Epilogue

In the days that followed, our shop passed its health inspection, and my baristas and I reopened our doors, but we couldn’t stop worrying. Would the customers return? We prayed and waited. After two agonizingly slow days, word got out, and our tables were filled again.

“We’re back!” I triumphantly told Matt near the end of that week.

It was after closing, and we’d settled in by the fireplace to wait for Madame to stop by. She was out on a date with the man her son had dubbed “Mr. Space Invader.”

To pass the time, I told Matt what he’d missed during his trip to Baltimore, which he’d extended to a visit with our daughter in DC.

I didn’t begrudge him the time away. In fact, I was happy Joy got to see him on this rare touchdown on US soil. Despite his globe-trotting and gallivanting, Matt Allegro had always tried to be a good father. That’s why I thought he’d appreciate the news I’d recently heard.

“You’re telling me that old Mr. Scrib just learned he has a six-foot-two, one-hundred-ninety-pound bouncing baby boy?”

“At thirty-eight, Ethan no longer needs a diaper,” I said. “That’s a plus.”

“Yes, but from what you told me, he needs parenting. Is Scrib up to it?”

“He has a strong paternal instinct, Matt. You should have seen him talk about the lost duckling he found in a storm drain, and how he raised it himself…”

I recounted the day Mr. Scrib was released from the hospital. He’d fully recovered physically, though he had no memory of the incident that landed him there. Esther and I brought him home and Ethan greeted us, after he made sure the apartment was ready.

To his delight, Mr. Scrib was reunited with Wacker, and the duck seemed happy to see him, too.

Esther packed a basket with treats, a thermos of Village Blend coffee, and a stack of disposable cups. She placed the stack on the desk and asked what number Mr. Scrib wanted that day.

“Three,” he replied. “To honor my three wonderful friends.”

Wacker let out a string of quacks.

“Fine,” Mr. Scrib relented. “Make it four.”

The excitement of his long-anticipated homecoming tired Mr. Scrib, and Ethan put him to bed.

“I’ll stay with him tonight,” Ethan told us. “In case he needs anything…”

“That was a nice thing for Ethan to do,” Matt said when I finished catching him up. “Though I don’t know how much of a bargain Scrib’s human son is going to be. But at least Ethan doesn’t have feathers.”

“He doesn’t use drugs anymore, either. The arrest scared him straight, and he’s completing his outpatient rehab with flying colors.”

“Well, that’s good news. And did you say they’re going to Paris together?”

“For six months. Ethan wants to study art, and Mr. Scrib has never traveled, so they’re going on their first father-and-son adventure. First of many, I suspect.”

A cloud crossed Matt’s face. “How did my mother take all the revelations about what happened in the alley?”

“Better than I thought. I made dinner for her and Captain Siebold and conveyed the whole story. She said she knew in her bones that something bad had happened all those years ago. Finally hearing the truth was a relief, though distressing in its details.”

“I know what Nero did was wrong,” Matt said. “But I understand his reasons. Nero and my father were like brothers. After my dad died, he would have done anything to protect us.”

“Your mother said that, too, but she also said if she could turn back the clock and change things, she would have done it in a heartbeat. Anyway, after she dried her tears, the dinner went well. The captain was a comfort to her, and I could see she was glad ‘Mr. Space Invader’ had invaded her space.”

“You didn’t bring up the whole Cody Wood thing, did you? I hope you didn’t try to undermine me, Clare.”

“I did not,” I answered honestly. “I’m leaving that to you. Lay it all out when she gets here. Then I’ll make my argument. Let the Driftwood chips fall where they may.”

“Wow,” Matt said. “You’re really being a good sport about this. After the shop was closed by the police, are you starting to see things my way?”

“Not at all. Like I told you, our traffic is back, and it’s been solid so far. The Writer’s Block Lounge is alive and well.”

Matt expressed skepticism about how long that would last, but before I could argue the point, Madame buzzed my phone with a text. Her car was arriving.

Matt’s dark gaze hardened. “Remember your promise, Clare. You’re going to let me lay out the whole business deal before you jump in, right?”

“Go for it, Gordon Gekko.”

“I will,” he shot back. “ ‘Greed is good.’ ”

When I opened the door, Matt embraced his mother. She was dressed casually tonight after enjoying “the cinema and a bistro” with her Golden Ticket Captain. She had just dropped him off to attend our private meeting.

Matt sat his mother down by the crackling hearth and laid out a line of papers and documents in front of her. As she sipped his superbly sourced and my lovingly roasted coffee, he presented Cody’s proposal.

Madame sat very still, her expression frozen. I was surprised—and a little worried—that she didn’t object to the plan immediately. Instead, she listened intently to her son.

Matt confidently pontificated, stressing all the good that comes with a huge chunk of change in the bank, and all the bad that could go wrong with retail sales.

When he was finished, Madame focused her bright violet gaze on me.

“Clare, you’ve been strangely quiet through my son’s speech. You made no objection, no argument. Do you have one, my dear?”

“I do. And I’d like you both to hear it.”

I displayed my phone and played the secret recording that Esther had made on the night I confronted the Driftwood CEO in the street. I played the whole thing, including Cody Wood’s shameless job offer to me, and his contempt for Matt’s global sourcing—

…You’re the talent and the brains, Clare…Come work for Driftwood…stop slaving over a balance sheet like a dollar-store manager…Matt’s whole approach…it’s fine dining when people are perfectly content to consume fast food…Who needs small indigenous farmers when we can cut costs with mass production…

With each new phrase, Matt’s slow simmer morphed into a red-faced boil. By the end of the recording, I thought his head would explode.

“That son of a—”

What followed was a colorful string of curses in languages mostly heard in the high-grown coffee regions from Bolivia to Indonesia.

As her son raged, Madame rose from the table, gathered up all of Cody’s documents, and with one great swipe threw them into the hearth.

Then she turned to me. “To be honest, Clare, your little recording didn’t change my mind. I was against the whole scheme the moment I heard Driftwood was involved.”

“I admit you had me worried. You listened so patiently.”

“Boys,” she said, rolling her violet eyes. “Sometimes you simply have to humor them. They usually come around to the right decision. Look at my Matt. You’ve changed his mind.”

Matt wasn’t listening. He was still blowing off steam. We heard a crash as he kicked a wrought iron chair.

“I suppose I did. But if he doesn’t come down to earth soon, I’m going upstairs to fetch my fiancé’s handcuffs—though I’d prefer to slap them on Cody Wood.”

Madame’s expression turned serious. “From the tactics that man used, I can tell you, Mr. Wood won’t be giving up easily.”

“You think he’ll cause more problems?”

“Keep the handcuffs handy, dear, and remember what I taught you.”

She didn’t have to remind me. At the Village Blend, it was part of our caffeinated credo: Survive everything. And do it with style.