The train approached his stop, and she took her three deep breaths.

She could start making new memories right now.

Chapter 29

Dad’s address wasn’t too far from the T stop where Annabelle got off. The neighborhood was sort of in the city but sort of not. Over her head, tall trees stretched their green branches over the sidewalk, shading her from the afternoon sun. Old houses—some in good shape and some with peeling paint and dried-out brown plants in window boxes—sat right smack next to each other, sharing walls. Every once in a while, a little store or restaurant interrupted the row of homes.

Pretty soon, she saw it. Beans and Books Café and Bookshop.

Bookshop?

Dad, who had stood up for her when Mom was always nagging her about reading, was working at a coffee shop that sold books?

The bells on the door jangled way too loudly as Annabelle went inside, and the thick, slightly sharp smell of coffee hit her. The coffee shop part was to the left—a long counter with a chalkboard menu hanging on the wall, a glass display of baked goods, and ten or twelve little tables. Then to the right was the bookstore. You had to go up two stairs, and a chalkboard sign announced BOOK NOOK in perky, brightly colored letters.

In the coffee shop part, a few people were working on laptops, and a kid—probably about nine or ten—sat at a corner table, turning pages in a giant book Annabelle recognized. One of the fantasy novels Jeremy had been into a couple of summers ago.

There was a woman behind the counter with lightly freckled skin and hair that color of red that was almost definitely dyed—all one shade and red-red, not the orangey-brown or orangey-blond people called red. She was steaming milk in a little silver pitcher.

The milk hissing stopped, and then the redhead adjusted the green bandana that was attempting to hold back her hair. “Darn. I made your mocha full-caf instead of half-caf, Jenny,” she announced. “Anybody want a free drink?”

The boy reading the giant book perked up, and she gave him a quick head shake.

“Anybody old enough to have coffee want a free drink?”

One of the guys behind a laptop held up his hand to claim it.

Maybe Dad wasn’t working today. Relief washed over Annabelle, as if she didn’t want to see him after all.

But that had to be leftover from what things had been like before. She did want to see him now. That’s why she’d come all this way!

Her stomach growled loud enough that the free drink claimer looked at her.

“What can I do for you, hon?” the redheaded lady asked.

Annabelle scanned the price cards nestled among the pastries. A dollar and eighty cents wasn’t enough to buy anything. Maybe she had more change?

She took out her wallet and balanced it in her bad hand as she rummaged for nickels and dimes with her good one.