The Bakery Light

The bakery left a lamp on above its side door when there was bread cooling on the racks. At the end of summer, Dani and Lee had started walking down that street on their way home. Sometimes they could smell the bread by the crossing. On other evenings they only saw the small patch of light where somebody had painted the bricks a pale blue.

The last warm night of the year came without anyone saying it had come. Lee carried a sweater the whole way and never needed to put it on. Near the bakery, there was a narrow bench that the shop next door used in the mornings. They sat there for a minute with the sweater between them.

Inside the side door, someone dragged a rack across the floor. The little wheels made a familiar sound over the threshold. Dani remembered standing in that doorway once, on a morning when it had rained so hard that everyone’s shoes were wet. Lee had brought two rolls out in a paper bag, which had left a warm square on the front of Dani’s coat.

A bicycle passed slowly down the empty street. The lamp over the bakery door was still on. For a while they could see the shadow of one of the racks on the wall. Then somebody pulled it away and there was only a smooth rectangle of light.

They walked home without taking the shorter road. Lee folded the sweater over one arm so they could hold hands. At the front door Dani could still smell the bread, or perhaps it was coming from the paper bag they had carried home that morning. In the kitchen, they left the windows open another ten minutes. The last of the warm air came in and moved a corner of the curtain.