The vest sails up in a perfect arc before I understand what it is. Blue fabric. Yellow lettering. Walmart.

Did I just—

Ninety seconds earlier, Meredith is telling me the bakery down the street has a new owner. Bread Zeppelin. The old one died in March.

“Same ovens,” she says. “Same sign. Bread’s different, though. You can taste when somebody’s gone.”

“They changed the recipe.”

“That’s the thing. Same recipe.”

I don’t answer. Twenty minutes to the church. A box of white lilies slides across the back seat. Mom’s rosary hangs from the rearview mirror.

Mama, everything tastes better when you make it.

That’s because I make it with love, mijo.

I used to call her from my kitchen, flour to my elbows and the phone on speaker, following her instructions step by step. Still, my bread always came out—not wrong, exactly. Different. Every time.

She’d laugh. Don’t worry so much. Alguien te cuida, mijo. Somebody’s watching out for you.

“Somebody wasn’t watching out for this loaf,” I’d reply.

Meredith’s hand comes up. “Watch—”

Then the sound. Not a crash. A thud against her door, and something blue arcing over the hood.

In the mirror, a shape crumpled on the asphalt. One wheel turning.

I slam the car into park and throw myself out. Then I’m running on legs that don’t feel like mine—no no no no—

Meredith shouts my name behind me.

The girl is already sitting up. Sixteen, maybe. Gravel embedded in her palms. Someone on the sidewalk has a phone to their ear.

She looks at the bike, then at me, and laughs, embarrassed. “Somebody was watching out for me.”

“I—”

I turn. Mom’s rosary glints in the sunlight, still swinging beneath the mirror.

“Maybe,” I say.