A young woman behind the counter looked up and smiled.
“Welcome to Second Chapter. Can I help you find anything?”
I glanced toward the back of the shop.
Karen stood beside a shelf of novels, talking to an elderly customer.
She wore a cream-colored sweater, dark jeans, and the kind of relaxed expression I had rarely seen during the years she had been married to Michael.
She looked up.
Our eyes met.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then she excused herself from the customer and walked toward me. “Alex.”
“Hi.”
She looked at me as though she were checking whether I was real.
“What are you doing here?”
I suddenly felt twenty years younger and completely unprepared for the conversation I had rehearsed all morning.
“I came to buy a book.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“You hate reading fiction.”
“I’ve decided to become a better person.”
She smiled, but her eyes were cautious.
“That’s a very ambitious project.”
