A Very Short Story About My Day

If thats TLDR, I cried at work.

I haven’t been in the bookstore much this summer—between finishing my novel, family vacations, and navigating my children’s various camps and camplessness, I’ve mostly been Zooming into the store meetings I need to have. Today I went in after camp drop off and had a couple of meetings and conversations—nothing is ever simple in retail, nothing is ever simple in this moment, nothing is ever simple when you’re a human—and as always, just being in the store actually made me feel better. People walk in, they talk to you, you get to make suggestions, it’s nice! I wish a public-facing storefront for all my fellow extroverts.

One of the things I am terrible at doing is making sure there are signed copies of my books on hand, and since I didn’t have anything pressing today, I pulled them all off the shelf and made myself a little book signing assembly line, of which I was the only member. Sign! Sticker! Sign! Sticker. I was going happily about this task when a woman stopped on the other side of the table and said, I loved your book.

Now, lots of people say kind things about my various books, which is ALWAYS lovely, but there is something different about This Time Tomorrow. I said as much to this woman, and she nodded in a way that made me think, yes. I said, I’m sorry, for whatever happened that made you love this book. Because that was the look on her face—not oh a book but oh my heart. I said, I’ve given a lot of strangers hugs. And she said, today is the anniversary of my mother’s death, and she loved this store, and she loved that it was so near my house, and I called her when it opened, and she was so happy. And then we hugged, both crying a little.

In conclusion, if you’re sad, I will give you a hug. In conclusion, I am really lucky to do both my jobs, and it’s nice to remember that. And if you are coming up on an anniversary like I am, or if you’re freshly grieving, or if you’re some decades down the road and still missing your loved one, I give you a hug, too.

So will Honeybutter. (Not really—she bites.)