The woman at the café wore yesterday's mascara and ordered three espressos.

Maria watched from behind the counter, noting the tremor in her hands, the way she checked her phone every thirty seconds. The first espresso disappeared in two swallows. The second, she cradled like a prayer.

"Rough night?" Maria asked, wiping the counter between them.

"Rough life." The woman laughed, but her eyes were somewhere else. "Do you believe in signs?"

Maria had learned not to answer philosophical questions before noon. "Depends on the sign."

"I found a letter this morning. From my grandmother. She died three years ago." The woman's voice cracked on the number. "It was in a book I'd never opened—a cookbook she gave me when I got married. Inside the front cover, her handwriting: 'Darling, if you're reading this, you've finally decided to start cooking. Or you're ready to leave him. Either way, I'm proud of you.'"

The café hummed around them—the hiss of the espresso machine, conversations in Catalan and English, the bell above the door marking arrivals and departures.

"And?" Maria asked.

"I'm allergic to garlic." The woman smiled for the first time, real and crooked. "I never would have opened it. My daughter needed it for a school project."

Maria slid the third espresso across the counter. "On the house."

"I don't even like coffee that much." But she wrapped both hands around the cup. "I just needed somewhere to sit that wasn't my car or my house or the lawyer's office I'm supposed to be at in twenty minutes."

"You could stay," Maria offered. "We have pastries. Terrible WiFi. No judgment."

The woman's phone buzzed. She looked at it, then at Maria, then at the window where morning light was just finding its way between buildings. "How do you know which signs to follow?"

"You don't." Maria refilled the sugar jar, giving her hands something to do. "You just keep moving until something feels less like running away."

The woman finished her third espresso, left twenty euros for an eight-euro bill, and walked out into the Barcelona morning. Maria watched her pause at the corner, turn left instead of right.

Sometimes that's all it takes. A different direction. A grandmother's handwriting. Three espressos from a stranger who doesn't ask too many questions.

The café filled with its usual rhythms. Maria wiped down the counter and waited for the next story to walk through the door.

#flashfiction #Barcelona #moments #theinbetween