Read Chapter 14: UNSELLING A BOOKSHOP

Fintan did call Maeve irrational.

He used more professional language, but the meaning was clear.

“You accepted a commercial offer in writing.”

“And I’m withdrawing before contracts.”

“The purchaser has instructed solicitors.”

“So have I.”

“You have?”

Maeve glanced at the business card of a solicitor Julian had recommended.

“I will in twenty minutes.”

Fintan inhaled through his nose.

“Maeve, there may be costs.”

“Fine.”

“You haven’t even commissioned a proper viability assessment.”

“Also fine.”

“What changed?”

Maeve looked at Nora’s green ledger.

“I decided before I knew what I wanted.”

Fintan had no category for this answer.

By noon, Maeve had retained a solicitor, angered a hospitality group, and discovered that changing one’s mind was both legally less dramatic and financially more annoying than fiction suggested. There were no signed contracts, only correspondence and preliminary expenses to negotiate.

The shop was still hers.

Which left the larger problem: keeping it alive.

Julian arrived at four and found Maeve surrounded by spreadsheets.

“You look ill.”

“I have learned what gross margin means.”

“My condolences.”

She turned the laptop toward him.

Bellwether could not survive by selling only used literary fiction to loyal customers who considered four euro an extravagance. Nora had subsidised the shop with savings for years. Maeve had perhaps six months before sentiment became insolvency.

“I need events,” she said.

Julian smiled. “You hate events.”

“I hate producing corporate events. I understand them.”

She had a list: author readings, repair workshops with Siobhán, children’s Saturdays, university book lists, online rare-book sales, coffee from the Ethiopian café next door rather than installing a machine, paid appraisal appointments, and a monthly late opening.

“Bellwether After Dark?” Julian suggested.

“No.”

“Books and Bellwethers?”

“That means nothing.”

“Margins at Midnight.”

“You are banned from naming things.”

He leaned over the spreadsheet. “You’ll need help.”

“I can hire part-time if revenue grows.”

“I mean now.”

Maeve felt the automatic resistance.

Then Nora’s list came back to her.

Help.

“I know,” she said.

Julian looked surprised.

“Don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“The face of a man seeing a rare migratory bird.”

“I was going to say I can help with Trinity contacts.”

“Good.”

“And Sarah knows someone who runs a children’s literature festival.”

Maeve’s stomach tightened at Sarah’s name for no sensible reason.

Julian noticed.

“Is that strange?”

“No.” Too quickly.

“It can be.”

Maeve closed the spreadsheet.

“I don’t know how to do this part.”

“What part?”

“The ex-wife who is still in your life because she should be. The daughter. The fact that I’m walking into something with existing architecture.”

Julian pulled a chair closer but did not touch her.

“You don’t have to walk into anything all at once.”

“I know.”

“And Sarah and I are not waiting to get back together.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

Maeve frowned.

He continued, “She matters to me because she’s Lucy’s mother and because twelve years doesn’t become meaningless when a marriage ends. That doesn’t mean there’s unfinished romance.”

Maeve thought of Evelyn saying loving Tom had not made her marriage false.

Human affection, apparently, refused to respect filing systems.

“All right,” she said.

Julian smiled. “That was easy.”

“It was horrible.”

“I stand corrected.”

That evening they went upstairs to Nora’s old flat for the first time together.

Maeve had been sleeping there since the funeral but had changed almost nothing. Nora’s mugs. Nora’s curtains. Nora’s detective novels stacked beside the bed. The rooms felt borrowed.

Julian stopped in the kitchen.

“I’ve never been up here.”

“Nora didn’t invite customers upstairs.”

“I was devastated.”

“You survived.”

Barely.”

Maeve made pasta. Julian chopped garlic. They moved around each other badly at first, bumping elbows in the narrow kitchen, then found a rhythm.

After dinner, he washed dishes without asking.

Maeve stood in the doorway and experienced a sensation more frightening than desire.

Domesticity.

A man she wanted, in a kitchen connected to a shop she wanted, behaving as if tomorrow existed.

Julian turned. “You’ve gone quiet.”

“I’m fine.”

He waited.

Maeve tried again.

“This is nice.”

His expression softened. “Yes.”

“It makes me nervous.”

“That can also be true.”

She crossed the kitchen and kissed him.

Later, lying beside him in Nora’s spare room because Maeve could not yet bear to use Nora’s bedroom, she listened to rain against the skylight.

Julian slept with one hand open on the sheet between them.

Maeve placed her hand in it.