“What happened?”
“Michael’s career took off. We moved. Then Daniel needed stability. Then my father became ill. There was always something more urgent.”
“And the bookstore?”
She stirred her coffee.
“It became a dream I kept postponing until I eventually convinced myself I had outgrown it.”
I shook my head.
“You don’t outgrow a dream just because you stop talking about it.”
She studied me.
“Have you always been this annoyingly optimistic?”
“No. I used to be much worse.”She laughed again.
And something happened in that moment.
I noticed the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the small silver strands in her hair, and the way her entire face changed when she smiled.
For one dangerous second, I saw her not as Daniel’s mother, but as Karen.
A woman with dreams she had buried, a marriage she had trusted, and a future she had never imagined having to build from scratch.
