And I mean it: I hope that when she arrives, Mom and Darrell are still deeply in love. I hope Mom stays happy forever. I hope she’s found her One and Only and spends the rest of her life with him, safe and secure and adored.

But hope without evidence to support it is a delusion.

Georgia leaves for class, and I turn my attention to my next task: moving a table back to the front of the store where it belongs, then stacking all the new releases on it. The plumber asked me to clear that area so he could work on the pipes in the ceiling, but he had to order parts that won’t arrive for a week, and I can’t handle an entire week with the table in the wrong place.

By evening, the store is empty, so I go into the back room and heat a frozen dinner. When it’s ready, I sit at the desk, which is strategically positioned so I can eat while keeping an eye on the store.

I pull out The Princess Bride. I wasn’t lying when I told RJ I think it’s genius. Ridiculous, yes, but self aware—like the author is having fun. It’s pure literary dessert, as RJ might say—and I’m savoring each bite.

I lose track of time as I read, occasionally pausing to look up and scan my store. But it’s drizzling outside, and no one is shopping, so even though I have a million things to do, I allow myself to get sucked into the story. The feeling reminds me of being twelve years old, reading under the covers with a flashlight because I had to know what happened next.

As Westley and Buttercup are making their way into the Fire Swamp, I become aware of a new sound, a light spattering. I glance into the store—it’s still raining outside—and keep reading.

But the spattering gets louder. Maybe the door is cracked? I force myself to close the book and check it out.

My heart drops.

In the front corner, where the ceiling is exposed, one of the pipes is leaking water. All over my freshly arranged table of new releases.

“No!” I cry, running over. It’s not a full-on stream of water, more like a spray, but it’s covering a large area—the entire table, plus a few feet surrounding it.

Stacked with hardcovers, the table’s too heavy to move, so I start grabbing books—only to realize that exposes the lower layers of books to the water, too. Frantically, I look around for something to cover the table. The construction workers have left plastic tarps here before, but of course, not today. I run into my back room, find a box of trash bags, and race back to the front of the store.