of the store.
CHAPTER thirty–eight
You should write because you love the shape of stories.
—Annie Proulx
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
It had been a month, a week, and a day since I started at the bookstore. It had been rough at first, but there had been steady progress made in my and Wendy’s relationship.
I destroyed it all in just five minutes.
“I’m thinking of changing the bookstore’s name,” I said as Wendy and I sorted through some returns.
Wendy looked at me as if I’d just blasphemed. “To what?”
“It Was a Dark and Stormy Bookstore.”
Like everyone else, she looked at me blankly.
“It’s a reference to—”
“I know what it’s a reference to,” she said. “It’s the opening line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel Paul Clifford, though today most people know it from Snoopy typing on top of his doghouse.”
“Then you don’t approve… ?”
“As your father used to say, ‘Don’t fix what ain’t broken.’ ” She stood to go, then added, “By the way, Lytton also created a few other notable phrases, such as ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ and ‘The almighty dollar.’ In case you’re obsessed with the man.” She walked away.
“Not as obsessed as you are with my father,” I said to myself.
She didn’t speak to me the rest of the day. That afternoon she left my letter on the front counter.
Dear Noel,
Be grateful. To live each day in gratitude is to live in power. Gratitude is the opposite of despair. Gratitude is power and the root of all happiness. It is the power to find happiness. Show me ingratitude and I will show you misery. Like love, gratitude is also a choice. There are none so impoverished as those who don’t acknowledge the abundance of their lives.
Tabula Rasa
CHAPTER thirty–nine
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11
Dear Noel,
Love. Love is the single greatest choice you can make in your life. Make no mistake: Love is a choice. It is not something that happens to you nor a hole you fall into. It is not an accident. Those things are mere counterfeits of love, capricious hormones that come and go like pigeons after breadcrumbs. Love is a choice, a decision, that is grown and cultivated, pruned at times and patiently cared for. If properly nourished, it will someday grow into something too big to uproot—something that will provide shade and sustenance, constantly climbing upward and spreading its shelter over others.
If you believe you must earn love, as many do, or require it of others, you do not understand its nature. Love earned ceases to be love. It is wage. Love.
Tabula Rasa
CHAPTER forty
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
—Robert Frost
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13
It had been more than a decade since I’d been to the ballet. I had brought only one nice dress from New York, the one I had worn for my father’s funeral. I spent extra time getting ready. I had nothing but time, and I wanted to look nice. Not just because it was the ballet but for Dylan.
Dylan picked me up a few minutes before five. My first thought was how handsome he looked in his tailored suit.
“Where’s Alex?”
“She’s already at my parents’.” He looked at me with a sort of awe in his eyes. “You look stunning, Noel. You always look beautiful, but…”
I smiled. “I clean up well. You look nice too.”
“Thank you.” He put out his arm. “Shall we go?”
A few minutes later we parked in Dylan’s parents’ driveway and went inside. Alexis ran to us as we walked in. Actually, she ran to me. “Noel!”
She was wearing a pretty little hunter-green velvet dress with pearl buttons, and her hair was pulled back in a bun like a ballerina’s.
“You look very pretty,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“Did Grandma do your hair?”
“No, Daddy did.”
“Really?” I looked at Dylan. “That’s impressive.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “I was good at tying knots in the Boy Scouts.”
I laughed.
“Actually, I just got tired of driving her to Grandma’s all the time.”
Charlotte already had dinner on the table. “I hope y’all weren’t expecting anything too fancy,” she said. “Just chicken and dumplings. Strat calls it comfort food.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. “We all need more comfort.”
“Amen to that,” Charlotte said.
As usual, the main course was one part of a much larger meal. There was grilled corn, steamed vegetables, and cornbread. It wasn’t just the food that was comforting. So was being with Dylan’s family. It was the only place in my world back then that resembled a home.
After we finished eating, I offered to help clean up, but Charlotte wouldn’t hear of it.
“No, dear.