Karen ordered coffee.
I ordered coffee and apple pie.
She stared at my plate.
“You told me the coffee was terrible.”
“It is.”
“And yet you ordered it.”
“I believe in supporting local businesses, even when they disappoint me.”
For the first time that night, Karen laughed without trying to hide it.
We talked until nearly three in the morning.
We talked about Daniel’s disastrous teenage haircut, the time he accidentally flooded his parents’ laundry room, and my failed attempt to start a landscaping business when I was nineteen.
Then Karen mentioned something that surprised me.
“I always wanted to open a bookstore.”
I put down my fork.
“A bookstore?”She looked embarrassed.
“It sounds silly now.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m forty-eight, my marriage is collapsing, and I have a mortgage to worry about.”
“None of those things explains why a bookstore is silly.”
She smiled faintly.
“When Daniel was young, I used to take him to this little shop near the old library. I loved the smell of the pages, the quiet, the feeling that every book contained a different life waiting to be discovered.”
