A CRAVING TO BELONG
Today’s Dose of Fiction, A 5-chapter series of micro-fiction stories.
Have you ever been invited behind the scenes?
Before everything was ready. The lights still warming up.
That moment when you’ve been invited into something still in the making. There’s a kind of magic in that space.
Pride for being included. Trusted with the mess. That quiet thrill of being part of what comes before the world sees it.
It stirs something deeper too.
A craving to belong. To be asked inside before the others.
See how this unfolds for the five friends from Echo Canyon in a recent micro-fiction series, Doses of Fiction.
Being Asked Inside Before the Others
1️⃣ Before The Doors Open
Jack met Riley at the back door with a paper cup of coffee and the ring of keys.
“Maryanne is icing cinnamon rolls,” he said. “You get the patio.”
He set one key apart from the rest. “Yours, if you want it.”
Riley turned it over in her palm. Not heavy, but it felt like something.
The café was quiet the way a stage is quiet before the curtain lifts. Chairs stacked. Floor swept. The hush of a room that remembers last night and still forgives you for it.
Maryanne waved from the kitchen window, flour on her cheek. “Go,” she mouthed, smiling. “Before everyone arrives.”
Outside, the air was cool against the stone. The old wall caught the first light. Riley walked the perimeter, fingertips grazing the rough edge where the new rail would run. She could already see it, the way chairs would angle toward each other, how people would lean in without noticing, how laughter would travel along the flagstone like water finding its line.
She took out her notebook and wrote the sentence her father gave her years ago.
Please, help us make this a place people want to sit.
Being invited in, before the doors, did something to her breathing. She didn’t feel hired. She felt trusted. It was the difference between consulting and belonging, between plans on paper and a key in your hand.
Behind her, the lock clicked as Jack opened the side door.
“Need anything?” he asked.
Riley looked up at the empty morning. “Just time,” she said. “And a few good chairs.”
2️⃣ Horse Troughs and Thyme
Val backed her truck up to the patio with the precision of someone who’d done this a few times too many.
Six galvanized troughs rattled in the bed.
“Please tell me these aren’t all for herbs,” Riley inquired, not scolding.
Val smirked. “Herbs, color, and conversation. We’re building a mood, remember?”
Jack poked his head out the café door. “Maryanne says to make it smell like hope.”
Val grinned. “Mint and basil it is.”
They worked through the morning in companionable silence, hands in the dirt, sleeves rolled up.
Riley handed Val the water hose. “You know,” she said, “when my dad talked about design, he always said, ‘Don’t build for the view. Build for the pause.’”
Val nodded, pressing a clump of thyme into soil. “Then we’d better give them a reason to linger.”
By noon, the troughs lined the stone wall, soft green against silver.
Maryanne appeared with lemonade. “Looks like somewhere I’d want to stay awhile,” she said.
Riley stood back, brushing dirt from her palms. “That’s the idea.”
The breeze shifted, carrying the scent of mint through the open doorway.
Inside, chairs scraped against tile. The day crowd would come soon, but for now, it was just them. The ones who got to see it first.
3️⃣ The Recipe That Remembers
The kitchen filled with a kind of music. Metal spoons on bowls, oil hitting hot pans, the low hum of voices that knew how to work together.
Shikáni stood beside her grandmother, who rolled dough with a steady rhythm.
“Food tastes different when it knows your story,” she said without looking up.
Riley leaned against the counter, notebook forgotten. She watched their hands, measured, patient, sure.
“You don’t really use recipes, do you?” she asked.
Navari smiled. “Memory is the recipe.”
Raven sprinkled roasted corn across a sheet pan. “She’s right. You don’t learn it, you feel it.”
Riley nodded. “That’s how I design. You build with memory, not measurements.”
Jack peeked in from the hallway, arms crossed, smiling. “I should’ve hired a poet.”
Maryanne swatted his shoulder. “You did. You just call her an architect.”
Laughter rippled through the kitchen, but it quieted into something else. A shared stillness that felt like reverence.
The scent of corn and warm dough rose around them, and Riley thought, This is what it means to belong in the making of something.
Outside, the patio waited, the herbs catching afternoon light.
Inside, the room breathed as one.
4️⃣ A Place That Holds You
The patio was finished.
Ramada complete. Lights strung. Tables set. The herb troughs shimmered silver under the first light of day.
Riley arrived early, coffee in hand, the key still warm from her pocket.
She walked the perimeter like she had that first morning, but this time the air felt different, settled, expectant.
She chose a table near the wall, the one angled perfectly for conversation.
The kind of table her father would have lingered at, sketching plans on napkins.
Maryanne stepped outside, wiping her hands on a towel. “You came before the crowd again.”
Riley smiled. “I like the quiet. It’s the only time you can feel what you built.”
Maryanne nodded. “You gave us a place that holds people.”
Riley looked around at the empty chairs and thought about all the hands that had shaped them. Contractors she knew she’d see again, Val’s soil-streaked, Raven’s flour-dusted, her own worn from years of designing spaces for everyone but herself.
A hummingbird darted between the planters, quick as breath.
She whispered, “A place that holds you,” and knew her father would’ve approved.
Inside, the first sound of dishes began, the start of the day. Maryann paused before going back in, a little shade of worry covered her face. “There’s more to come, Riley.”
5️⃣ The Soft Opening - Come Inside
The Canyon Café glowed under the desert twilight.
The doors were still locked to the public, but inside, Jack and Maryanne had set the tables for twelve.
“Just family,” Maryanne said. “The ones who helped us build it.”
The gang arrived one by one. Raven, Navira and Shikáni carrying bread warm from the oven, Val with herbs clipped fresh from the troughs, Skylar balancing a tray of glasses, Quinn trailing behind with her camera.
The evening unfolded without fanfare.
No ribbon, no speeches. Just the easy clink of forks and the hum of conversation that fills a room when everyone already knows each other’s stories.
Riley watched from the edge for a moment, taking it in. The glow of the patio lights, the smell of frybread, the way laughter curled into the corners.
Maryanne came over in the quiet space. “Riley, I didn’t mean to say anything to you earlier. I don’t want you to think there’s anything to worry about.” Jack approached them, unknowingly cutting off his wife.
He pulled Maryanne in with his arm around her shoulder and looked into Riley’s eyes. “You made this happen.”
Riley shook her head. “We did.”
Later, as plates emptied and the sky deepened to indigo, Maryanne raised her glass.
“To the builders, the planters, the storytellers.
And to the ones who stayed long enough to see it come alive.”
For a heartbeat, the room was quiet.
Then someone laughed, someone sighed, and Riley thought, This is what inside feels like.
Thank you for reading.
Sometimes the most powerful invitations don’t come with words.
They sound like, “Come in, it’s not quite ready.”
They feel like belonging before the world arrives.
That quiet space where trust lives.
I’m writing these to grow fiction here on Substack and to invite you inside with the Women of the Canyon. ❤️ Pull up a chair.
Marylee