine alone.
    Zach didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he bit at his lower lip and beamed at Celeste, a guy equivalent of batting his eyelashes. A guy used to impressing girls with a wink and a nod. “Best I’ve ever had.”
    Celeste had grown up with three older brothers who taught her how to shoot the hell out of a bull’s-eye, land a punch, and hold her own against obvious come-ons. In short, she didn’t impress easily.
    â€œDamn straight,” Celeste told Katherine, and set the plate atop Zach’s job application. Then Celeste headed off across the café. The wiggle in her walk was meant for Katherine’s eyes but held Zach’s attention until Celeste’s behind, along with the rest of her, slipped into the kitchen.
    Katherine set the muffin to the side and returned her finger to Zach’s myriad list of odd jobs. “Well, looks like you’ve worked everywhere except bakeries.”
    â€œI’ve, uh, eaten my share of my mother’s cookies. Does that count?”
    â€œBaked cookies alongside your mo-om growing up, did you?” The word mom lengthened and split in two equal halves and then caught in her throat.
    Zach flashed a grin, but then the sides of his smile sagged. “Sure. Me and my annoying little brothers fought over the mixing bowl. Typical kid stuff.”
    Little brothers.
    More than Katherine and Barry could’ve given her son. Three rounds of IVF had taught her how to pockmark her stomach with four shots a day of ovary-stimulating drugs, how to lie still and wait for anesthesia to hum through her veins so that a trans-vaginal ultrasound could guide a needle through the back of the vaginal walls and aspirate her follicles. All the healthy eggs fertilized in the test tubes and then withered in her body. Three rounds of IVF had tapped out her ovaries, ruined her marriage, and trampled her ability to hope.
    The thing about hope? Remnants grew.
    If Zach had brothers, she’d done right by him. She’d done right by letting him go.
    Next booth over, baby Christopher laid his head on his mother’s shoulder. The two other toddlers, Sam and Jones, sat on their mothers’ laps