Free THE GIFT by Brittany Hope

him.
    “That sounds fascinating,” he said, but the tone of his voice relayed a sadness that had not been there before. She decided to redirect the conversation rather than get bogged down in her whole sob story.
    “Okay, I think we are done with that dough. Let’s make something with it,” she told him. She put him in charge of dusting the dough as she rolled it out to make cream cheese pastries that were unique to her shop. He seemed fascinated by the way she manipulated the dough and added ingredients until she had several baking sheets filled with ready to cook pastries.
    “Wow, you do that so fast,” he told her.
    “You get used to it. You want to slide those in the rack for me?” she asked.
    “Yes, boss. Right away, boss,” he told her, mimicking a hunch back as he hobbled over to the metal rack and slide each tray in.
    “Don’t make me get the whip out, Igor,” she told him.
    “Ooooh, that sounds incredibly naughty of you. No wonder people like working for you so much,” he said with a wry grin. Amanda blushed, not having thought about how her comment would sound when she said it out loud. She tried to recover by latching on to his employee comment.
    “How would you know if my employees like me?” she asked, still slightly flushed.
    “Juan told me. He said he has known you since you were a little girl and that he was glad to see you take over the shop. He said your parents are good people and have done a lot for him and his family, much more than just giving him a job. He also said that he knows that your family always has his back and will never let him or his family go without. Did you really give him all of your dolls when you were only ten to take home to his own daughter?” Jagger asked.
    Amanda stopped what she was doing for a moment and stared at him, stunned. She had no idea that Juan had shared all of this with him and she had forgotten about the dolls completely until just now.
    “I did. I haven’t thought about that in years. I guess my mind has been on so many other things. I was playing with a Barbie in the shop and Juan’s daughter, who was about six or seven at the time, kept staring at me. She looked sad, but she didn’t speak English and I couldn’t talk to her. I asked Dad what was wrong and he spoke to her in Spanish. I remember that she cried a little as she spoke,” Amanda said, thinking back to that moment when she had looked at a young Carmella Ortiz.
    “And what did she tell him?” Jagger asked, though Amanda suspected he already knew the answer from Juan.
    “She told him that men had come to her house in Mexico and hurt her mother. They had thrown her out into the yard and kicked her and then set the house on fire. She tried to get back in to save her mother, but the door was locked and she couldn’t get it open. Then something exploded and she had been hit in the head with something. When she awoke her father was there, holding her and crying and the house was gone. That is when they came to America,” Amanda sad, remembering the sad story for the first time in years.
    “Your father told you all of this when you were only ten? It seems like a harsh reality to share with a child,” Jagger said woefully.
    “My father didn’t believe in sheltering me from the evils of the world. He wanted me to understand that not all people had it as good as we did, so he wanted me to know why Carmella was so sad. At the time, they had only been here a couple of weeks and they had nothing. I handed Carmella my doll and she smiled. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile,” Amanda said.
    “Juan said you gave her more than just the one,” Jagger encouraged.
    “Yes. We went home and Dad told Mom the story over dinner. I had some clothes that were too small for me that Mom hadn’t gotten rid of yet, so we went up to my room to see what we could find for Carmella to wear. I stood there watching Mom pack up some of my favorite things and I felt sad about it. Mom asked me