CAD4-001
Barista: Jean-Marc Chausson
Date: Dec-1-2019
Receipt: CAD4-001
Subject: Business as Usual
What else is there to do but move forward?
I know what we lost—who we lost. Too many. Far too many. And for what? My own arrogance? My blind faith that I could see every outcome, plan for every possibility? Every Cafe suffered for it. We lost good people. Friends. Family.
I wouldn’t blame a single one of you for walking away, for tearing off your apron and leaving this wretched business behind. Hell, I thought about it myself. But if I am the only founding member left standing, isn’t it my burden to bear? My responsibility to press on in their stead? If no one serves it, the coffee will go Cold.
I met with the other Cafe Owners—Jenni, Jackie, and Jericho. They all chose to continue. So we will. Together. No longer as separate Cafes, but as one: the Fourth Cafe and Diner.
…And that leaves the question of the Eight Ball.
It can’t be split four ways. It can’t be shared. Someone has to be the one to hold it, to carry its weight. Even now, imagining it in my hands makes my stomach lurch. That cold, smooth metal, deceptively polished, as if it hasn’t already soaked up more grief than any of us can afford to give it. It’s heavier than it looks, like it knows what it is, like it wants to sink right through your fingers and drag you down with it.
Jenni and Jackie won’t touch it. Not after what it cost them. And out of the four of us, only Jericho has never held it. Never felt the way it settles against your palm like an iron brand, how it makes your thoughts turn in on themselves until they don’t feel like yours at all.
I warned him. Told him what it does, what it takes. But grief makes fools of us all. Where I would sooner walk away forever than seek that cursed thing’s knowledge again, Jericho—he wanted it. He craved the insight, the answers. So, in a way, he is the new “owner” of the Fourth Cafe and Diner. But this is not his burden alone.
Jackie will still lead her Baristas—what remains of them. She had the largest Cafe before, and she still does. Jenni will oversee the survivors of the original Cafe and Diner. And Jericho still has most of his staff, though they’re down three of their own.
And me?
I have no choice but to oversee it all. To try again. To atone for this failure.
Yours in mourning,
Jean-Marc