The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins

a medium. And yes, Grinelda is a very talented woman,” Iris says, smiling down at Emma.

      “Don’t I get a turn to hold that child? I seem to remember I’m also her great—aunt,” Rose peeps. “And personally, I bleach. Once I shaved, and three days later, I looked like Uncle Zoltan after a bender.” She accepts my niece from Iris and her wrinkled, sweet face morphs into a smile.

      “Oh, shaving. Never shave, Lucy,” Iris says. “You get stubbly.”

      “Um…okay,” I say, shooting a glance at my sister. Surely this is not normal conversation in a labor and delivery room. “So how are you feeling now, Corinne?”

      “I’m wonderful,” she says. “Can I please hold my daughter again?”

      “I just got her!” Rose protests.

      “Hand her over,” Christopher orders. With a martyred sigh, Rose obeys.

      My sister gazes down at the baby, then looks up at her husband. “Do you think we should put some Purell on her?” she asks, her brow wrinkling in worry.

      “Nah,” Chris answers. “You girls scrubbed in, right?”

      “Absolutely. Don’t want Emma to catch the polio,” Iris says, not a trace of sarcasm in her voice. I suppress a smile.

      “Chris, honey, how are you feeling, sweetie?” Corinne asks her husband.

      “A lot better than you, honey. I didn’t just give birth, after all.”

      Corinne waves away his protest. “Lucy, he was so wonderful. Really. You should’ve seen him! So calm, so helpful. He was amazing.”

      “I didn’t do a thing, Lucy,” my brother—in—law assures me. He reaches out to touch the baby’s cheek. “Your sister…she’s incredible.” The new parents gaze at each other with sappy adoration, and I feel the familiar, wistful lump in my throat.

      Jimmy and I might’ve looked at each other like that.

      “Hello! I’m Tania, your lactation coach!” A booming voice makes us all jump. “Well, well! Quite a turnout, I see! Do you want an audience, Mother?”

      “Corinne, we’ll go,” I say, though it’s quite possible that my mother and aunts would like to stay and offer a running commentary. “We’ll see you later. I’m so proud of you.” I kiss my sister, touch the baby’s cheek once more and try not to notice as Corinne wipes her baby’s face. “Bye, Emma,” I whisper, my eyes filling yet again. “I love you, honey.” My niece. I have a niece! Visions of tea parties and jump rope fill my head.

      My sister smiles at me. “See you later, Lucy. Love you.” She risks a pat to my arm with one hand, already instinctively adept at handling the baby.

      “Let’s take a look at those nipples,” Tania the lactation coach barks. “Husband, take the baby, won’t you? I need to see your wife’s breasts.”

      Like a well—trained border collie, I herd Mom, Rose and Iris out of the room. In the hallway, I notice something. My mother, aunts and I all seem to be wearing black today. My step falters. Mom is clad in a chic black wraparound sweater, something that wouldn’t look out of place on Audrey Hepburn; Iris wears a shapeless black turtleneck and Rose a black cardigan over a white shirt. My T—shirt of the day happens to be black—I get up at 4:00 a.m. and don’t spend a lot of time on clothing choices…this one just happened to be on the top of the pile.

      By an ironic and unfortunate twist of fate, my mother, Iris and Rose bear the maiden name Black, translated from Fekete when my grandfather immigrated from Hungary. By an even more ironic and unfortunate twist of fate, all three were widowed before the age of fifty, so it’s only natural that they’re called the Black Widows. And on this happiest of days, somehow we’re all wearing black. It dawns on me that today I, also widowed young, am more like a Black Widow than like my radiant sister. That today I found my first whisker and was advised on facial hair management.

      That I’m a long way off from having a baby of my own, a thought that’s been on my mind more and more recently. It’s been five years since Jimmy died, after all. Five and a half. Five years, four months, two weeks and three days, to be precise.

      These thoughts override the chatter of my aunts and mother as we drive over the short bridge to Mackerly, back to the bakery where the four of us work.

      “We’re going to the cemetery,” Mom announces as they pile out of the car, first Iris, then Rose, then my mother. “I have to tell your father about the baby.”

      “Okay,” I say, forcing a smile. “See you in a while, then.”

      “You sure you don’t want to come?” Rose asks. All three of them tilt their heads looking at me.

      “Oh, gosh, I don’t think so.”

      “You know she’s got a thing about that,” Mom says patiently. “Let’s go. See you later, hon.”

      “Yup. Have fun.” They will, I know. I watch as they walk down the street toward the cemetery where their husbands—and mine—are buried.

      The sun shines, the birds sing, my niece is healthy. It’s a happy, happy day, whisker or no whisker. Widowed or not. “A happy day,” I say aloud, heading inside.

      The warm, timeless smell of Bunny’s Hungarian Bakery wraps around me like a security blanket, sugar and yeast and steam, and I inhale deeply. Jorge is cleaning up in back. He looks up as I come in. “She’s gorgeous,” I say. He nods, smiles, then goes back to scraping dough from the counters.

      Jorge doesn’t speak. He’s worked at Bunny’s for years. Somewhere between fifty and seventy, bald, with beautiful light brown skin and a tattoo on his arm depicting Jesus’ agony on the cross, Jorge helps with cleanup and bread delivery, as Bunny’s supplies bread-my bread, the best bread in the state—to several Rhode Island restaurants.

      “I’ll deliver to Gianni’s tonight, Jorge,” I say as he starts loading up the bread. He nods, heads for the back door and stands for a second, his way of saying goodbye. “Have a great afternoon,” I say. He smiles, flashing his gold tooth, then leaves.

      The freezer hums, the malfunctioning fluorescent light over the work area buzzes, the cooling ovens tick. Otherwise, there’s just the sound of my own breathing.

      Bunny’s has been in my family for fifty—seven years. Founded by my grandmother just after my grandfather died at the age of forty—eight, it has been run by women ever since. Men don’t tend to fare that well in my family, as you might have noticed. After my own father died when I was eight, Mom started working at Bunny’s, too, alongside Iris and Rose. And after Jimmy’s car accident, I came on board as well.

      I love the bakery, and the bread I create is proof of a beneficent God, but it’s fair to say that if circumstances were different, I wouldn’t work here. Bread, while deeply rewarding, is not my true passion. I was trained to be a pastry chef at the great Johnson & Wales Culinary Institute in Providence, just about a half hour from Mackerly, a tiny island south of Newport. Upon graduation, I snagged a job at one of the posher hotels in the area. But after Jimmy died, I couldn’t keep it up. The pressure, the noise, the hours…the people. And so I joined the Black Widows at Bunny’s. Unfortunately for me, the division of labor had been decided years ago—Rose on cakes and cookies, Iris on danishes and doughnuts, Mom on management. That left bread.

      Bread—baking is a Zenlike art, not fully grasped by much of the world, and an art that I’ve come to love. I arrive at four—thirty each day to mix the dough, measure it out, let it rise and get it in the oven, head home for a nap around ten, then return in the afternoon to bake the loaves we supply to the restaurants. Most days, I’m home by four. It’s a schedule suited to the erratic sleep patterns that came home to roost when my husband died.

      I find that I’m feeling for another whisker. If there was one, after all, there might be others. Nope. I seem to be