Free The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig

room.
    She looked so familiar to me. And then a flashback to my own childhood made me smile. “Good to see you again, Sister Agnes. I took your story-writing day-camp session at Mount Saint Mary the summer before sixth grade.” I still had the stories I’d written in cursive pencil, illustrated by crayon, somewhere in a box I hadn’t unpacked yet.
    “Neely just opened the new bakery, Rainbow Cake, Sister,” Mary Ann explained.
    “So now you tell stories with cake,” Sister said, smiling.
    “I do, in a way,” I replied, delighted.
    “We’re in for a sweet treat today.”
    “I think the children need a story treat, too, Sister Agnes,” Mary Ann said. “Maybe something scary.” She made her eyes wide as she looked at the kids. “Oooohhhhh. Something scarrrryyyyy.” The children giggled and squirmed.
    The nun smiled. “I have just the scary story,” she said, and carefully sat down in an armchair, keeping her walker close by. “Come, children, and sit by me. This is one you have to act out. I’ll say something and then you do it.”
    The kids pirouetted, windmilled, and finally plopped down on the carpet.
    “They’re full of beans again today,” the old woman said, bemused. She held her long, elegant finger up to her lips and waited until the last fidgety child was still.
    “It was a winter day like today,” she began dramatically, “and the wind was blowing, blowing, blowing through the trees. Whooooooooooo . . .”
    “Can you do this?” She began to sway in her chair like she was a tree blown by the wind. One little boy swayed so far to the left that he knocked over another boy, and they both wrestled until Mary Ann stepped in. One little girl swayed as if she might be doing it wrong. Emily and another little girl swayed with everything they had.
    Sister continued. “A little goat wanted to cross a bridge and go over to the other side where there was more grass to eat. So he goes clip-clop, clip-clop, over the bridge.” Sister made the sound like the little goat walking on the bridge, and the kids did likewise.
    “‘Who goes clip-clopping over my bridge?’ said the mean man who lived under it, and he shook his fist at the little goat. . . .”
    The children shook their fists as I backed away from little goats, mean men, nuns, and storytime. All in a day’s work.
    Well, almost all.
    The late-morning text message from Jett was brief:
OK for work. Don’t say anything.
    And then a second one:
Thanks.
    Without spilling any secrets, I warned everyone that Jett didn’t feel good and needed her space today. And when Jett finally stomped her way into the bakery just after lunch, Maggie didn’t look at her twice.
    Good job.
    Jett had on a nose ring with a wider band, probably a clip-on to hide the wound. Her eye shadow in stormy blues, purples, and greens masked the bruising around her eye. She pounded a straight, silent line back to the workroom, seeming to be her old Goth self.
    I could feel the stiffness in my shoulders relax a little bit.
    I let her get settled, then casually walked back to the workroom.
    “How are you?” I asked quietly.
    “Those peas were killer. My mom didn’t even notice.”
    Jett had done a pretty good job of camouflaging the exterior, but it was the interior that worried me.
    “I don’t want to think that this guy is still running around and could hurt you again.”
    “He won’t.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “I won’t be alone. And then he can’t get me.” Her face showed a steely resolve. I wasn’t getting anywhere.
    “We’ll talk more about this when you’ve had some time to think about it.”
    Late that afternoon, with the bakery bustling up front, a corporate event planner came in to pick up her catering order. If she liked what I did and brought us some of her business, Rainbow Cake might meet its financial goals for the next few months.
    Might.
    “Do you have time for a coffee?” I asked her. “I’d love to show you where I do the