The Apartment Above the Bakery

It was the morning after Rowan arrived—a morning that felt both new and impossibly old, as if some thread yet unbroken had always connected her to this place. She turned over in a tangle of linen, the edges of sleep not entirely surrendered, and listened.

First: the memory of wings, or perhaps the real fluttering of birds in the eaves. Then: a low hum, the mechanical click and thrum of something stirring below—a mixer or an oven, Rowan thought. She breathed in, slow and careful.

Yeast and butter, something sugary—these were not her memories, but her senses insisted. They filled the tiny room, baking themselves into the unvarnished floorboards, into her heavy sweater and thinning hair. Rowan clung to the simplest of the scents. She thought: Home, or at least the possibility of it.

Her apartment above the bakery was a crooked space tucked into the corner of an old brick row. It had been warm already when she arrived the previous afternoon, smelling faintly of old paint and cinnamon. The furniture was sparse—just boxes by the window, a worn blue armchair, a collapsible table she’d bought at a secondhand shop. All her drawings and watercolors were still wrapped in newspaper, stacked in the hallway like undiscovered letters.

She sat up and listened to her own heart for a moment. The quiet was a thing she wore like a shawl: soft, a little heavy, never quite settling. Beneath it, hurt—bruised and muddled but fading.

The kitchen sink dripped in odd intervals. Outside, someone was whistling. Rowan glanced at the wall clock, surprised by how late she’d slept, and traced a finger through the sunlight on her faded quilt.

Making tea in a new kitchen was always an act of faith. She measured the distance to the stove, the way light fell across the counter, the hesitant pulse of the tap. While the kettle hissed, she leafed through her first morning’s mail—flyers for piano lessons, coupons for the bakery, a welcome note from the building’s landlord (written on a bakery menu, the crayon scrawl of a child at the bottom: Welcome Rowan!).

Breakfast was automatic: a slice of bread, a knob of butter melting into curls. She stood by the narrow window, watching the first few townspeople stir into life—a woman with two dachshunds in identical red raincoats; a boy on a bicycle trailing a streamer that unfurled blue and brilliant in the wind. Rowan watched, feeling both far away and deeply tethered, like someone watching a favorite film for the hundredth time.

A new place, she’d promised herself, was supposed to be a blank page. She thought of her former apartment, the way it had filled with silence late at night after the arguments, after the slow crumbling of certainty.

Pain, like watercolors, seeped and blended. She let herself miss him for a moment, but only a moment. Then she picked up her cup, careful not to let it shake, and resolved to go downstairs. She needed real breakfast, and courage always seemed to come a little easier with something warm in her hands.

--

At the bakery, the morning’s work was in full swing. The bell over the door chimed, filling the space with a sound like laughter. Baskets overflowed with boules and brioches, each loaf glossy with their final rise. Overhead, strings of dried herbs and tiny fairy lights looped between wooden beams, catching the yellow light that pooled on the tiled floor.

Mr. Dorsey was behind the counter, arranging trays of pastries. He wore a checked apron and a shirt the shade of autumn squash, his white hair like a cloud above his collar. His hands moved with the unhurried confidence of someone who had shaped bread for longer than Rowan had been alive.

“Morning!” His voice was bright and clear, the kind that filled a room completely.

Rowan mustered her shyest smile.

He looked at her for a heartbeat longer than most people would—a brief, gentle assessment—then offered, “You must be our new neighbor. Rowan, right?”

She nodded, warmth pricking at her face.

“First morning can be rough. You look like you could use something fresh. Croissant?”

Before she could refuse, he pressed a flake-bright pastry into a paper napkin and slid it toward her. “On the house. Welcome.”

Rowan hesitated. Simple kindness felt almost foreign now, disruptive but hopeful.

“Thank you. It smells—amazing.”

Mr. Dorsey winked. “Early birds get the best batch. And early artists, I suppose.”

They traded a few soft words—about her move, the weather, the history of the bakery. Mr. Dorsey was a man of gentle routine, punctuating each sentence with the tap of a loaf or a hum under his breath. Rowan’s own voice sounded strange in her ears, a little unused, but the interaction left her buoyed.

She wandered to the window, croissant in hand. Outside, the slow parade of small-town life continued: a postman delivering letters with a theatrical sweep; someone in a faded red truck waving at a girl on roller skates. There was a kind of rhythm to it—a town-sized heartbeat, stitched together by repetition and small kindnesses.

Rowan watched, and for the first time in months, did not mind seeing herself reflected in the glass.

--

Back in her apartment, she settled by the window. The croissant was airy and golden, warming her hands. She set up her sketchbook, pencil poised, though for now she simply watched.

The town square was neither grand nor plain; autumn leaves pressed against the curbs, gold and ochre, the pavement still wet in places from last night’s rain.

It was then that she saw him—the violinist.

He was tall, a little stooped, wearing a jacket patched at the elbow. The violin case at his feet was open, a few coins glinting among curling maple leaves. His music was clear and small, threading through the square and up to her open window like a private invitation.

The notes were uncertain at first, testing the morning. Rowan listened, closed her eyes. It caught her heart off guard.

Song after song, she watched him play. No one else seemed to notice—at least, not in any big, obvious way. But more than one person slowed as they passed, left a coin, or simply tipped their chin in quiet greeting. He smiled at no one and everyone; his music filled the spaces between words. Rowan made a quick, clumsy sketch of him, pencil lines trembling with possibility.

When the baker’s bell chimed again, Rowan’s heart startled, but it was only Mr. Dorsey waving up at her from the stoop, a quick, knowing salute. She waved back before she could think better of it.

Her home was not as silent as she’d feared. The town was small, the gestures even smaller, but Rowan found herself nestled inside their unfolding. She thought, as the day shifted toward afternoon, that mending might not come all at once. It would be as slow as a croissant’s rise, as steady as the violinist’s song. She did not yet know the notes, but she was willing, now, to listen.