“I am,” I said. “Who are you?”

“I thought so,” she said, the smile growing. “I didn’t mean to stalk you. I just wasn’t sure if it was you or not.”

“And you are?” I asked again.

She held out her hand. “Helen Stunderson.”

I hesitated, then shook her hand. “Olaf’s wife.”

“Ex-wife,” she corrected, still smiling. “Very much the ex-wife.”

“Right.”

The smile dissipated. “The police contacted me. About finding Olaf in your home.”

“Technically, he wasn’t in our home,” I said. “He was in the coal chute.”

“Yes, that’s what they told me,” she said, nodding. “That is just…bizarre. I was so sorry to hear about it.”

“I’m sure,” I said. And then, because I didn’t know what else to say, I added, “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, we weren’t still in love or anything,” she said, waving a hand in the air. “It was over a long time ago. I know Olaf didn’t want it to be, but it was. Sad, really. I tried to be gentle, but it’s difficult when one person wants out and the other doesn’t.” She touched my elbow. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Well, I—”

“I mean, it’s so hard,” she said, talking right over me and giving my elbow a gentle squeeze. “You don’t want to break someone’s heart. You don’t want to tell them no. But, my goodness. I deserve to have some happiness, too, and being with Olaf…well, that just wasn’t going to do it for me. And I was, of course, afraid I’d make him miserable.” She forced something resembling an empathetic smile onto her face. “I just tried to let him down easy. That was all I could do. But again. You’ve been there, right? You know what it’s like.”

“Well, it was a little different for me because—”

“I mean, what do you do?” she asked, squinting at me and again ignoring my attempt to answer her question. “It hurts to do that. You feel like the bad guy. And I’m certainly not the bad guy. But I didn’t want to stay in a relationship that wasn’t good for either of us. But it was so hard to have him keep coming back and coming back and asking if we could give it one more shot. My heart wanted to say yes just because I hated seeing him so sad, but my head told me it was just best to cut the cord.” She made a snipping gesture with her fingers. “Quick and neat.”

I paused, wondering if this was another attempt to get me to answer a question she didn’t really want answered. She seemed to be catching her breath and then something flashed through her expression.

“I’m sorry,” she said, releasing my elbow. “I didn’t mean to just spit all that out at you at once. And accost you here in the library. I apologize.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Not a problem.” And it really wasn’t. Compared to the confrontation with Olaf’s sister the other day, this had been relatively easy. At least Helen wasn’t accusing me of murder.

“But I do have a question for you.”

“A question?” I wondered if she’d actually let me answer it.

She grimaced, as if finding the words was difficult. “When you and Olaf dated—”

“Let me stop you right there,” I said, deciding I’d be the interrupter this time. “We didn’t date. We went on one date. There’s a misconception out there for some reason that Olaf and I were actually together for some period of time. We went on one date and that was it.”

“Right, right,” she said, nodding. Her hair fell forward and she pushed it off her forehead. “Sorry. Poor choice of words. So…when you and Olaf went on your one date…did he mention me?”

I frowned. It was an odd thing to ask me, especially since she’d just spent the last few minutes trying to convince me that the last thing in the world she wanted was for Olaf to focus on her or mention her. And since she seemed to understand that we’d only gone out once, I didn’t know what she thought he might’ve said to me about her in the couple of hours we were together.

“No.” I shook my head. “We didn’t really talk about his divorce. Or mine.”

She raised her eyebrows. “So not a word?” she asked. She chuckled. “Well, that would’ve been a first. Maybe you don’t remember.”

I straightened a little. “No, I’m pretty sure I remember. We specifically didn’t talk about our divorces. It didn’t seem appropriate. For either of us.”

She clicked her tongue. “That’s so very strange I mean, he never went anywhere without talking about me. I mean, us.”

I stared at her. I could think of a number of things that were even stranger than her ex-husband not discussing her during a date. Stalking me at the library ranked right up there.

“It seems coincidental running into you here,” I said slowly. “Considering we’ve never run into each other anywhere else in town before.”

She blinked rapidly. “What’s that?”

“I said it’s coincidental running into you here,” I repeated. “Since we’ve never met before. Just seems…very coincidental.”

“Oh, right,” she said, nodding. “Yes. It is. But I…I work here.”

Guilt and embarrassment flooded me. “You do?”

She nodded. “Part time. I help shelve the books.” She smiled. “And I should probably get back to that. It was a pleasure meeting you. We’ll have to talk again sometime.”

She hustled off and disappeared into the maze of aisles.

I stood there for a moment, replaying the entire conversation in my head. Helen was…odd. But maybe she was just out of sorts because her ex-husband was dead. I had no emotional connection to Thornton anymore, but it would still be strange to hear about his death. I wished I’d thought to ask her about Olaf’s sister and see if she thought there was anything strange going on there. Of course, she hadn’t really given me the opportunity to say very much.

I returned to the new release section and picked up a book, trying to clear my head. I flipped to the the first page and, satisfied that it had the potential to hold my interest, tucked it under my arm and headed back to the children’s section.

Grace and Sophie were stationed at a low round table, stacks of books piled haphazardly around them.

“I thought we said five books each,” I said.

They looked up from their books and exchanged guilty looks.

“We forgot,” Grace said.

“You’re going to read all of these?”

They nodded their heads vigorously and I just shook my head and smiled. There were going to be bigger battles on the parenting road than limiting the number of books they checked out.

Will joined us a few minutes later, a sports almanac in one hand and a book about weather phenomena in the other. We went to the checkout station and each of them took their turn, first scanning their cards and then lining the books’ barcodes under the red laser.

They gathered up their hauls and I told them to head to the car. Will opened his mouth to ask why but I shoved the car keys in his hand and  him permission to start it. His eyes widened with excitement and he marched to the door, the girls trailing behind him, both clamoring for a turn to hit the clicker and unlock the doors. I figured it would be a miracle if the car was still there when I walked out.

I went to the front desk and waited for the white-haired woman seated behind it to look up from her computer screen.

She peered at me from behind reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose. “Are the machines not working?”

“What?”

She pointed with a pencil. “The self-checkout machines. I know how much your kids love them.”

Excellent. We had a reputation.

“No, no,” I said. “They were fine. We got everything we needed.”

“Oh, good,” she said, nodding. “It’s a pleasure to see those kids leave with so many books.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean just leave?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Absolutely not. Warms my heart to see children excited over books.”

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t completely failing as a mom.

“Well, they do and they love this place,” I said. “So thank you.”

She nodded and waited expectantly.