Today we went to Orman. Orman is Turkish for forest. I read it in a book. I also read a book about a mouse and his mouse friends. It was weird and the mouse had a weird name. Em and A liked Orman. I made it up. They want to go again tomorrow. For lunch I ate sandwiches but Em cried because she wanted my ham sandwich instead of her cheese sandwich so we traded. Avery was mad because I found out aviary means bird cage. I read it in a book. She said she doesn’t want to be in a cage. Em cried because she thought Avery would be in a cage but then she forgot and finished her sandwich.

I’m giggling, and the feeling is so foreign that it makes my stomach feel as if I’ve drunk an entire carbonated beverage in one gulp.

“That’s not the good part.” Nolan leans over to flip a few pages. “Start on the top of this one.”

Mrs. S says I can call her Valerie. Mrs. S owns the bookstore. Mama doesn’t care if we go to the bookstore by ourselves. We have to hold hands when we go alone. Mama drops us off and says she’ll be back in an hour. Valerie feeds us green potato chips that she says are vegetable chips but they are really just potato chips. She makes us wipe our hands so we don’t get crumbs on the books. The room with the lighthouse and the mountain is my favorite. Em and A said it is where Orman lives. I told them they were right. They think I am the King of Orman. I think they are right.

“Wait,” I say. “The Orman room was there before Orman?”

Nolan nods, smiling as he reads his childhood writing upside down. “Yeah. Orman wouldn’t be what it is if not for Val and this store.”

“Or Avery and Emily,” I say.

He nods, a sad but not too sad smile on his lips. “Yes.”

I delight in this moment in Nolan Endsley’s heart, with the history of Orman and him open in my hands. I let it overlap with thoughts of Jenna and her insistence on buying perfectly formed books. I think about how my dad used to read to me every night before I fell asleep. I marvel at two little girls and a barely older boy playing pretend on sandy beaches beneath a shimmering sun and in the cool shelter of an extraordinary bookstore. And I slowly start to populate the bleak world with things that make life worth living.