Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Yet all I did was long to get home, wistful over missing her bedtime.
Kane had given me a gift with the restaurant, an incredibly thoughtful one based on who I’d been before. And at face value, it was all I’d ever wanted. My mother had been right: all I yearned for were a few moments to myself. But once I had a kitchen to myself, all I wanted was our living room and its cemetery of toys and diapers.
Then there was the reading I was doing. Upon Fiona’s advice, I had gotten rid of all of the parenting books, but now I was pouring over books on trauma in childhood and how it impacted them as adults.
The first three years of a child’s life was when they set the emotional foundation for their entire personality. Their emotional brain developed. Any trauma during those three years could follow them into adulthood.
Mabel hadn’t technically seen anything; I’d been in her line of vision initially. But she’d heard the conversation, and although she likely hadn’t understood the words, I was sure she might have tapped into the overall vibe.
Kane was less worried about her emotional health and more worried about mine. Which I guessed made sense.
“She’s resilient,” he tried to reassure me for the hundredth time. “She’s got an entire life of love ahead of her, a father who will move heaven and earth to ensure that she doesn’t endure any trauma for the rest of her life.”
I pursed my lips. I wanted that too. But my sense of hope seemed to have died with Brax.
“Right now, that’s gonna be easy since I’m never fuckin’ leaving her side again,” he continued, his voice thick with shadows that followed him since that day. “So let’s get you right, Chef.”
“I’m fine,” I said immediately.
He raised a brow. “You watched a man die. You faced the prospect of death yourself…” His fist clenched, and his body shook with rage.
If Kane could find a way to turn back time and beat Brax to death, I knew he would’ve.
He took a visibly deep breath, forcing himself to calm.
“You were moments away from death,” he whispered. “That’s going to affect you. You tell me how to fix it. How to fix you.”
“You can’t,” I sighed. “And I can’t fix how it affected you. We just … get through it. Together.”
Despair shone in his eyes. I could taste his sense of powerlessness. But he nodded, grabbing my neck and pulling me so our foreheads touched.
“Forever,” he vowed.
Mabel was in her own bed.
A win for the night.
Especially since she’d been in there over an hour. I wasn’t working at the restaurant. I’d managed to arrange things so I was only there every other night. Though I yearned to be home full-time, I knew that I needed the kitchen too. Just not every night. Which I could do now that I trusted my team enough to go a night without me. I was there for hours every afternoon, prepping, but I always made it home for bedtime.
I’d also done something stupid. I added to my plate. With Maisie in mind. During her last visit, I broached the idea.
“Freezer meals?” she questioned as she cut up cucumbers for our salad. Her hands were never idle.
“You’ll help me design them, using simple ingredients. They’ll be like a … made to order menu for new mothers who don’t have the time or energy to prepare healthy meals.”
I’d been brewing this idea for a while and had spoken to Kane about it. Unsurprisingly, he’d instantly been supportive and had already made calls to the people I needed to be in contact with to make it happen. Though I had plenty of my own connections in the culinary space too. I’d also put out feelers and had several companies jumping at the chance to have my name on this.
But it wouldn’t be just mine. It would be Maisie’s too.
“Partners,” I said. “Both of us.”
Her eyes welled. “You’re serious.”
I nodded. My sister had her hobbies, friends, but she’d devoted her life, her early twenties, to being a mother. She’d worked part-time when she was a single mother but now she didn’t need to. Though she seemed perfectly content, I sensed that she was looking for something new, another purpose as her boys grew older.
“If you don’t want to, don’t feel pressure.” I suddenly felt self-conscious. I had only just started to get to know my sister again; this was presumptuous. Business and family didn’t mix. It was a recipe for disaster.
“I want to,” she clutched my hand. “I love the idea, Avery.”
So the ‘Made from the Hart’ company was born. Kind of a corny name, but I liked it.
We were still in the development stage, figuring out production, scale, packaging, ingredients. But I had a good feeling about it. This was not cheap cookware I was simply putting my name on. This was something immensely personal. This was family. This was my way of helping other mothers who desperately needed it.