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“I’m not. I’m her husband, Sigmund.”
The woman blushed. “Oh goodness. It’s so great to meet you. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit flustered.”
Her nerves caught me off guard. I introduced my daughter. “This is Miriam.”
“I know. Well, I figured from the book.” The woman smiled shyly. “Hello, Miriam.”
“Hello,” my daughter answered.
“My wife is in the back feeding our son. She should be out soon.”
“I’ll wait. I want to tell her how much this book meant to me.”
The woman waited patiently for about five minutes. I finally looked over to find Abby walking toward the table with Henry. “Here she is now.”
“Oh, hello.” Abby handed Henry to me and straightened the wrinkles in her skirt. She seemed nervous to meet this lady, which was quite adorable.
“You almost missed your first reader,” I said.
“You might be my first and last reader today, but you’ve made my day. Thank you for coming. It’s great to meet you,” Abby said. “And you are?”
“Connie.” The woman clutched a somewhat worn copy of the book to her chest. “You have no idea how wonderful it is to meetyou. The pleasure is all mine. I’m the one who should be thanking you. You see, my husband and I were unable to have children due to my cancer treatments. We used a surrogate with a donor egg from my sister. I know it’s a bit of a different scenario than yours, but in the beginning, I struggled with the fact that my son wasn’t actually mine and whether that would somehow affect our bond. I found your book—or rather, I should say, it found me. I happened to see it sitting in one of those Little Free Library boxes in my neighborhood. I’m so happy I found it—because I’m certain it was meant for me. And I want to support you, so I’d like to purchase another copy here…to have you sign, of course.”
A look of pride crossed my wife’s face. “I appreciate that so much.”
Abby didn’t know it, butIwas the one who’d placed her book in that Little Free Library. In fact, I’d ordered dozens of copies online without Abby knowing and had driven them to every Free Library box I could find around London, in all different neighborhoods. There was a website that listed some of the locations for those boxes, and I’d used that as my road map.
After the woman purchased a book and left, Abby turned to me. “At least I can say I have a biggest fan.”
“She’s not your biggest fan.” I nudged her. “I am.”
“You know, my favorite part of this book is the part I didn’t write,” she said.
“Ah, yes. Too bad it took me as long to put the foreword together as it took you to write the entire book.”
“It was worth the wait.” Abby kissed my cheek and held out her hand to Miriam. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go pick out a book for you since you’ve been such a good girl.” She turned to me. “Just holler if anyone shows.”
Henry was now asleep in my arms, sucking on his binky.
Left alone at the table, I picked up one of the books and admired it.
One Bumpby Abby Benedictus
I opened it to the dedication.
For Britney,
Rest easy. I’ve got them.
Feeling warm inside, I turned a couple of pages to the foreword I’d written, which I hadn’t read since I’d submitted it to Abby a year or so ago.
