Her expression softens. “She would, and we will.”
“I might have been able to fix this all immediately if I had the money my dad had set aside for me in his will, but after the medical bills were paid, along with the funeral expenses, there was nothing left. The lawyers told me he’d made an investment that went sideways the year before he died. Nick was furious that we had to call off the kitchen remodel we’d planned, but I didn’t care about the money. My father was such a hard worker, and he gave me a beautiful life. It killed me knowing that he carried the burden of that financial loss into his death.”
“I heard that he passed,” Millie says. “I’m sorry.”
“Six years ago,” I say. “Complications from a heart attack.”
“I was at their wedding,” she says.
“You were?”
Millie looks as if she wants to tell me a story, but doesn’t quite know where to start—or whether she should.
“Were they in love once, all those years ago?”
She pauses, the corners of her mouth turning upward into a half-smile. “Your father was a generous man, and…he did love your mother, very much.”
I picture both my parents at our dinner table in Santa Monica, each of them with their own secrets. “Before my dad died, he told me that he wished things had turned out differently—that she’d stayed.” A rush of emotion swirls inside me as I recall the pain and regret in his eyes in his final days, the lonely void I’d spent my teen years trying so hard to fill for him, while simultaneously ignoring my own pain. By then, he was so very weak and his voice was just a whisper. I’ll never forget the last time we spoke. He told me he was sorry, and it broke my heart. The only person who owed us both an apology wasn’t there.
“I’m sorry,” Millie says.
I nod, looking away. “It’s just that, all these years, I haven’t been able to make sense of it. How could a wife—a mother—just up and leave her family?”
“Valentina, it was all very…complicated,” she replies.
“Well, you knew them. What happened?”
“I only knew your father for a short time, before they moved to California. I suppose it seemed like a fairy tale from the outside looking in—a dashing, successful American sweeping her off her feet and whisking her off to glamorous California, but over the years, your mother confided in me that there was more to the story.”
“Like what?”
Millie’s expression remains guarded. “Like any other troubled relationship, theirs was…complicated.”
I sigh. There was that word again. “Right, I get that people get divorced, obviously. But what I don’t understand is how she could run off to London, leaving her daughter behind, and when she gets here, everyone thinks she’s a saint. How is that okay?”
“Let me make something clear,” Millie retorts. “For your mother, being separated from the child she loved was never okay. In fact, she carried that sadness with her until her very last day.” She reaches for my hand, giving it a squeeze. “Let her reveal herself to you in her own way. I’m confident that in time, you’ll come to understand, and maybe even forgive her.”
I nod reluctantly.
“But look—she turned her pain into this beautiful place,” she continues, gazing around the store. “Sure, it’s your mother’s life’s work, and even if you don’t choose to forgive her, this place is about more than just her. The Book Garden has found its way into the community’s collective heart—and that’s worth fighting for, don’t you think?”
“It is,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “And I want you to know that I plan to fight, for as long as it takes.”
Millie smiles. “That’s my girl.”
“I just wish our financial outlook wasn’t so grim.”
“As you’ve said, we’re going to need to get creative.”
I glance out the window and eye the sign hanging beneath the awning above as it sways gently in the breeze. Outside on the sidewalk, a middle-aged woman walks by with an enormous bouquet of flowers in her arms—a compilation of blossoms in varying pink hues—which is when an idea hits me.
“The Book Garden!” I exclaim, turning back to Millie. “That’s it! What if we riff on that a bit? Maybe use the extra space up front to sell plants, even flowers? I mean, you’ve heard of bookstores selling gifts and toys, right?”
“Sure,” she says. “But—”
“We could sell houseplants, bunches of daffodils, maybe find someone to help us part-time, so you and I can focus on the business of books. It would be an added expense in the beginning, I know, but it might just pay off.” I smile to myself. “Books and green things. They can grow together.”
“I loathe houseplants,” Millie says before cracking a smile. “But your idea is actually…rather brilliant.”
“Do you really think so?”
She nods, looking at me for a long moment. “I was wrong about you,” she finally says.
I shake my head. “What do you mean?”
“She loved this place so much,” Millie begins. “But when she told me her plans to leave the store to you, I…worried…that you wouldn’t love it as much as she did—that you’d unload it as quickly as possible. But, no, Eloise knew what she was doing. She left the Book Garden to you because she knew she was placing it in the most capable, protective hands.” She smiles. “Will you forgive me for doubting you?”
“I already have,” I say.
“Well,” Mille says, glancing at her watch. “I better go unlock the door. It’s almost nine.” She flips the CLOSED sign in the window over, just as a FedEx truck pulls up outside.
“Oh no,” she says, suddenly panicked as she tucks her hair behind her ears and takes a deep breath. “Drat! He’s early today.”
I watch with amusement as Millie races to the counter where she pulls out a tube of lipstick from her purse, then hurriedly swipes some on. She pretends to busy herself with paperwork as I unlock the door.
A moment later, she looks up, crestfallen to see a tall man with light blond hair pulled back into a scraggly ponytail. Not Fernando.
“Sign here, please, ma’am,” he says.
“Where’s…Fernando?”
“No clue,” he says. “Out sick? Or maybe they put him on a new route. Corporate’s always changing things around.”
Millie sighs. “Oh.”
“I think it’s high time you admit it,” I say as the truck barrels off. “You have an honest-to-goodness crush on that deliveryman.”
“I do not.”
“Oh yes, you do. And you know what? I think he has a crush on you, too.”
She turns to me, astonished. “You do? Really?”
I nod, somehow comforted by the realization that no matter our age, love can apparently find us and turn us into schoolgirls again. “I saw the way he looked at you the other day. I’ll bet he’s trying to work up the courage to ask you out.”
“You’re only flattering me,” she says, quick to dismiss my romantic notion. “We both know he would never be interested in a woman of my age.”