11. Zola #2
Could have stayed all that time ago and built the life I told myself I didn't want because I was too afraid of needing someone more than they needed me.
"I thought I'd have kids one day." The words slip out before I can stop them. "Before the accident. I never—I wasn't ready then, I knew that. But I thought eventually, when things were more stable, when I was older..."
I trail off because finishing the sentence means acknowledging the wound that never quite healed. The future I lost along with everything else that night.
Naomi stays quiet. Lets the admission sit between us without trying to fix it or explain it away.
"Now I have Maeve and she's—she's everything. She's perfect. But she's not mine, not really, and every time I hold her I remember that I'll never..." My voice breaks. "I'll never carry someone. Never feel them grow inside me. Never have that."
"I know." Naomi shifts, adjusting Maeve's weight. "And I'm sorry. That's—there's no making that okay."
She doesn't try to tell me adoption is just as good or that being Maeve's mom is the same as giving birth. Doesn't minimize the loss or suggest I should be grateful for what I have. Just acknowledges the ache and lets it exist.
That's what I've always liked about Naomi. She doesn't bullshit. Doesn't pretend hard things are easy or that pain stops hurting if you reframe it correctly.
"How long has it been?" she asks after a moment. "Since the accident?"
"Eight years." Long enough that most people think I should be over it. Long enough that bringing it up feels self-indulgent, like I'm dwelling on something that doesn't matter anymore. "Sometimes I forget about it for weeks and then something happens and it all comes back."
Like inheriting a baby. Like suddenly becoming a mother to someone else's child and realizing this is as close as I'll ever get to the life I used to imagine.
Maeve makes a soft sound, face scrunching again. Naomi runs her hand over those dark curls, soothing, and the baby settles.
She's so good at this. Makes it look natural and easy, the kind of thing you just know how to do if you're built right for motherhood. Meanwhile I'm still panicking every time Maeve cries, convinced I'm doing something catastrophically wrong.
"You're thinking too loud." Naomi's watching me now, expression somewhere between amused and concerned. "I can practically hear it from here."
"I'm just—" I set down my fork, appetite gone despite the half-finished pasta. "I don't know if I'm doing any of this right. The store, Maeve, all of it. I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water."
"You've been doing it for two weeks while grieving your best friend," Naomi points out. "Cut yourself some slack."
Slack. The concept feels foreign. I've spent years holding myself together through sheer force of will, refusing to need anyone or let anyone see me struggle.
Coming back to Philadelphia was supposed to be temporary—just long enough to help Nia through her illness, to make sure she wasn't alone.
I never planned to stay. Never planned to become a mother or a business owner or any of this.
But here I am anyway, sitting in a bookstore that smells like cedar and old paper, watching my friend hold a baby who's legally mine now, trying to figure out how to build a life from pieces I never wanted.
The bell above the door chimes again. A customer—middle-aged woman, scanning the shelves with the kind of purposeful attention that means she knows what she's looking for.
I start to stand but Naomi waves me off. "Finish eating. I've got her."
"You're holding Maeve."
"And I can still help someone find a book." She's already on her feet, moving toward the customer with Maeve still asleep against her shoulder. "Hi there, can I help you find something?"
The woman smiles, charmed immediately by the sight of a sleeping baby. "I'm looking for the new Toni Morrison biography?"
"Back wall, second shelf from the top." I call it out before Naomi has to guess. At least I've got the inventory memorized, even if the spreadsheet defeats me.
Naomi shoots me a look—See? You know what you're doing—and guides the customer toward the right section.
I watch them go, watch Naomi navigate the space like she's worked here for years instead of just visiting, watch Maeve sleep through it all like being passed between people is normal.
Maybe it will be normal. Maybe this is what our life looks like now—me running the store, Naomi helping when she can, Maeve growing up surrounded by books and people who loved her mother.
Maybe I can actually do this.
The thought feels dangerous. Feels like hope, which I've been avoiding because hope means vulnerability and vulnerability means I might actually care about succeeding at this instead of just surviving it.
The customer comes back with three books—the Morrison biography plus two novels. I ring her up, wrap them carefully, send her off with a smile that feels almost genuine.
Naomi settles back into the chair, Maeve still peacefully asleep. "See? You handled that perfectly."
"You found the book."
"You knew where it was." She adjusts Maeve slightly. "Stop waiting for permission to believe you're competent."
But competence feels like a lie I'm not qualified to tell. Every decision feels like guesswork, every moment like I'm one wrong move away from everything falling apart.
"I don't know how to do this," I admit quietly. "Any of this. I'm not—I'm not built for this kind of responsibility."
"Yes, you are." Naomi's voice is firm. "You're just scared. Which is normal. Which means you're doing it right."
Naomi stays for another hour, filling the space with easy conversation and the kind of comfortable silence that doesn't require performance.
She helps me reorganize the children's section—a project Nia started three weeks before she died and never finished—and shows me pictures of Jordan from his first day of high school, gangly and self-conscious in new clothes even if he tries to hide it.
When she finally leaves, Maeve is still asleep in the portable crib, tiny chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm that means she's deeply under. The afternoon stretches ahead, quiet and slow. Only two customers in the past hour, both browsing without buying.
I should be grateful for the lull. Should use the time to tackle the inventory spreadsheet or update the website or any of the hundred small tasks that keep piling up.
Instead I find myself wiping down shelves that are already clean, straightening books that don't need straightening, moving through the familiar motions because staying busy means the grief can't quite catch up.
It's always there though. Just beneath the surface. Waiting for those moments when my hands are still and my mind wanders and suddenly I'm remembering Nia's laugh or the way she'd hum while organizing displays or how she'd read to Maeve in that soft voice that made every story sound like magic.
I miss her so much it feels physical. Like something vital got carved out and the wound won't close.
The thing is, I thought grief would get easier after my mom died.
Thought I'd learned how to carry that weight, how to function around the absence of someone I loved.
But losing Nia is different. Sharper. Maybe because I'm older now and understand exactly what I've lost. Maybe because this time I have to keep showing up, have to run her business and raise her daughter and pretend I'm capable when I feel like I'm barely holding myself together.
Or maybe it's just that loss never gets easier. You just get more practiced at faking functional.
I move to the register, pulling up the inventory system on the laptop.
The spreadsheet glares back at me, columns of data that refuse to make sense no matter how many times I stare at them.
Nia had a degree in business. Actually understood things like profit margins and overhead costs and quarterly projections.
I have a half-finished nursing degree I never went back to and eight years of bartending experience.
Not exactly qualified for this.
My phone buzzes.
Naomi: Let me know if you need anything. Jordan says hi to Maeve.
I smile despite myself. Jordan was so sweet with her last week, patient and gentle in a way that surprised me.
Fourteen-year-old boys aren't supposed to be good with babies, but he held her like she was precious, let her grab his fingers and pull his hair, made faces that actually got her to stop crying.
Naomi's raising him right. Building the kind of family I used to think was impossible—the kind where people stay and show up and don't run when things get complicated.
The kind I ran from because I was too terrified to believe it could last.
I push the thought away, focus on the spreadsheet. Nia organized everything by publisher, then by genre, then by publication date within each genre. It's logical once you understand the system, but every time I think I've got it figured out, I discover another layer of complexity.
She was so careful with all of this. So meticulous. The bookstore was her dream and she treated it like something sacred, something worth protecting and nurturing.
Now it's mine. This dream I never asked for, this responsibility I'm not qualified to handle.
But I can't let it fail. Can't let everything Nia built just collapse because I don't know what I'm doing. She trusted me with this. Trusted me with her daughter and her business and her legacy.
I can't fuck it up.
My eyes blur staring at numbers. I blink hard, refocus, force myself to actually read the categories instead of just skimming.
Children's books need reordering—we're low on board books and picture books for toddlers.
Young adult section is overstocked on dystopian romance but short on contemporary.
Literary fiction is balanced but we need more debut authors, more diverse voices.