I creamed sugar and butter together by hand on a beautiful summer day when I had a hankering for lemon poppy seed loaf. It took an hour since the butter was still a bit hard only to discover that I was out of eggs. I stared at the empty carton in disbelief.
One egg. I only needed one egg. For a second, I thought about running to the store, but it was over thirty minutes away, and I didn’t have a car that day.
My sister had borrowed it to take her kids to the lake. I sighed, wiped my hands on my apron, and leaned against the kitchen counter. The kitchen smelled like lemon zest and sugar, and the air outside buzzed with the sounds of summer—lawnmowers, birds chirping, kids laughing down the street.
“Maybe Mrs. Donnelly has an egg,” I muttered, glancing out the window toward her house. She was my neighbor, a widow in her seventies who still wore curlers in her hair and knew everyone’s business.
I hadn’t spoken to her much lately, mostly because of what happened last winter. See, during a particularly icy week, my dog Bruno had gotten loose and trampled her flower beds. She’d come out yelling, and I’d yelled back, and ever since then, we’d kept our distance.
She glared at me when I brought in groceries, and I avoided eye contact when I mowed the lawn. We were two stubborn people living twenty feet apart. But I really wanted that lemon loaf.
I walked over and knocked on her door with the kind of hope that’s too embarrassed to be loud. She took her time, of course, and when she finally opened the door, she looked at me like I was a vacuum salesman. “Hi, Mrs.
Donnelly,” I said, managing a smile. “I, uh… I ran out of eggs. I’m making lemon loaf and just need one.
Thought maybe you had a spare.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Lemon loaf?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked me up and down. “You’re the one with the dog.”
I swallowed my pride.
“Yes. And I’m really sorry about the flowers. I should’ve helped replant them.”
Silence stretched out between us like an old grudge.
Then she disappeared into the house without a word. I stood there awkwardly until she returned with an egg in her hand. “Here,” she said.
“It’s not organic or anything fancy.”
I took it like it was made of gold. “Thank you. Really.”
She didn’t smile, but her voice softened.
“Good luck with your loaf.”
Back in my kitchen, I cracked the egg, poured it in, and kept stirring. There was something about that tiny exchange that stuck with me, like a thorn under the skin. Maybe I hadn’t been entirely fair to her either.
The loaf turned out perfect—crisp on the edges, soft and lemony in the middle, with that subtle crunch from the poppy seeds. I let it cool, sliced off an end, and tasted it. It was the kind of bite that made the world slow down a little.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I wrapped up two thick slices, still warm, and walked back over to Mrs. Donnelly’s house. When she opened the door again, I held out the foil-wrapped package.
“Peace offering,” I said. “You were part of the loaf’s story, after all.”
She took it, sniffed, and then—surprise—smiled. “Well, I do like lemon.”
After that, things changed.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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