Chapter 8 - The Sourdough Audit
One year later, the small town of Oakhaven on the coast of Maine smelled of salt water, wild pine, and fresh yeast.
The Miller corporate towers and the Los Angeles media trucks were a world away, a distant neon memory that had no power over the gravel driveway of our new home. We had bought an old, two-story farmhouse with a massive kitchen that looked out over the northern cove, where the Atlantic waves rolled against the rocky shoreline with a slow, steady sigh.
I stood by the large wooden island in the center of the kitchen, my hands covered in white flour as I kneaded a forty-pound batch of sourdough bread for the town's local co-op market. Noah and Caleb were currently sitting on a thick sheepskin rug near the pantry, frantically building a fortress out of oversized wooden blocks, while Luke sat on Arthur's shoulders as he walked through the screen door carrying a fresh armful of split birch logs for the stove.
"The northern rail junction is clear," Arthur said, setting the logs down by the fireplace with a heavy, satisfying thud. He lifted Luke off his shoulders, letting the little boy down onto the rug where his brothers immediately tackled him into a heap of giggles.
Arthur walked over to the island, a small smear of white flour catching his sharp cheekbone as he leaned down to kiss my cheek. He looked at the golden, braided loaves sitting by the oven, his mouth curling into a rare, brilliant smile.
"Eleanor would say your wrists are too stiff with the rye," I teased him, wiping a strand of brown hair away from my eyes with my shoulder.
"Eleanor can manage her own corporate restructuring in Bel-Air," Arthur laughed, his long arms wrapping around my waist from behind, pulling my body back against his chest. His hands, though calloused from his new life of splitting wood and managing local civil cases, felt like the safest perimeter on earth. "The town council just approved our permit for the legal clinic downtown, Emily. We open on Monday."
I turned around within his embrace, my flour-covered hands resting lightly against the soft linen of his shirt. I looked into his dark, flinty eyes and found a level of peace that went down to my marrow.
"The boys are happy, Arthur," I whispered, looking over at the rug where our three sons were currently trying to fit a wooden block into Jin-Woo’s old leather boots that Arthur had brought from the west coast. "They don't look back at the tracks at all."
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"The scenery out here is better, sweetheart," Arthur whispered back, repeating the phrase we had found in an old diary in the house.
He leaned down, his lips locking with mine in a deep, peaceful kiss that tasted of salt air, rosemary bread, and a future that had finally been balanced to zero.
