Gloria

And she was about to open a gift left for her by a dead woman in the dead woman’s house.

Gloria set the box down and stepped away from it, tucking one of her bouncy, blonde curls behind her ear. She offered Sadie a crooked grin. “Uh. This might be a silly question, but, um, you never mentioned how my great aunt died.”

Though Sadie looked taken aback at the change of subject, she did answer Gloria. “Poor dear. It was a terrible case of pneumonia. It hit her hard, hit her fast. No time for Patti to recover. It was all so dreadful.”

“She, um, she didn’t die here, did she?”

Sadie’s eyebrows winged upward. “Of course not. When Dr. De Angelis saw that she needed more help than he could give, he had one of the boys drive her over to the county hospital. They did their best, but she eventually passed.”

On October 1st. Gloria suddenly remembered that detail from Sadie’s notification letter. A year to the day that her sister died.

With a quick shake of her head, Gloria tried to put that unsettling thought behind her. It did no good wondering why Nana kept Great Aunt Patti a secret. Anyone who knew why was already gone and she had bigger things to worry about.

Like what was in the big, white box, for example.

Taking a deep breath, she moved toward it again and lifted the lid.

“Oh.”

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Hearing the lawyer tell her that Great Aunt Patti made her fortune selling her handcrafted afghans was one thing. Coming face to face with a treasured memory from her own past was something she hadn’t expected—and didn’t know how to respond to.

Her lips pressed together, sudden tears welling at the corner of her eyes, she stared down at the folded blanket. Her fingers itched to stroke the yarn. It would be super soft, yet warm enough to get through any chilly winter.

All these years later and she still had the sensory memory of her favorite childhood blanket.

When she was a kid, she had a blanket that looked just like this. Same stitch pattern, same design, even the same yarn color. She loved the darn thing.

Then, like so much of her youth, she lost it in the fire.

She asked her grandmother to get her a new one. Long after she accepted that her parents were gone, that Nana was her whole life now, she cried and begged and pleaded with her to get a new blanket. For five-year-old Gloria, the blanket wouldn’t bring her mom and dad back, but it might help ease some of the pain away.

Looking back on it, she realized how much it must have hurt Nana to refuse. But she had. No matter how many blankets and afghans and throws Nana bought for Gloria, she couldn’t replace the one that mattered.

It made sense. If she had a falling out with the sister who actually made the blanket in the first place, how could she request another one?

And now Great Aunt Patti had left her a replacement. This blanket looked like a grown-up version of the one she once had. Bigger. Thicker. Sturdier.

Almost twenty years later, she had a new one—as well as an old cabin and the promise of enough money to open up her ice cream parlor if she could stick out a year here.

For as long as she could remember, her shop was her dream. It was her biggest regret that Nana didn’t live long enough to see her achieve it, though her grandmother had always believed in her even when Gloria doubted herself.

The money—and the shop she could open with it—was the carrot on the stick. But the afghan...

She couldn’t resist any longer. After hastily wiping at her tears, she dug her hands down to the bottom of the box. Gloria lifted the handmade afghan out, letting the long tail flutter carelessly to the bare floor. She ran the yarn through her fingers, then sighed.

It was even softer than she remembered. And, though it couldn’t be possible, it kind of smelled like home.

Something jolted inside of her. A memory, a hope, a wish. Didn’t matter. She knew what she was going to do.

Hugging the afghan to her chest, Gloria asked, “How long exactly would I have to stay here?”

“The will stipulates a full calendar year, January to January.”

It was October 31st. That gave her two months to move in and ready herself for her stay in Hamlet, then a whole year to prepare for the ice cream parlor she’d finally open once she received the rest of her inheritance.

It was a no-brainer.