Someone posted a photograph of one of Grace’s cakes online.
Orders doubled.
Then tripled.
A local café asked if we could supply desserts twice a week.
I said no at first because I thought we couldn’t handle it.
My children said otherwise.
“We’ve handled worse,” Michael told me.
He was right.
We named the business Fourteen Hearts Kitchen.
At first, it was just a name on handwritten labels.
Five years later, it was painted across the front of our first small bakery.
Ten years later, we had three locations.
Grace went to culinary school and returned as head baker.

Michael studied business and managed operations.
Anna handled marketing.
Others joined in different ways as they grew older.
Some eventually chose careers completely outside the company, but every one of them remained connected to it.
And every year, on the anniversary of the bakery opening, we took one family photograph.
Fourteen children.
One mother.
No Daniel.