Sally reached for the last fork and stood to put the bin back on the cart. Then with a hurried, “Thank you, Katherine.” Sally wheeled the cart into the kitchen.

“See what I mean?” Rosie said as Katherine passed her table again.

“Now, Rosie, you leave Sally alone. It certainly doesn’t make settling into a new job easier to have someone watching to find fault with you.”

“Me? Finding fault? Why—"

Katherine turned deliberately and walked into the kitchen. She always found Rosie irritating, but today—today it went beyond irritation. This was anger: a seething, burning anger that made her want to unleash a torrent of bitter words on Rosie, to make her feel what the victims of her gossip felt. After all, hadn’t her insinuations driven away many of the Harborside’s customers when Captain Braddock first returned to run the shop? And now, to pick on someone like Sally, trying so hard to do her best—it was too much.

“Katherine, what’s wrong?” Mrs. James asked, pulling a tray of fragrant scones from the oven and sliding another in.

“Tell me again why we have to put up with that woman?” Katherine’s tone held more force than she had intended to let out.

“Ah, Rosie’s been at it again, I see.” Setting her tray down, Mrs. James turned. “Sally, this will be good for you to hear as well.”

Sally froze, holding a handful of forks mid-air above the bin she had been replenishing.

“For all her faults, Rosie is one of our most loyal customers. She says more than she ought most days, and that’s certainly not right. But if it were you, wouldn’t you want others to treat you with kindness and longsuffering? Whatever it is she has said today, let it motivate you to look beyond her words to her heart. For all her flash and bluster, she’s a very lonely woman. She tears others down, seeking to build herself up. Like everyone else in the world, she simply wants to be loved.”

All was silent in the kitchen for a moment, until one of Sally’s forks slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.

Mrs. James put a hand on Katherine’s shoulder. “I can see that some solitude might be in order, Katherine, before you go back out, so I’ll take over for you while you finish up in here. The last scones are in, and those pasties are ready to be plated.” Turning at the doorway, Mrs. James said gently, “and remember, Katherine, ‘what doth the Lord require of thee’?”

“To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,” Katherine answered quoting a verse they had recently been discussing. “Thank you,” Katherine said with a faint smile as Mrs. James moved towards the doorway and a wide-eyed Sally followed her with the cart.

Lord, help me. Katherine prayed, letting out a long breath, lifting up her anger and bitterness to the Lord, even as her hands moved about the mundane necessities of scones and pasties and tea trays.

5 Rainy Day at the Harborside

“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

Katherine sat in her window seat, curled up in a blanket, Bible on her lap. As she gazed out at the roofs of the buildings across the street, she drank in the stillness of the moment. The window, studded with raindrops, the dark sky just beginning to take on a lighter shade of dull grey, the sun's silent rising behind the heavy curtain of clouds, each seemed to echo the joyful quiet in her heart. Katherine read the verse again and took a deep breath, savoring it all.

This morning, she felt the verse to be true. She had learned to spend time with God, and found joy in His presence like nothing she had ever known before. But as much as she wanted to sit and bask in the joy and peace and quiet rest, snuggled beneath a blanket with the raindrops tapping against the glass, she knew she needed to get up. Today was Thursday, the day she unpacked boxes and restocked shelves at the Harborside.

As she reluctantly moved the blanket aside and walked over to the coatrack by the door, Katherine heard muffled sounds of baking sheets and mixing bowls. Mrs. James must be here. She bent to pull on her boots. Then, as she pulled a jacket on over her thick sweater, she heard a crash. It sounded as if someone had dropped a whole stack of baking sheets, all at once. Sally must be here too.

She threw a scarf around her neck and pulled a warm hat over her dark brown curls. The weather had finally turned, and she knew it would be a wet, cold walk across Harborhaven’s downtown blocks to the Harborside this morning.

As she came downstairs into the tearoom, she saw Sally carefully laying forks and knives and dishes on the tables. She bent close to the tablecloth, adjusting each piece three or four times before moving on to the next. Katherine smiled at her thoroughness.

“Good morning, Sally!”

The girl jumped, disturbing the silverware she had just carefully placed. “Oh, good morning, Katherine. I’m supposed to try waiting tables today, since you won’t be here.”

“That’s great, Sally! And do you feel any less nervous today?”

“A little… although I did still knock the pans off the kitchen counter.”

“I heard,” Katherine chuckled. “But I'm sure it will get better in time.”

Sally gave her a skeptical look. “Did you drop things when you first started?”

Katherine paused a moment, thinking. “No, at least not often… but everyone’s different.

Sally’s face clouded a little as she repeated softly, “Yes, everyone is different.”

Katherine didn’t know what to say next, and there was an awkward silence for a moment as Sally bent back over the table and put even more scrupulous care into arranging the forks and spoons and knives before her.

“Well, I’m going to say good morning to Mrs. James before I leave.”

Sally didn’t look up. “Ok.” 

Katherine walked over to the kitchen doorway, pulled the curtain to one side and peeked her head in. “Good morning!”

“Ah! Good morning, Dearie. Want anything for the road? There’s a batch of cheddar scones fresh from the oven.”

“That’s perfect, Thanks!” Katherine grinned as Mrs. James wrapped a hot scone in a napkin and handed it to her. “What would I do if I didn’t live above a tea shop?”

Mrs. James chuckled. “Why, you’d just come here for breakfast like everyone else.”

“I suppose I would,” Katherine replied with a laugh. “See you later.”

“Have a good day, Dearie!”

* * * *

“Hello the shop!” Katherine called out as she opened the Harborside’s dark green door and stepped inside. She flung her jacket and scarf on the coatrack by the door, took the stiff navy apron off its hook, then turned to survey the shop. The place was permeated with feelings of history and home. Her eyes lingered over the cedar-plank walls, the shelves of tea jars lining one wall, the high counter, the old wood stove, the antique cash register, and the retired sea captain sitting at his desk, hunched over a ledger—all these things added to her cup of joy, and it seemed full, indeed.

“Permission to come aboard?” she leaned against the doorframe of the Captain’s Quarters.

Captain Braddock looked up with a weary smile. “I’m sorry, Katherine. I heard you come in, but I was lost in the land of arithmetic calculating this month’s sales and couldn’t stop till I had finished.”

“That’s all right,” Katherine returned his smile. “Anything you need done in the shop before I begin the unpacking?”

“No, go ahead and get to it." he went back to his ledger. "There’s an extra package today.”

“An extra package?”

He nodded without looking up, but Katherine caught a telltale flicker of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

Anticipation thrilled through Katherine. This was why she loved unpacking. Opening cargoes from far-off lands always felt like an adventure, and whenever a package came from somewhere new, it was like treading on undiscovered territory.