Free The Wishing Tree by Marybeth Whalen

the closet, hoping her mom hadn’t cleared out everything that was left from the time when this room was solely hers. She smiled when she saw many of her old things still in the closet, including her favorite pair of flip-flops, still sandy. And the baseball hat she stole from Michael. With a sentimental grin, she pulled it on and looked in the mirror, wondering if she could still pass for the girl who used to wear that hat—a girl who was five years younger. A girl who would’ve never allowed herself to end up in the situation she now found herself in.
    She blamed her dad. He’d been the one to talk her into going on that stupid ski trip, after all.
Take a chance, Ivy
, he’d said.
Life is about venturing into unknown territory
. She guessed he’d take all that back now, if he could. She studied the older version of herself in the mirror and wondered if she would still take her dad’s advice. She turnedaway and tugged the hat down lower, to hide her face better. No sense wondering about that now. She was here and Elliott was there, and since there was no going back, she would concentrate on going forward.
    She left the house on tiptoe, grateful her mother—or worse, Shea—was nowhere around. She could sneak over to the bakery and say hello to her aunt. Leah would brief her on the real state of things—not the sanitized version her mother presented. Then, fortified with coffee, a delicious biscuit, and the latest family gossip, she’d return home and figure out the rest of her life. That was the plan, at least.
    She drove the back way down 40th Street, taking North Shore Drive out to Sunset Boulevard, the only way off the island, crossing over the new bridge that was all the talk among the islanders. There’d been much debate about the need to replace the old bridge, quaint as it was, with one that would allow for better traffic flow and better access for emergency vehicles. Much as she’d hated to hear about the demise of that part of her childhood history, she had to admit it was nice to get in and out of Sunset without worrying about timing her trip according to the top of the hour when the bridge opened and closed. How many times had she sat in the backseat of the car while her father fumed over sitting in traffic because the bridge was up? Ah, family memories.
    She passed the familiar landmarks, glad to see that not much had changed since she’d last been there, marveling that it had been as long as it had since she’d come to Sunset. She’d missed five summers, missed the bakery really taking off after years of working to make a name for it, misseddriving over the old bridge just one last time. It was hard to think about all she’d missed.
    In mere minutes she pulled up outside Seaside Bakery, putting the car in park and taking in the window display her aunt had created. It featured a large wedding cake painted on the window with the words “Congratulations, Shea and Owen!” written in hot pink across the top.
Et tu, Brute
? She sighed and got out of the car.
    She entered the bakery to find an older man behind the counter. “Help you?” he asked gruffly. Ivy recognized the voice as the one that had answered the phone when she called. The man behind the voice was thin and nearly completely bald, a patch of reddish-gray hair ringing his narrow head. He wore khaki pants that were cinched around his waist in such a way that Ivy got the impression they’d slide right off if not for the belt keeping them there. But the most shocking thing about him was that he was wearing a hot-pink T-shirt bearing the Seaside Bakery name and a cartoon cake on the front. The über-feminine shirt was hardly what she expected this man to be wearing. But then again, a man working at the woman-dominated bakery was hardly what she expected either.
    She glanced around. “Actually, I’m looking for my aunt? Leah? The owner?” There was a time she would’ve just walked straight back to the kitchen like she owned the place,