Chapter 19
MY EYES OPENED AS the gentle morning light seeped into the room. On the branches of the pines that stood sturdy and tall and wise, sparrows chattered and danced outside my window. With a small flurry in my stomach, I remembered my call with Noah last night.
I floated out of bed and headed into the kitchen to find Dad in his usual spot with his coffee and his newspaper. Mom stood at the stove, folding scrambled eggs in a pan.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” Dad flashed a smile.
“Perfect timing,” Mom said over her shoulder. “I was just about to call you out for breakfast.”
“Smells great.” I wandered over to the fridge and poured myself a glass of orange juice. We each grabbed a plate, served ourselves, and settled down at the table.
“Busy day ahead.” Dad pierced a mound of eggs with his fork.
“Oh? Why’s that?” Mom asked.
“Al messed up on the inventory and ordered more broccoli than we’ll ever sell,” he grumbled. “I’ll have to go in today to see if I can reason with our suppliers, send some of it back.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“That’s okay. It’d be nice to get a new assistant manager, though.” Hint, hint.
“It’s really nice to have you here,” Mom remarked as she scraped butter across a piece of toasted sourdough.
“It’s nice to be here.” I already knew exactly where this conversation was headed.
“How long did you say we have you for?” she asked, doing her best to hide her hopefulness that somehow, something might have changed over the last week since I’d given them my dates.
“I fly back on Monday.”
Mom nodded. Dad cast his eyes down. A quick glance at their faces told me what I already knew: they were hoping that I’d decide to stay in Avila Falls. If not forever, at least through Christmas.
“It never feels like long enough,” she murmured. “But we understand that you have to get back.” The slight downturn of her mouth gave her true emotions away.
“Yeah,” I agreed. I felt my mind split in two.
One half told me that a week in Avila Falls was enough, that my real life couldn’t be put on hold for any longer than that.
The other half felt guilty for leaving them; they were getting older, after all.
And they were making more effort to ask about my life than ever before.
The two halves dueled it out as I ripped a piece of toast.
“Well, just know that we’re always happy to have you here. Any time.” Her eyes shone with sincerity.
Dad winked. “We promise not to turn that bedroom of yours into a craft room.”
I chortled.
The conversation shifted after that. Mom had started the book I’d gotten her and was already wrapped up in it. Dad wondered if I would help him clear out a few boxes that had been gathering dust in the garage before the weekend was out.
Twenty minutes later, I cleared our plates. Soapsuds built up on my palms as I scrubbed our dishes, envisioning what the next decade might look like for them as they entered their eighties. They’d been barely in their sixties when I left for New York—young enough in the grand scheme of things.
When had they grown old? Where had all the time gone? A knot formed in my throat as I thought about being thousands of miles away while they woke up day after day and ate eggs at the table, just the two of them. How could I have let that happen?
I dried my hands and found Mom in the living room, folding laundry. Before I could register what I was doing, I wrapped my arms around her. She hugged back immediately, cradling my head lovingly.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, sweetie.”
As soon as I parked my car, I gathered the coffees I had picked up from Jack’s and stepped into And Then There Were Books. After the mishap the other night, I’d been plagued with concern for Edith. I needed to check up on her, to make sure she was okay.
Edith stood at her desk, sorting through papers. She looked up. Her eyes turned into crescents as she smiled.
“Well, hello there, young lady.”
“Hey, Edith. I come bearing gifts,” I said, sliding a coffee over to her. I watched her hand, little and frail, as she took it.
“That’s very sweet of you. Thank you, dear.”
I peeked down at the papers she’d been shifting around. The past due bills were piling up. A weight settled on my shoulders.
“Edith,” I started.
“I know,” she interrupted. “I know. You’re worried about me.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I am.” She nodded as if to say, You’re right to be.
“Well, in the interest of honesty, I am too.” Her voice was steady, reflective.
I cocked my head. I assumed I’d have to plead my case at least a little bit, no matter her admittance to struggling with memory as of late.
Edith, despite being grandmotherly, was still stubborn.
It was the only way she’d survived everything life had thrown at her.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if you can tell, but I am getting old.” She chuckled. “I’m not sure I can keep doing this anymore.”
“Doing . . . what?” Was she saying what I thought she was saying? Surely I was misunderstanding her. There was no way.
“Running the store.” She shook her head. I felt my heart stop dead in its tracks. My mind went blank. “I’m no spring chicken,” she continued. “And it’s a lot of work, keeping an operation like this running smoothly.”
“What do you mean, you—” I couldn’t let myself finish my question. I couldn’t allow myself to utter the words that I knew she was implying.
“It might be time to consider closing the bookstore down,” she said matter-of-factly. The words pierced me, even though I should have seen them coming after what I’d witnessed just the other night. How could she keep things going?
No, no, no. This isn’t fair. This can’t be the one thing that does change in this town.
“You can’t,” I shot out. My legs threatened to give out at the mere thought of And Then There Were Books no longer existing.
The place where I’d scoured the aisles for endless hours and fallen in love with story after story, where I’d hidden and been safe from the rest of the world, where I’d spent the better half of my adolescence, where I had, for the first time in my life, belonged . . . gone for good.
“Honey,” Edith paused, selecting her next words carefully. “I just don’t know how I would continue to keep the doors open.”
Her words rang out in my mind, circling and echoing. I couldn’t let this happen.
“There must be something we can do. Some way that I can—” I began without knowing where the sentence would end. What could I do? Edith’s eyes softened.
“Let me show you something.”
She came out from behind the desk and took my hand, leading me to the back of the bookstore.
She unlocked the storage room and flicked on the light.
A single light bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated the small, cramped space.
Books, boxes, and filing cabinets lined the walls.
In the middle sat an old digital printer, the size of a copy machine, that had printed my novella all those years ago.
Edith had sent it off to be professionally bound before presenting it to me.
“You still have it.”
“I do.” She nodded and ran her delicate hand along the side, as if petting her faithful stallion of many years.
“I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to with this shop.
It would’ve been nice to have book drives and book clubs and live readings.
And to print even more novellas, of course.
But it was a gift from God to have it at all .
. . after all, it brought me you,” she said, her voice gentle and her smile tender.
“I’m happy with what I’ve done. It’s just too much to keep track of at my age, all alone.
” She gestured to the mess that surrounded us, the mountains of binders and piles of old books and stray papers.
Hiring help had never come into the equation for And Then There Were Books.
Partially because the store was too precious to Edith, but also because she didn’t have anything else to pour her time into.
It didn’t surprise me that with no help and a diminishing memory, it felt impossible to keep going.
“Let me help you organize this place,” I said.
“Oh, dear, I couldn’t ask—”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. Let me do this,” I insisted. I glanced around. It would be difficult for the bookstore to run smoothly with the storage room in such disarray.
This wouldn’t be a simple job. And it wouldn’t be the only job either.
Reorganizing would just be the first tiny step.
What would come later and would be far more important would be hiring someone to take over the day-to-day operations of running the place, which would probably take some convincing.
And if there was any hope of keeping the doors open, it had to be done soon—within the next few days, given that I still had a life about as crowded as this little room to get back to in New York.
Which reminded me, I had a call scheduled with Liv in a couple of hours that I still needed to plan out discussion questions for.
“Give me until noon in here. I’ll see what I can get done,” I said, rubbing my palms together and launching into action.
An hour and a half later, both my coffee and I were completely drained. I’d come up with a system, tossed out what felt like a never-ending stream of old files and junk, and tackled a few of the cabinets. The storage room wasn’t done, but my call with Liv was quickly approaching.
I ducked out of the back room and found Edith straightening up the kids’ corner.
“I’ve got to head out for today, but I made a pretty good dent in there. Maybe this will give you a little bit of time to hire someone to help you keep the store running.” Was I being too hopeful with that last statement?
Edith took my hands. “Thank you, dear,” she said, her eyes brimming with gratitude.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll make sure to stop by again before I leave next week to finish the job. In the storage room, at least.” She offered a soft smile before dropping her gaze. “Is something the matter?”
“Jane . . .” she started. Whatever she had on her mind, she wasn’t quite sure how to put it.
“Oh, it’s just the thought of you leaving .
. . I know you have things to get back to.
Just don’t forget that this is your home.
This shop and this town. And whatever happens, the memories you have here are safe and intact. ”
Her eyes bore into mine—those eyes that had been so kind and steady for almost three decades. I couldn’t let so many years pass before I saw them again. Not just because I would miss them too much, but because I didn’t know how many years I had left with Edith.
The thought knocked the air out of my lungs.
“You’re right. It is,” I whispered. We embraced before I headed out.