The bell above the door had stopped ringing nearly an hour ago, but the shop still held the shape of the day. The air was warm with the smell of old paper, ink, and the soft musk that only secondhand books can keep. I rested my hands on the counter, letting the silence settle over me. It was the kind of silence that carried tiny echoes, the ones people leave behind when they move through a space with their thoughts spilling out. The last few customers had taken more out of me than I expected. The elderly man had wandered in first. He stood in the doorway with a lost expression, one hand pressed to his chest as if he were holding onto a thought that kept slipping. “I came for a book about gardens,” he said quietly. “Or flowers. My wife used to love them. Or maybe I loved that she loved...