Сьюзен Виггз - The Lost and Found Bookshop

Natalie hadn’t dared to touch the ring, nestled on its bed of velvet. “Please. I couldn’t.”

“I realize you’re emotional now. You’re not thinking straight.” Rhonda had dropped the box into Natalie’s purse. “You don’t ever have to wear it. Or you could repurpose it, maybe have it made into something else. Or sell it and use the proceeds for something you care about. Rick would’ve liked that.”

“It doesn’t seem right,” Natalie had said.

“Nothing about this whole situation seems right.” Rhonda’s voice caught on a sob and she gave Natalie a brief hug. “I’m sorry we never got the chance to be sisters.”

Natalie felt like a monster.

She was a monster.

The town car drew up at the mansion, a sumptuous crown atop a hill overlooking majestic views of the Bay Area—the bay itself, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the hills of Marin County.

“This building has a romantic story,” Grandy said, seeming to snap out of his silence. “After the great earthquake, Maud Flood was so afraid of fire that her husband built her a grand house of marble atop this granite hill. He wanted to give her a new place made entirely of stone, so she would feel safe.”

“Now that,” Natalie said, “is a good husband.” Rick would have made a good husband , she thought, immersing herself again in guilt. He had been caring, and cautious, and he knew how to look after things. He was steady and stable, her two favorite qualities not only in people but in life itself.

A pair of white-gloved attendants held the door for her and Grandy. Someone in the foyer took their coats and Grandy’s hat to the cloakroom. A beautifully rendered poster on an easel welcomed guests to the celebration.

Bryan Ferry’s voice crooning “Avalon” drifted from unseen speakers. Mom had loved Roxy Music. On a sleepless night a few days before, Natalie had put together a playlist from Blythe’s digital music library.

Natalie nearly stumbled as they passed the gallery of enlarged photos on display in the rotunda. The grief was like a punch to the gut. Breath-stealing agony made her want to crawl out of her skin. Her knees would have given out if not for her grandfather. Though he moved slowly and leaned on the cane, he was strong. With her careless father so notoriously absent, Grandy had been the key man in Natalie’s life, a fact she was grateful for every single day.

She, Grandy, and the staff and friends of the bookstore had collected pictures of her mother, raiding old albums and digital files and sending them to a gallery that specialized in large-scale renderings and displays. The result was a beautiful frieze of images that captured Blythe’s energy and beauty and spirit.

There she was, a girl in the seventies, picking berries on a farm somewhere. A young woman proudly posing in her cap and gown in Berkeley blue and California gold. An impossibly young mother, surrounded by gauzy light through a window, holding her infant daughter in her arms, her expression a mixture of pride and terror. A woman standing with her cat at the grand open doorway of the Lost and Found Bookshop, in all her glorious vivacity. A soft-eyed daughter sweetly hugging her aging father.

The final portrait was Natalie’s favorite picture of her mother. No one knew who had taken the photo of Blythe standing on the beach at Fort Funston at the southwest edge of the city, gazing off into the distance, her expression enigmatic. To Natalie, beneath the joyous spirit everyone had loved, Blythe had always seemed just a bit sad. Sometimes, growing up, Natalie had been struck by the thought that she didn’t really know her mother. And now it was too late.

Even more moving than the photo gallery was the size of the crowd. As Natalie accompanied her grandfather to their seats in the front, he said, “I always pictured walking my daughter down the aisle at her wedding, not her funeral.”

She nearly stumbled when she heard those words. Only her determination to support him kept her steady. The assemblage was packed to the walls already, and more people were still streaming in. A velvet rope hung across a section in the front, demarcating a few seats with a card that read Reserved for Family .

In the strictest sense, they only needed two seats—one for her and one for Grandy. Blythe’s mother was long gone. Lavinia had gone away when Blythe was a baby, leaving disaster and scandal in her wake. As for Natalie’s father, Dean Fogarty, he likely had heard about the memorial, but he was as much of a no-show today as he had been for Natalie’s entire life.

Her family had consisted of the three of them. And now, all of a sudden, there were two. Natalie and Grandy. And her grandfather seemed to be leaving her in small, heartbreaking pieces.

She recognized many of the attendees—her mom’s friends, customers who had frequented the shop over the years, even salespeople from New York, publishers and colleagues in the book industry—people who had depended on her taste and opinions. There were authors whose books had graced her shelves, local merchants and neighbors from the tree-shaded enclave of Perdita Street.

Guests on both sides of the aisle offered tentative waves, mouthed expressions of sympathy and hand-over-the-heart gestures.

No one knew what to say to people facing a grief so big and shocking. Natalie wouldn’t know, either. She had a hard time meeting their eyes, feeling irrational shame, or perhaps guilt.

She and Grandy took their seats facing the podium, festooned with sweet-smelling native lilies and autumn mums from the Bonner Flower Farm up in Glenmuir, organic and sustainable, the way Blythe would have wanted. A swag of Buddhist prayer flags hung overhead. Her mother had never subscribed to a particular dogma, claiming organized religion was the cause of too much violence and strife in the world. But she often spoke of her favorite spiritual books, including Buddhism’s The Noble Eightfold Path , and admitted happily that she was drawn to the all-loving and nonviolent tenets of Buddhism.

The smooth-sided urn was overshadowed by another portrait of Blythe Harper, this one larger than all the rest in the gallery. Natalie had chosen it herself. Blythe was in her favorite spot in the bookstore—a cushy chair littered with throw pillows, angled near the lace curtain of the shop’s front display window. The natural light, filtered through the antique lace, illuminated the fine features of her mother’s face, framed by wispy dark curls, smiling lips, and eyes that were bright with ideas. The book in her lap was a poetry collection of Mary Oliver, which most people knew was a favorite of Blythe’s. The caption under the photo was a line from a well-known poem: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Natalie had chosen the quote, too. She settled back and tried to focus on the display. The images blurred together like a ruined watercolor. She checked her bag, touching the folder with her eulogy notes. There was no way to express this terrible goodbye, but she’d scraped her soul to find the right words.

Grandy leaned his cane on the seat back and stared straight ahead.

Natalie tucked her arm around his and wondered when she would stop feeling like she was on the verge of tears. “How are you doing?”

“I’m maintaining calm,” he said simply.

His lifelong friend, Charlie Wong, in a fine black jacket with a Nehru collar, arrived and sat down next to Grandy. A talented diorama artist, Charlie had known Andrew when both were young boys running around the city. Many years ago, Charlie had created an art piece based on the bookstore building, which was then Grandy’s typewriter shop. Now the two old men got together several times a week, going to dinner at one of Charlie’s daughters’ homes or attending game night at the local senior center. Charlie’s usual smile was in place, yet dimmed by the sadness in his eyes.