Chapter 1 - The Missing Board in the FenceMy name is Owen Mercer
Three years ago, after my mother passed, I took the small inheritance she left me, signed for a bank loan that made my hands sweat, and opened Mercer’s Bakery in the brick storefront right beside the house where I grew up.
It was nothing fancy—one story, a blue awning, two big front windows, and a brass bell above the door. Every morning at four, I turned on the ovens, kneaded dough, rolled cinnamon buns, and filled the glass cases. The bakery was mine, and the smell of butter and warm bread made me feel like I had built something that mattered.
The Dawson house sat right next door. There used to be a low wooden fence between our yards, but when Harper Dawson and I were kids, my father pulled one board out so we wouldn't destroy his property climbing over it. That gap in the fence became our portal. If Harper got grounded, I passed notes through it. If I got in trouble, she sat on her side and read comic books out loud to me. We rode the same bus, built blanket forts, and spent entire summers catching minnows at the creek.
Four years ago, Harper left to study nursing in the city. Her father’s memory had started slipping, and she chose neurology because when life hurt her, she studied the wound. I always knew she would come home someday, but I didn't expect her on an ordinary autumn morning with flour still on my hands.
I saw a silver car parked in front of her house and a woman pulling a cardboard box from the trunk. Even from behind—light brown coat, long hair tied low, bracing against the cold—I knew her instantly. My heart stopped. Harper Dawson had returned.
I untied my apron and walked across the yard. “Planning on moving the whole city down here?” I asked softly.
She froze and turned. When her brown eyes met mine, a smile spread across her face, accompanied by the dimple on her right cheek that I had missed for four long years. “Owen Mercer,” she laughed.
We carried her boxes inside her childhood home. Her father’s condition had worsened; he had fallen recently and was now staying at Willow Creek County Hospital while they searched for long-term care facilities. Harper had transferred to the local neurology unit to be near him.
As I placed a box in her old bedroom, I spotted our childhood treasure box on a shelf. Without thinking, I joked, “You still owe me a wedding, you know. You promised you’d marry me when we grew up.”
I was referring to a silly memory when we were ten: a purple plastic ring from a gumball machine, a proposal under the oak tree, and her laughing before saying yes.
Harper stopped putting clothes into her dresser. Slowly, she turned to face me. The joke died on my lips.
May you like
She looked down at her hands, her voice barely above a whisper: “I still would.”
Before I could process those three words, her phone rang. It was the hospital. She stepped away to answer, leaving me standing in the quiet bedroom, wondering if my entire world had just shifted on its axis.
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