The Bookshop on Clement Street

Clara went into town the next morning because her mother needed milk and she needed to be outside, moving, doing something that required no thinking.

She parked on Clement Street and that was when she saw it: Reilly Books, in the space that used to be the hardware store. The windows were warm and full of displays — stacked novels, a handwritten chalkboard, a low amber lamp in the corner. It looked like the kind of shop you wandered into at 2 PM and walked out of at 5, blinking, holding four books you didn't plan to buy.

She stood on the sidewalk for a minute. Then she went in.

It smelled like every good bookshop: paper and wood and a little dust and something faintly herbal from a candle she couldn't see. The shelves went nearly to the ceiling. Someone had painted the back wall the dark blue of a night sky. There were handwritten recommendation cards tucked into the shelves.

She picked up a paperback she'd already read. Carried it to the counter.

The young woman at the till — late twenties, copper hair, clearly not Marcus — glanced at the cover. "Good choice. That one made me cry on the bus." She smiled. "Marcus is actually the one who recommended it to everyone. He's out on a delivery till three if you want to say hi."

"Oh, I'm just passing through," Clara said.

She paid and left.

She sat in her car for a moment with the book in her lap. Then she drove to buy her mother's milk.

That evening her mother mentioned, as if it were nothing, that Marcus stopped by every couple of weeks to help with the gutters, the porch steps, the small things that needed doing. "Such a good man," her mother said. "Never did find the right person, though. Shame."

Clara said nothing.

She went to bed early. The letter sat on the nightstand, still sealed. She turned off the light and stared at the ceiling and thought about the way the bookshop had smelled.

At midnight, someone knocked at the front door.