The Bakery on Elm Street

When Lena finished school at eighteen, everyone expected her to study law like her father.

However, she had spent every free afternoon in a small bakery near her home, watching the baker shape dough with careful hands.

The baker, an old man named Tomas, never asked her why she kept coming back; he simply handed her an apron one day.

For two years, Lena got up at four in the morning to learn the work, while her friends were still asleep.

Her father was angry at first, saying that she was wasting a good mind on bread.

Lena did not argue, but she kept practising until her cakes won a prize in the town competition.

When her father tasted the winning cake, he was silent for a long moment.

Finally he said that he had been wrong, and that a person who works with such patience will succeed anywhere.

Today Lena runs the bakery herself, and Tomas rests in the afternoon.

She still gets up at four, but now she smiles as she turns on the oven, knowing that this quiet life is the one she chose.