“And that’s what you want to continue to read? Forevermore? Tell me you’re kidding.”

“I’ve never met a bookstore owner like you. It’s strange. But I like it.”

My hands flew up as in, “I give up.” “I’m not strange. Well, I’m not that strange.” Yes I am. But choosing a variety of books is important!

“You talk to people in a scary way sometimes, telling them to read this or that.”

“I don’t think you’re scared.”

“I’m not. I just felt like saying that. I like being scared when I read.”

I looked down at the customer. Beatrice Winters. She had white hair wrapped in a bun. She was a nun for twenty years. Then she fell in love with a priest. They left their orders, and they’ve been married for thirty years. She was a kindergarten teacher for twenty years after her nun years. She was about five feet tall.

“Okay. Let’s go find you more blood and gore and violence.”

“And no more admonitions or reprimands, young lady,” she reprimanded me. “I can read whatever I damn well please.”

“I know you can. I’m trying to broaden your literary horizons because you are so stubborn.”

“The only thing I want to broaden is my ass. My husband says my ass is skinny like a plucked chicken’s.”

She is petite. Mrs. Winters picked out three true crime books. I brought her a piece of Dulce de Leche cake with vanilla buttercream and cut myself a slice, and we ate it together at a table overlooking the bay. We both commented on the whales in the distance, a tail here, a fountain of water there.

She gave me a hug on the way out. “That was fun. I enjoy a civilized argument.” She turned away, then back. “And tell your mother and aunts that I am looking forward to visiting them at their greenhouse shortly.”

I groaned. “I didn’t hear that.”

“Yes, you did, dear.”

* * *

There has not been a time in my life when I did not love books.

My parents were readers, too. We would sit, altogether, or my mom and Jules and me if my dad was deployed, and we would read. Often we would read in their bed. We would eat popcorn, or have a slice of pie, or we would all pile in and have Spaghetti and Books Night.

Books were my escape. I loved the stories. But I had an ulterior motive for reading: Books blocked the premonitions out. I loved being taken away to new worlds, where premonitions did not exist. As a child, as a teenager, the anxiety and depression, and the fear and dread, were so hard to battle. But books at least gave me a respite.