Chapter 14 #2
“I’m back in business, sugar,” Dixie said, holding up her hand and wiggling her fingers.
Then she looked at the romance section, the one that Liza had reorganized twice.
“Now the first order of business is putting these books back where they belong.”
Liza watched as Dixie undid half of her careful arrangement and put the shelves back to their original, deeply personal order.
Liza didn’t argue.
She just moved the beanbag chairs to the other side of the children’s section and pretended it had been her idea.
The scholarship fund continued to grow.
A travel blog that Liza found while checking the bookstore’s online mentions had written about Seagrove’s “charming bookstore and puzzle shop duo.”
The fairy lights between the buildings had become a landmark.
Customers showed Liza photos they’d posted online.
More than one had commented, This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.
And they weren’t wrong.
Meg started bringing Vivi by the bookstore every Saturday morning.
Vivi had named herself the Children’s Section Quality Control Officer and took the role with the gravity of a Supreme Court justice.
She rearranged the books herself by her own system, which seemed to be based on how good the covers looked, and then delivered her findings to Liza in weekly memos written on notebook paper in crayon.
And the tangram boy, Eli. Liza had learned his name the week after the festival when his mother brought him back.
Well, he came to the puzzle shop every Thursday after school.
Liza could hear him through the wall, peppering Grant with questions.
Grant had started teaching him crossword construction.
And the first crossword that Eli completed on his own had a theme answer of Seagrove and a clue that read:
Place where puzzles are not just for smart people.
Grant had framed it and hung it next to the W. Elliott crossword behind the register.
On a Friday evening in late summer, Liza and Grant sat on the porch step between their shops.
The square was quiet.
The fairy lights were on, of course, and that owl cookie jar had just been refilled that morning with shortbread.
Through the open door of the bookstore, they could hear Dixie humming something from the country music station as she closed out the register.
Grant had a crossword grid on his lap, as he often did.
He was working on a new puzzle.
It had actually been commissioned by a small press in Vermont that reached out after the festival.
They wanted a monthly crossword for their literary magazine, published under the name W. Elliott.
Grant had said yes, because he could work from Seagrove and no one would ever ask him to attend a conference.
Liza had her laptop open, creating a marketing plan for the bookstore’s fall reading series.
She had designed the whole thing: author events, book clubs, a children’s literacy program tied to the Seagrove Scholars Fund.
Dixie had reviewed the proposal and said, “Honey, this is too many spreadsheets and not enough heart.”
But then she’d read the event descriptions and said, “Never mind, it’s perfect.”
Liza closed her laptop and leaned against Grant’s shoulder.
He shifted slightly to make more room for her, the way he always did.
“I called my mom today,” she said.
“How’d it go?”
“She wants to visit. She wants to see Dixie. She wants to meet you.” She paused. “She also wants to see her husband’s crossword books in a place where the person who made them lives.”
Grant was quiet for a moment. “I’d like that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think your dad would have liked it too.”
Liza smiled. She reached into her bag and pulled out the crossword book. Her father’s. The one that had traveled from Charleston to Seagrove in a box of things she could never leave behind.
She opened it to the page she’d marked.
This creator is a genius. I’d love to meet him someday.
She held it out so Grant could see it.
He’d read it before, of course, but tonight, in the fairy lights, with her shoulder warm against his, the words hit differently.
He took the book from her and held it for a moment, then picked up his pencil, not a pen, and wrote in the margin beside her father’s note in his small handwriting.
It’s nice to meet you, David. Your daughter found me. I’m glad she did.
He handed the book back.
Liza read it and pressed her lips together.
She closed the book and held it against her chest.
They sat on the porch step as the night settled in.
The ocean breathed beyond them and the fairy lights swayed.
Dixie’s humming still drifted through the open door and mixed with the sound of crickets in the distance.
And somewhere down the street, a screen door opened and a child called out for someone.
Grant put his arm around her and she leaned in.
The crossword sat on his knees, half-finished, full of words that connected to other words and were all held together by an architecture of care.
Piece by piece.
That’s how you build a life.
Not all at once.
Not in a flash of inspiration, but one word at a time.
One choice at a time.
All the small acts of bravery followed by another and another until the grid is full and the picture is clear.