The Dream Before the Dark ✓

18 | For a Greater Delight

JEN'S MENTAL STATE had not been at its best lately. That wasn't to say that she was doing badly, and nothing could compare to how miserable she'd felt for months after the wreck, but there was no denying that she had been in a bit of a mental funk for the past few weeks.

She thought she ought to feel mortified for kissing a man at work – though it could hardly be considered a real kiss – but she didn't, and she saw this as evidence pointing towards how peculiar of a turn her life had taken since she started this job. Before this year, the oddest thing that had happened to her in the romance department was a man asking her if she'd like to come see his taxidermy collection (which, to be fair, was pretty odd).

No, she didn't regret kissing Robert, but what happened had certainly resurfaced a lot of complicated feelings. She couldn't stop thinking about her mother and how she had been wearing the same shoes once as Jen was now, having kissed a man and wanting to feel remorse but not being able to. It gave Jen this frustrating urge to go apologize for judging her so harshly, but you couldn't exactly walk up to someone and say sorry that you judged them for something they had no knowledge of themselves ever doing.

And even if Maggie had been able to extend grace to her daughter, Jen didn't feel like she deserved it. She couldn't tear herself away from the shadow that followed her – the memory that a tiny piece of her had been happy about the accident. At least she's in love with her husband again, she had thought once, satisfied that Mom could not remember Victor.

Now that Jen was older, she could understand her mother's side a little bit better. At least, she imagined she could, though she'd never be able to actually talk anything out with Mom herself if the memories of her affair never came back to her. In truth, some days Jen blamed Dad for it all more than she blamed Mom. She never would have run away to another pair of arms if he had been willing to set them all free from the cage that was Woods Crossing. Maggie and Jen were never happy there, but they'd always tolerated it because he refused to sell the hardware store and let their family move to the city.

Jen was reminded of one of those Bible verses they always told you to guilt-trip you into being a nicer person. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. She felt like she'd been gripping at a stone for the past four years, longing to lash out and blame someone else for her pain. But it was getting harder and harder to point fingers at her mother for chasing after someone who made her happy when she herself felt like she wasn't all that different now.

Unfortunately, the neverending dilemma of not being able to talk to Mom about any of this remained. But Jen needed something to refresh her mind, so she decided to wander around Judson's on Saturday and see what stories she might find there.

The little secondhand bookshop on the street corner was not where one went when looking for something in particular, but rather where one looked for something to speak to them. The building had the appearance of being even older than the books inside of it – though there was truly no telling how old some of those were – but it did not need to be made new. It was not ramshackle or boring; it was loved by those who worked in it and those who visited it alike. Its most loyal employee was a small tabby cat (whose name Jen had learned was Reginald) who had been taken in years ago and loved to affectionately rub up against the legs of each visitor who stepped foot inside. The air perpetually smelled of crisp pages, and today the scent was accompanied by that of the dewy spring air that wafted through the door each time it was opened.

It was no wonder that there were many others besides Jen who enjoyed roaming through these aisles, but the shop was surprisingly empty for a weekend. She had no complaints about this—it meant that she could take as much time as she pleased to linger in front of each shelf without feeling like she was in someone else's way. She never constrained herself to just one section of the store – how would she ever discover something new if she refused to branch out from a singular genre? – and today she even allowed herself to roam past the shelves of children's books. It was hard not to feel at least a little bit lighter after looking at all their bright colors and silly illustrations.