“A hoarder?” Liza suggests.
“Yes!” the woman says, loosening the scarf around her neck. “That’s exactly it. He has far too many books.”
Millie and I exchange knowing looks and, for the first time, find ourselves in a moment of…agreement. However repugnant this woman finds her husband’s “bad habit,” we both know the same truth: There’s nothing wrong with having too many books.
Still, Millie plays along. “So, he has a bit of a problem, does he?”
The woman nods, exasperated. “The other day, he actually suggested that we turn the guest bedroom into a library. A library!”
“Wow,” Millie says, shaking her head in false sympathy. “That’s…terrible.” She reaches into the box and selects a leather-bound book from the top and opens the cover. “An American first edition of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront?.” She shows us the title page. “Authorship is misattributed to Emily’s sister Charlotte. The credit line, ‘By the author of Jane Eyre.’ That’s a famous literary mistake.” She selects another and raises an eyebrow. “These are quite special. Are you sure your husband doesn’t mind you selling them?”
She shrugs. “He’s a professor of English literature. If we kept every book that comes into our home, I wouldn’t be able to walk into my kitchen.”
“Well, then, if you’re certain you want to part with them—”
“I’m certain,” the woman says immediately. “And I have at least ten more boxes at home.”
“All right, then,” Millie continues. “It might take me a bit of time to sort through.”
The woman turns to the street, where an SUV with hazard lights flashing is parked out front. “Listen, I’m in a bit of a hurry. Maybe just give me twenty quid and we’ll call it good?”
Millie’s eyes widen. “I have to be honest with you,” she says. “These books are worth more than twenty quid.”
“All right, I’ll take fifty, then. I was supposed to pick my daughter up from a playdate a half hour ago, and at this rate, I’ll be late to my Pilates class—again.”
“Right,” Millie says, entering the transaction into the register before handing the woman a sales slip to sign. “Fifty it is, then.”
“Well,” Millie says after the woman darts out. “At the end of the day, not everyone is a book lover.”
“Her loss, your gain,” Liza says with a shrug.
Together, we have a look. Millie reaches for one of the books and examines its copyright page as I pick up one of C. S. Lewis’s early works. “Can you even imagine your spouse doing something like this behind your back?” I say, my mind suddenly turning to Nick. “Well, I guess I actually can.”
Liza nods. “I’d like to be a fly on the wall in that house when her husband comes home and all hell breaks loose. Can’t you just see the headline? Breaking news: Man kills wife for selling his rare book collection.”
Mille is in her own world, sorting through the treasures in the box. “One of my favorite literary thrillers,” she says, holding up a novel I don’t recognize. Liza and I follow her as she walks to a nearby bookcase where she tucks it onto a middle shelf. I eye the array of books carefully, and though the obvious disorganization pains my librarian’s soul, I know better than to say anything just yet. Instead, I direct my attention to the books and one, in particular, catches my eye.
“Wait,” I say, extracting a familiar spine from the shelf. I know it in an instant, of course. The Last Winter. Not long after my mother left, a librarian suggested I read it. I always wondered if she had a sixth sense. How else would she have thought to pluck that dusty old copy from the highest shelf? A forgotten novel for a forgotten girl. Well, I read it and read it and read it. It became the soundtrack to my heavy heart, the drumbeat to my beleaguered journey through my teen years and beyond. I must have read it a dozen times—at least.
Millie peers over my shoulder. “One of your favorites?”
“Yes,” I say without explanation as I run my hand along the edge of its cover. In the frenzy of the divorce and subsequent house sale, I’d misplaced my beloved copy, and the loss had been a blow.
But Millie merely shrugs. “Go ahead, take it.”
“Thank you,” I say, searching her eyes once again for even the faintest sign of a peace offering.
“Let’s not be silly,” Millie says with an air of indifference. “It’s your store now, isn’t it?”
She’s right, of course. What’s-his-name from Bevins and Associates explained that Millie had signed over her ownership stake years prior. She’d merely uttered a statement of fact, and yet her words make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
* * *
—
“Don’t let her get to you,” Liza says later as we walk up the next block to the market. “Under that tough exterior, Millie’s really just an old softie. You’ll see.”
I nod reluctantly, thanking her for today’s tour of Primrose Hill before we part ways. Alone with my thoughts, I grab a cart and roam the aisles of the market aimlessly. I used to love grocery shopping, especially with Nick. When we were first married, I looked forward to our after-work trips to Whole Foods. He’d push the cart, and I’d load it up. We were a team, until we weren’t.
I sigh, eyeing the foreign-looking labels on the cans and boxes. The yogurt looks different. Everything is different. After thirty minutes, I place my selections on the checkout counter belt—a loaf of bread, a box of granola, a carton of what I think is cream, strawberries, three bottles of cheap French burgundy, a wedge of brie, and one lonely apple. It’s a random, mismatched, and empty combination, which feels like a metaphor for my life right now. I am all of these things.
I carry the bag back to the flat, then slump into the sofa, where I finally listen to the voicemail from Bevins and Associates left earlier today. The news isn’t good. A hefty inheritance tax （far more than I can afford to pay） is due within six months, or rather, just before Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
Sure, I now own the bookstore and the building, but am cash poor from the divorce proceedings, I don’t have the liquid assets to cover the taxes. If only Nick hadn’t been hellbent on selling the house so quickly—and at a loss. But Bevins and Associates has a quick fix. “Fortunately for you, we’ve been approached by a potential buyer—a developer who is willing to pay a fair price.”
I set the phone down and lean my head against the back of the sofa, trying to face the situation logically: I can’t afford the inheritance tax and there isn’t any other reasonable solution on the table. I could sell, as the attorneys suggest, and be left with, at best, a small profit, or possibly just break even. It would be a sad end to the store’s twenty-year run, but why should I be concerned with a venture my mother took up after leaving her child—me?
I think about the whimsical little shop with Percy purring in the window, even with Millie in all of her cantankerousness behind the counter—despite my best efforts, I am already falling for it, all of it.