The Heartbreak Cafe

The Heartbreak Café

Melissa
Hill

Copyright
2010 by Melissa Hill

Smashwords Edition

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Disclaimer: The persons, places, things, and otherwise
animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments
of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone
living (or dead) is unintentional.

‘
To be honest, the first thing that crossed my mind was that it
must be my doughnut delivery,’ Ella began. ‘Or a delivery of some
kind – it isn’t unusual to find fresh stock on the doorstep of the
café so early in the morning.’

‘
What time was it exactly?’

‘
Well, let me think,’ she replied, pausing for a moment. ‘The
milk is usually dropped off around five, a good two hours before I
open up, and my usual half a dozen litres was tucked away to the
left of the doorway. But the box was right in front of the door,
making it impossible for me to miss.’

‘
I see.’

‘
I was a bit annoyed actually, and was thinking I was going to
give the wholesaler a piece of my mind for not letting me know
they’d be delivering outside opening hours,’ she continued, her
tone measured. ‘And then, just as I was about to open the box to
see if they were indeed the culprits, I heard … well some kind of
sound coming from it.’

‘
Sound?’

‘
A sort of whine, I suppose? Very weak, like from a small
animal, or something. Of course, straight away I thought; here we
go, another wretched creature to add to the family.’

‘
You thought that someone who knows you take in strays was
leaving another one for you?’

‘
Exactly. Everyone here in Lakeview knows what I’m like and
that I can’t say no.’ She smiled a little. ‘But then I thought,
well, at least this one was coming with a readymade name. So I
reached inside, already deciding that if it was a cat, dog, hamster
or whatever that I would call it Doughnut.’ She shook her head.
‘But when I pulled back the folds and discovered exactly what I’d
been landed with this time, I got the biggest shock of my
life.’

Ella was
quiet for a moment, as the impact of her words began to sink
in.

‘
And what did you do then?’

‘
Well, I called the guards of course … Frank was here within a
couple of minutes, the police station is only walking distance but
he took the car anyway. And I rang Jim Kelly too.’

‘
The local GP.’‘

‘
Yes. An ambulance too just in case, although the box looked
well insulated and there were plenty of blankets. Still I thought
it best to be sure.’

‘
Sounds like you were very clear-headed about it.’

‘
Not at all,’ she protested, sounding a little nervous. ‘Truth
be told I was in complete shock. It was only when the ambulance
left and Doctor Kelly told us that vitals looked good and there
were no signs of hypothermia that I managed to relax a little. As I
said, I doubted the box was there that long – and we all agreed
that whoever left it must have been acquainted with my
routine.’

‘
No excuse though, is it? I mean, what kind of person would
dump a newborn baby in a cardboard box on the side of the street in
the freezing cold?’

‘
I know, and Frank suggested that maybe the mother was hiding
nearby, keeping an eye out, waiting for me to show up. To be
honest, I was so taken aback that I didn’t think to
look.’

‘
Right.’

‘
He reckoned that it was most likely a misunderstanding of some
kind and that he’d have it all sorted out in no time. He said to me
“Ella, for what it’s worth, I think leaving it outside your place
was intentional because if there’s one person in this village who’d
know exactly what to do it’s you. You’re great with kids and sure
aren’t you always taking in strays? This place isn’t nicknamed The
Heartbreak Café for nothing.” She shook her head sadly. ‘And while
I agreed with him, I just thought that this was a lot more than a
miserable old mongrel – it was a poor innocent little baby. And not
only that, but this is a small town, a small community where people
look out for each other – not some anonymous city.’

‘
I know what you mean.’

‘
So I had very little sympathy, and as far as I was concerned
there’s nothing – absolutely no reason in the world that could
justify abandoning a poor defenceless baby on the street. But,’
Ella added with a heavy sigh, ‘I suppose it’s all too easy to play
judge and jury until you know the whole story.’

Nina
Hughes had never liked Lakeview and this time was certain she’d
like it even less. She sorely wished that her mother had picked
another time to go travelling the world with her stepfather,
especially when Nina really needed a shoulder to cry on – or more
importantly, a place to stay. After all that had happened with
Steve, she couldn’t stay in Galway and run the risk of bumping into
him; it was a small city after all. Instead, she needed to get away
and be somewhere she could clear her head. Even so, she couldn’t
believe that she’d been reduced to asking her father if she could
stay with him.

But she’d
had little choice. While normally she could just return to Dublin
and move back in with her mum for a while until she got herself
sorted, her mother and Tony were currently travelling, and had
rented their house out for the six months they’d be away. So
instead, she’d decided to ask Patrick if she could come and stay in
Lakeview. It would only be for a while, at least until she got her
head together and figured out what she should do next.

Feeling
like a silly teenager, and not at all like the mature, self-assured
thirty-year old she was, Nina had phoned a few days before to ask
if he could put her up.

‘
OK, Nina.’ Her father had said in his usual calm,
disinterested way, and she guessed that he hadn’t changed much in
the eight years or so since she’d had anything to do with him. Her
mum used to force her on duty visits when she was younger, although
in all honesty, Nina felt that Patrick didn’t care one way or
another whether or not he got to see his only daughter.

Her
parents split up when she was a child, and Nina couldn’t understand
how they’d ever got together in the first place, as her quiet,
stern father was the total opposite to her bright and bubbly mum.
Probably because they’d both grown up in the same small town –
although Lakeview was more of a village really.

And while
Cathy her mother, had never admitted as much, Nina suspected that
her conception hadn’t exactly been planned, and that her parents’
marriage was less of the romantic and more of the shotgun variety.
But that didn’t bother her; her mum was now blissfully happy in
Dublin with Tony (who was more of a father to Nina than Patrick had
ever been) and while she’d endured the odd childhood weekend down
in Lakeview, once she hit her mid-teens she’d put her foot down and
stopped going altogether. If this bothered her father he’d never
let on, and in all honesty, Nina didn’t particularly care. She
didn’t know the guy, had never known him really, and it was mere
desperation that was forcing her to stay with him now.

She
wondered if he was still obsessed with collecting and fixing
things. Patrick patiently taking apart and fixing TV sets, radios –
anything electronic, and rambling on to her about them was probably
her most enduring memory of her childhood visits here. While she
might have thought it was interesting then, she considered it kind
of nerdy now. The guy would have been in his late-thirties at the
time, so why hadn’t he been out on the town enjoying himself like
her mum and Tony? Another baffling reason to wonder what Cathy had
ever seen in him.

‘
Patrick is a kind and very generous man,’ her mother would
repeatedly tell her, determined never to say a bad word against
him, which Nina suspected was mostly borne out of guilt for leaving
him and taking away his daughter. ‘Even after we separated, he
never let me want for anything as far as you’re
concerned.’

Which
Nina supposed was honourable given the fact that she knew Patrick
had no interest in her whatsoever. She was always just this
annoying kid who turned up now and again to mess up his pristine
house and orderly way of life. And boy was her father orderly. Back
then, he used to rise at seven am on the dot (even at weekends), go
out to the local newsagents, after which he’d read the morning
paper over a breakfast of tea (with two sugars) and of fried eggs
and bacon with toast. Nina recalled one time in a childish attempt
to please him she’d overdone the toast and he’d gone ballistic. Not
angry as such, just a quiet, barely controlled annoyance, which to
a ten-year old was somehow even scarier. Nina had never again
attempted to make him breakfast after that.

Now as
the bus approached the outskirts of Lakeview, she wondered if
anything had changed. The popular tourist village – centred round a
broad oxbow lake from which it took its name – was very pretty
certainly. The lake, surrounded by low-hanging beech and willow
trees, wound its way around the centre and a small humpback stone
bridge joined all sides of the township together.

But it
was the cobbled streets and ornate lanterns on Main Street, as well
as the beautiful one-hundred-year-old artisan cottages decorated
with hanging floral baskets, that were the true attraction
here.

Because
of its picturesque beauty, the village had long ago been designated
heritage status by the Irish Tourist Board, so the chocolate-box
look and feel of the place was intentionally well
preserved.

As for
changes Nina noted, well there were certainly a lot more houses
anyway; newer more ostentatious ones on the outskirts, the kind
that city types moving to the country built trying to prove to
their friends that they were living the good life, when in reality
most of them were probably desperate to escape back to Dublin.
Humongous bedrooms, huge gardens and outdoor hot-tubs would never
be enough to mask the dreary realities of small town living, at
least not as far as she was concerned.

Nope
Lakeview was a temporary stop, an emergency stop almost, and as
soon as she’d got her head together, she’d be out of here quick as
you like.

She got
off on Main Street at the bus stop nearest the lake, outside that
café that had been there for donkeys years, the Heartbreak Café the
locals used to jokingly refer to it – supposedly due to the fact
that it was a long-time favourite haunt in which to get dumped. She
wondered if that older woman who collected all the stray animals
still ran the place. Ella, wasn’t it? What was it with this place
and collecting things? Although that was unfair really, Ella had
always been very nice to Nina, cottoning on to the fact that she
was usually there against her will. Or perhaps she just sympathised
with the fact that Nina’s dad never really had much time for
her.

Putting
her backpack over her shoulders, she walked along the lake and
headed out across the old stone bridge that led in the direction of
her father’s house.

She’d
told him on the phone that she’d be there around six.

‘
That’ll be dinnertime. Do you want me to make extra?’ he
asked.

Nina
hesitated. ‘What are you having?’

‘
Bacon and cabbage,’ he told her and again, she couldn’t help
but shake her head in amazement. How could she have forgotten? Pork
chops on Mondays, steak on Tuesdays, and bacon and cabbage on
Wednesdays… Patrick Hughes had cooked these same dishes without
fail on the same days all that time ago, and now years later was
still doing the same.