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Birdie points at him. “See? He’s conducting a quality inspection.”

“He’s sitting on Eleanor Roosevelt,” I point out.

“She can handle him,” Birdie assures me.

I reach past Murphy and pull out a hardcover with a faded green jacket. A pressed fern has left a brown outline between the title page and the opening chapter, and someone has written M.L., June 1987 inside the cover in looping blue ink. I wonder who M.L. was, where she found the fern, whether she read on a rainy afternoon or beneath a tree, and why a book kept for nearly four decades ended up in a box outside my back door.

I read the first page because I always do. My grandmother started the habit, claiming it was inventory control rather than curiosity. I suspect she wanted a glimpse of the people who had owned each book. Used copies arrive carrying evidence, with coffee rings, grocery-list place markers, margin notes, and names from lives I will never know. New books tell one story, while used books often tell two.

“Any good?” Birdie pulls a trio of thrillers from her carton and glances at the book in my hands.

“A woman has returned to a house she swore she would never enter again.” I turn the page, searching for another clue.

Birdie raises her eyebrows. “Haunted?”

“Divorced, I think.”

“More expensive,” she concludes, adding the thrillers to the growing pile.

I place the book in the keep pile, then glance toward my phone. The screen remains dark.

Birdie notices because Birdie notices me with the ruthless accuracy of a cousin from my mother’s side of the family who spent every holiday, birthday, and childhood disaster at my side. She isn’t related to my paternal grandmother, but she grew up inside The Book Corner with Connor and me and loved Grandma as if she were her own. She doesn’t comment yet. Instead, she reaches into her box and withdraws a thick manual on home plumbing.

“Romance?” I suggest, nodding toward the manual.

Birdie studies the cover. “The hero is emotionally unavailable, but he knows his way around a pipe wrench.”

“That description could sell very well.”

“Put it face-out,” she recommends, handing me the book.

The bell rings again, and Janet Alvarez enters wearing a plum-colored coat and carrying a bakery bag that fills the store with butter and sugar. She teaches fourth grade, cries over dog books, and claims she only visits for classroom supplies.

“I brought reinforcements,” she calls, raising the bag.

“You’re my favorite customer,” Birdie tells her.

“You told Mr. Talbot that yesterday,” I remind her.

“He brought sandwiches.”

Janet crosses toward us, but the walnut reading chair beside the front window diverts her. Birdie restored it last week, replacing the torn cushion with moss-green velvet and polishing the carved arms until the wood glowed. A cream tag hangs from one arm with its name, BEATRICE, above the price.

Unfortunately, Murphy abandoned Eleanor Roosevelt during Janet’s entrance and now occupies Beatrice. His tail curls over his paws, his eyes are closed, and his posture communicates permanent residency.

Janet stops in front of the chair. “That’s beautiful.”

Birdie lights up. She always does when anyone admires one of her pieces, as if the compliment belongs to the discarded chair that survived rather than the woman who brought it back. “Early nineteen hundreds, probably. The frame was buried beneath seven layers of varnish, and someone repaired one leg with three nails and what appeared to be blind faith.”

“Can I sit in it?” Janet asks.

Murphy opens one eye.

I fold my arms. “That depends on whether you’re willing to negotiate with the current occupant.”

Janet approaches and offers her fingers for inspection. Murphy sniffs them, decides they lack sufficient tribute, and closes his eye again.

“He likes you,” Birdie assures her.