He lowered his roller. “I was around your mom enough to know her kids were her world. She wouldn’t have changed a thing, Sophie.”

“I know you’re right.” She rewetted her brush. “Still . . .”

“Like mother like daughter. The library always was your favorite place.” He fondly remembered sneaking a kiss or two in the biography section. Once they’d gotten caught by a prim and proper librarian who’d promptly tossed them out.

Sophie cleared her throat. “Talking about this bookshop was one of the few things that excited her. I think it felt good for her to know what I’d be doing, and that it would be something she loved and had a part in planning.”

His throat tightened and his gaze sharpened on her. “You’re keeping her memory alive with this store.”

She turned to him with a pained look on her face. “I guess I am. Trying to, at least. Is that foolish?”

“You shared a love of reading with her, and you want to hang on to that. I don’t see a thing wrong with it. It’s honorable.”

She gave a wistful smile. “I have so many wonderful memories of her reading to me when I was growing up. Charlotte’s Web, The Secret Garden, Bridge to Terabithia, all the Little House books—some of them multiple times. Seth would start out listening, too, but he’d get distracted and wander off. But those stories held me spellbound. And in her last months, when she was bedridden, I read to her for hours every day.”

He felt a pinch in his chest at Sophie’s loss. “She was a wonderful mother. You were blessed to have her.”

Sophie’s eyes widened with sudden realization. “I’m so sorry. Here I am having a pity party because I miss my mom, and you . . .”

“That’s all right. You can’t miss what you don’t remember.”

But even as he said the words, he realized they weren’t true. How many times had he missed the idea of a mother? Mother’s Day at church, Parents’ Night at school . . . Sometimes he feared that lost little boy was still inside him. The one who’d gone without a mother’s tender care when he scuffed his knees or had his heart broken by some little girl on the playground.

“I don’t even remember her leaving. My dad later told me I sat outside day after day, waiting for her to come back. I just have vague memories of her, talking on the phone or baking cookies, stuff like that.”

“I feel sorry for her. She’s the one who missed out, Aiden.”

He gave her a smile. “Thanks. Dad and I did okay. He wasn’t one for sloppy affection, but I knew he loved me, and he was always there for me. He was enough.”