Aurelia gave her sister a hug.
“Me too. I warned Dad—I didn’t want him to be caught off guard when he saw me wearing it.”
“Aw. Knowing him, he’d definitely recognize it,” Antonia said, smiling through her tears.
Aurelia smiled back, then wiped away her tears and gave Julia a hug, too, for good measure.
49
Afterdinnerthatnight,they all sat up chatting until just after eleven, when Antonia announced that she needed to get to bed if she was going to make her train the next morning. Julia followed her mother into the guest room to say goodnight while Aurelia and Oliver washed the dinner dishes.
At eleven forty-five, Julia started pulling Aurelia toward the stairs to the shop. Aurelia looked around to say goodnight to Oliver, but he wasn’t in the kitchen or living room. She told Julia she would meet her downstairs and then went in search of him.
She found him in their bedroom. Fezz was nestled on her side of the bed while Oliver was tucked into bed on his side with a book that he seemed to be holding rather than reading.
“Everything alright?” Aurelia asked from the doorway.
“Yeah—fine,” Oliver said with a smile that had all the appearance of forced cheer.
Aurelia came in and sat next to him on the bed.
“You’re reading Harriet’s story?” she asked with a smile, recognizing the bound copy of the chapters that Harriet fromLittle Dorrithad written for herself the year before.
“I am. It’s very vivid—she sounds just like Dickens.”
“Well, David Copperfield helped her with it. He was constantly coming up with ideas from other Dickens novels. It was uncanny.”
“David Copperfield? He came to the shop?”
“It was right when you moved in. Do you remember? I had put out a few Dickens novels on the table, in your honor.”
“And you met the characters,” Oliver said vaguely.
“Yes. Harriet, David, Peggotty…” Aurelia trailed off, seeing a shadow of something—sadness?—marring his face. “Do you not want me to go into the shop tonight? I don’t have to. Julia can chat with them on her own.”
“No, I want you to go,” he said, reaching out a hand to reassure her.
They’d just talked about this last night and come to a good understanding, but they’d also agreed that it would be an ongoing conversation, something that wouldn’t and couldn’t be resolved with one chat. Aurelia looked again at Harriet’s book in Oliver’s hands and realized that his feelings tonight might have less to do with their future and how they were going to navigate her nighttime routine and more to do with her history with the characters—all the stories she hadn’t shared with him yet.
Aurelia began moving her fingers through his, watching them interlock as she said, “Back when I first told you about the characters, you said I might have spent more time with them than with you.”
“I was just angry—”
“I know, but I’ve been thinking about it,” she began, looking up to meet his eye. “I don’t think it’s true, though I have spent a lot of time with them. And that means there are a lot of stories about them that I haven’t been able to tell you.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, too. The characters are sort of like work colleagues, aren’t they? You work in the shop alone all day, but at night they’re here and you chat about their books and lives. Just like I work in my office all day and chat with my colleagues about the books we’re publishing and our lives.”
“Huh. There is a symmetry there,” Aurelia said, smiling.
“You know most of my work stories—which author doesn’t like which editor, whicheditordoesn’t like which editor, whose kid just had a birthday… But you’re right, I don’t know most of yours.”
“Tomorrow, if you want, I can tell you about the Dickens characters I met. I can tell you how much Harriet hated the story I’d written for her, and about Peggotty’s buttons, and David’s over-the-top ideas. Only if you want.”
“Peggotty’s buttons?” Oliver said, a smile replacing the shadow she’d seen there.
Aurelia waggled her eyebrows and teased, “Hmm… I could explain right now… or leave you curious to find out what I mean.”
He huffed a laugh, his smile growing wider.
