The day she stopped waiting

Chapter 12

Rose Callahan had run the bookstore for twenty-two years.

She had opened it after her divorce, which she referred to without bitterness as "the best accident of my life" not the marriage, she was clear, but the end of it. She had used her half of the house sale and a small inheritance from an aunt she barely remembered and she had rented the space on Briar Cove's main street and she had opened a bookstore, which everyone told her was a terrible idea and which had been, in fact, a very good idea, because people in small coastal towns read and because Rose had an instinct for what people needed even when they didn't know they needed it.

She had a gift for people. Lydia recognized it immediately, partly because it was different from Selene's gift for people. Selene's gift was about warmth she made you feel seen by reflecting warmth back at you. Rose's gift was about accuracy. She saw things correctly and then responded to what she actually saw, not to what would make you feel good.

"You're not running from something," Rose told Lydia about two months in, on a quiet Wednesday afternoon when they were sorting new stock in the back room. "I mean, you are, but that's not the main thing. The main thing is you're running toward something. You just don't know what it is yet."

Lydia looked up from the box she was unpacking. "How can you tell?"

"People running from things are always looking back. You never look back. You look at what's in front of you and you actually see it." Rose put a stack of books on the shelf. "You noticed that Mrs. Hendricks switched to decaf without her saying anything. You noticed that Petra was upset last Friday before she said a word. You see things. People who are just trying to escape don't bother to see."

Lydia didn't say anything for a moment.

"I used to see things all the time," she said. "At home. I kept I kept this notebook. I wrote down things I noticed."

"What kind of things?"

"Evidence." She said the word and then heard how it sounded. "God, that sounds awful."

"It sounds like someone trying to trust their own perception when the people around them were telling her not to." Rose said it without drama. Just accurately. "What happened to the notebook?"

"I left it."

Rose looked at her. "On purpose?"

Lydia thought about it. "I think so. I think I left it because I didn't want to carry that version of myself anymore. The one who had to keep evidence to believe her own eyes."

"Good," Rose said. "That version was tired."

"She really was."

They went back to sorting books. After a while Rose said, "You should call someone. From your old life. Not to go back. Just to stay connected to yourself. The self you're building here is better, but it needs to know where it came from."

"I'm not ready."

"I know. I said should. I didn't say now."

Lydia smiled a little. "You're very direct."

"I find it saves time," Rose said. "At my age you start to appreciate efficiency."

"How old are you?"

"Old enough to know I wasted years being subtle when I should have just said the thing." Rose handed Lydia a stack of paperbacks. "Don't do that. It's inefficient and it makes your neck tense."

Lydia laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that came from somewhere real, not the polite version she had been performing for years.

"Right," she said.

"Right," Rose agreed, and went back to work.