Greenfields had been sixty per cent of our business.

Without them, I couldn't keep everyone on.

I had to let fifteen people go. I told each of them myself, one by one, in my little office with the blue boxes on the shelf.

Sandra, who'd worked for me since the harbour bakery. Josh, the apprentice baker, nineteen, with a new baby. Mr Treloar, who was sixty-two and had crimped pasties for me for nine years.

“It's not your fault, my love,” Mr Treloar said, patting my hand. “It's them up-country.”

That made it worse, somehow.

That night, I took Grandma Polly's recipe card out of my purse and looked at it for a long time.

21 crimps. No more, no less.

She'd written that in 1952, at a kitchen table in Trevennick. She'd never imagined anyone would take it from her.

And I'd handed it over. Because a man in an office told me I had to.

I'd never felt so stupid in my life.

Jenna found me again, at the same kitchen table.

“Mum,” she said quietly. “What's in the blue boxes?”

“Everything,” I said. “Three years of everything.”

“Then why are you crying?” she said. “Use it.”