Chapter 22
Harley–Two Months Later
The fluorescent light overhead has been flickering since one o’clock.
It hums at a frequency that vibrates right in the back of my molars, a steady, irritating reminder that the county hasn’t updated this building since the Obama administration.
But I don’t mind it today. The erratic pulse of the bulb reminds me that my life is imperfect—just how I like it.
In this office, if something is broken, it stays broken until someone with a screwdriver and a grudge fixes it.
There’s no management team to hide the flaws.
I lean back in my chair, the springs groaning in protest. On my desk, a stack of folders sits like a mountain of lives waiting for a signature. At the top is the Delgado file. It’s thick, tattered at the edges, and smells faintly of the bodega downstairs where Mrs. Delgado buys her milk and eggs.
I pick up the final housing authorization and press my stamp onto the bottom right corner. The sound of the rubber hitting the paper is the most satisfying thing I’ve heard in weeks.
Permanent housing. Securing it didn’t require a six-figure grant from a foundation with a gilded crest. It didn’t require me to stand at an altar and trade my dignity for a legal aid fund.
It took fourteen phone calls, three visits to the housing authority, and a literal shouting match with a clerk who didn’t want to file the paperwork on a Friday afternoon.
I won. Mrs. Delgado gets to keep her kids, and she gets a roof that doesn’t leak. And I did it as Harley Matthews, social worker, not as a Thompson accessory.
“Matthews, you still breathing over there?”
I look up. Sarah is leaning against my cubicle wall, a stained mug of lukewarm decaf in her hand. Her hair is a disaster, and there’s a smudge of highlighter on her cheek.
“Just finished the Delgado case,” I say, stretching my arms over my head until my spine pops.
Sarah’s eyes widen. “The eviction stay? You got it?”
“Signed and sealed.”
“Damn,” she breathes, a small, genuine smile breaking through her fatigue. “Nice work, Harley. I thought that landlord had the city council in his pocket.”
“He did,” I say, shutting down my computer. The screen blinks into blackness. “But he didn’t have me.”
Now Mrs. Delgado gets to stay in her apartment until she can move into the new housing development that’s about to break ground.
I gather my things. My bag is a canvas tote with a fraying strap, packed with a half-eaten granola bar and a notebook full of scribbled court dates.
I look around my office. It’s a mess of beige partitions and motivational posters from 1994 that say things like “Teamwork Makes the Dream Work” in a font that’s aged like milk.
The carpet is a shade of gray that was probably meant to hide dirt but ended up just absorbing it.
It’s ugly. It’s cramped. Yet I’m not holding my breath.
“See you Monday, Sarah,” I call out, heading for the door.
“Have a good one, Harl. Don’t think about cases. Drink something that didn’t come out of a vending machine.”
The elevator ride down is slow, the cables rattling in the shaft like a box of old bones. When the doors slide open, the lobby is filled with the usual Friday evening rush.
As I slide into the driver’s seat of my Honda, my phone buzzes in my pocket.
It’s a text from Maria.
Still coming by the store? Lily found a crate of ‘classics’ from the seventies that smell like mothballs. We need a professional eye to tell us if they’re vintage or trash. Also, Dad made your favorite stew.
Smiling, I type back: On my way. Tell Lily I’m bringing my ‘trash’ radar.
I pull out of the lot, merging into traffic.
The route to the bookstore takes me through the heart of the city, past the brick three-flats and the corner bakeries where the windows are fogged from the heat of the ovens.
I pass the park where I used to walk with Skyler back when we lived in the apartment—the real one, the one with the drafty windows and the neighbor who played the cello at two a.m.
I don’t look away when I see the park bench where he told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Two months ago, that memory would have felt like a punch to the gut. Now, it just feels like a footnote in a book I’ve already finished reading.
I hit the blinker and turn onto the street where the bookstore sits.
The neon sign for Turning Purple Pages is flickering, a warm, inviting beacon in the growing dusk.
Last month Maria and Dad worked hard on renovating the store.
It’s about an hour away from their home, and about an hour and a half to Lake Forest, so it’s taken a lot of time and hard work.
Like my own career, I’m so proud of them.
I park and sit for a moment, listening to the engine tick as it cools down.
The bell above the door gives a cheerful, tinny jingle as I step inside. Immediately, the air changes. It’s a thick, intoxicating mix of fresh pine sawdust, wet paint, and that specific, vanilla-scented musk that only comes from thousands of old pages.
Turning Purple Pages is currently a beautiful, chaotic mess.
Dad is at the far wall, perched on a short stepladder. He’s wearing his old, charcoal-stained work pants and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbow, holding a level against a new shelf.
“Dad,” I say, dropping my bag onto the counter.
He doesn’t look down right away. He waits for the bubble in the level to settle exactly in the center, then marks the wood with a pencil stub he keeps tucked behind his ear. Only then does he turn, his face breaking into a slow, weathered grin.
“Hey, Peanut. You’re late. Lily already tried to organize the ‘Romance’ section alphabetically by the hero’s eye color.”
“It was a valid system!” Lily yells from the back.
She pops her head out from behind a stack of boxes, her violet curls wilder than they were this morning and a smudge of black ink across the bridge of her nose. She’s currently wrestling with a vintage cash register we bought on eBay.
“I’m telling you, Maria,” Lily says, turning back to my stepmother, “this thing is sentient. I tried to ring a practice sale and it bit me. Literally. The drawer has teeth.”
Maria laughs. She’s standing behind the main counter, her hands deep in a box of stationery.
“Thanks for coming, Harley,” Maria says, coming around the counter to give me a quick, fierce hug. “Especially after working all day.”
“Mrs. Delgado is staying in her apartment,” I say.
Dad lets out a low whistle of approval. “That’s my girl. Using that stubborn streak for something useful.”
I move toward the center of the store, where three large, mahogany-stained tables are waiting to be dressed. Then, I start pulling books from a crate marked “Staff Favorites”.
“What do we need?” I ask, already envisioning a display.
“Artistic flair,” Lily says, finally abandoning the killer cash register and joining me. She leans her hip against the table, watching me work. “Maria wants ‘Intellectual Chic.’ I’m pushing for ‘Books You Can Read While Crying in a Bathtub.’ I feel like there’s a middle ground somewhere.”
I pick up a copy of “The Great Gatsby” and place it in the center of other books about lost souls, bright lights, and the cost of the American dream.
“Let’s go with ‘The Price of Perfect,’” I murmur.
Lily watches me arrange the titles. She doesn’t say anything for a long minute, which for Lily is a lifetime. “You okay, Harl? No shivers? No urge to break down and call the prince of Lake Forest?”
I pause, a stack of paperbacks in my hands. I wait for the feeling—the pang of longing, the hollow ache, the reflexive need to defend him—but there’s…
Nothing.
“I didn’t even bring my phone in from the car,” I say. It’s a lie, but only a small one. It’s in my bag, silent. “And if I did, the only person I’d be waiting to hear from is the plumber for my new place.”
Lily grins and bumps her shoulder against mine. “That’s my sister. Cold as ice and twice as pretty.”
“I’m not cold, Lil,” I say, leaning over to adjust a display of poetry books. “I’m awake.”
We work for half an hour. Dad finishes the shelving, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of his hammer providing a heartbeat.
I swear, he’s doing it on purpose. Meanwhile, Maria organizes the children’s corner, arranging beanbags that are definitely not color-coordinated with the family crest. Lily and I tackle the window display, hanging old, yellowed book pages from twine so they look like they’re flying.
The bell jingles again.
It’s not a contractor or a neighbor, but a couple. They look like they’re in their late twenties.
I’m kneeling by a lower shelf, tucking a copy of “The Secret Garden” into its slot, when I pause. I’m not eavesdropping exactly, but I’m observing—it’s a professional habit, the social worker in me. Knowledge is power.
The woman is wearing a pair of jeans that have seen better years and an oversized cardigan that could be from a boyfriend’s closet. Her hair is bunched into a messy knot at the top of her head, held together by a pencil.
“Oh, look at this one,” she says, her voice low and filled with genuine, quiet excitement. She pulls a thick volume from the ‘History’ section.
The man with her doesn’t sigh. Doesn’t check his Patek Philippe. Nor does he glance around to see if anyone is judging her for her scuffed shoes or her lack of a blow-dry. Instead, he steps closer, his hand naturally finding the small of her back.
“You already have three books in your hand,” he says, but there’s a grin in his voice.
“I have four hands,” she counters, laughing.
“Make it four then,” he says. “I’ve got you.”
I watch them move through the aisles. She picks up a book, smells the spine, and makes a face. He laughs and tells her she’s a nerd. She agrees.
It’s so simple. It’s so devastatingly, beautifully simple.
I feel a strange, cool sensation in my chest, but it isn’t grief. It’s the sound of the final door clicking shut.
Going to stand, my knees creak. Across the room, Lily leans against the vintage register, her eyes flicking between watching me and the couple. She has that protective, sharp look in her eye—the one she gets right before she asks if I’m about to have a breakdown.
I look at her. I look at the couple, who are now debating the merits of a mystery novel near the front window.
I give Lily a small, slow head shake. No, I don’t need red wine. No, I don’t need a distraction.
I just need to be right here.
I smile at my sister—a genuine, easy thing that doesn’t require effort. Lily’s shoulders relax, and she gives me a quick wink before turning back to the customers.
“Find everything okay?” she asks them, her voice bright and unscripted.
I am exactly where I belong.
And I realize now I’m ready to open myself to love again.