My heart tightens and twists.
“He can’t see himself clearly,” she says. “They made him feel like all he ever does is let people down.”
I’ve seen it, over and over again—that self-doubt, the mistrust of his own feelings, the fear of letting any bit of darkness out of himself.
“Here I am, keeping all my problems secret so he won’t rush in to fix them,” she says, “and he tells me he’s scared his childhood broke him. That because of it, he can’t be the brother, or friend, or whatever the people he loves deserve.”
I swallow hard. “What did you say?”
“I told him that, because of my childhood, I know he can. He always has.”
A lump of emotion climbs my esophagus.
“Anyway.” Her gaze falls. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do.”
I swallow. “Welcome back, Julia.”
“Thanks,” she says. “It’s good to be home.”
OceanofPDF.com
35
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16TH
1 DAY
I read Dad’s note in the middle of the night.
Hey, kiddo,
Sorry to take off like this—got a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Can’t wait to tell you all about it on our way back through town! Will you be around in October? Would love to see what an Up North Fall looks like. Miss you already.
Love, Dad & Starfire
He’s the same dad as ever. The one who says one thing—I love you; I miss you; we’ll stick around as long as you’ll have us—but does another.
But that’s not what bothers me about the letter.
What bothers me is one word—October—and the low, yearning ache I feel between my ribs when I read it.
I start to cry. And then, of course, I call my mom.
“Calm down,” she says, when I start blabbering. “Tell me everything.”
Finally, I do.
It’s still dark and damp when I meet Harvey at the front doors on Saturday morning. We’re both dressed down in anticipation of the long day ahead. He’s wearing a Howard sweatshirt and athletic pants (not the Red Wings ones), while I’m in stretchy knit pants and a baggy cardigan.
“You manage to get any sleep?” he asks, unlocking the automatic doors.
“A little,” I say. “You?”
“Not much,” he says, “but adrenaline will carry us through. And if not, we can take turns napping in the office.”
Inside, the fluorescent lights take their sweet time flickering on.
I feel a pang of longing. Nostalgia, I guess, for every library I’ve ever loved, and the little girl who dreamed of this: being the first person in and the last out of a building brimming with books. And feeling like it belonged to me in a way, and I to it.
A home, when nowhere else felt right.
Harvey takes a deep breath. “Don’t you love the way it smells?”
“So, so much,” I say.
“That right there,” he says, “is why I can’t retire. If I could live in this feeling, I would.”
“I know,” I say. “The kids will be living my childhood dream tonight, staying over in a library.”
He looks over. “You did well, Daphne. Really well.”
I wonder if I’m glowing. Probably it’s too early to glow. Probably I look like the ghost of a milk carton gone sour.
“Let’s get to work.”
The Fantasy team arrives first, ready to transform one corner of the library into a low-budget approximation of a castle with their prepainted butcher-paper backdrops and papier-mâché dragon, its sinuous body segmented into four little arc shapes, arranged in a row so that the floor looks like water the creature’s swimming through.
It is, by nature of being made out of paper by an amateur, utterly and wonderfully horrifying. If this thing came to life, it would do so with gruesome screams at finding itself sentient yet anatomically improbable.
I love it so much. The kids are going to lose it. Even the ones old enough to roll their eyes, like Maya.
Once, in seventh grade, Mom took me to a midnight launch party for a fantasy series. They passed out “wands,” which were just sticks they probably found in the brush behind the library. It was silly. It was also magical. I chose a twig with pale green lichen crawling over it, and Mom chose one that was bone white. I felt like I was as close as I’d ever be to true magic.
That feeling of curiosity and awe and wonder. That was where I made my home every time we moved, a sensation that couldn’t be taken away.
Ashleigh shows up eight minutes late, breakfast burritos in hand for both me and Harvey. She keeps things running at the desk while he and I coordinate the waves of drop-offs and volunteer check-ins.
Around ten thirty, the Sci-Fi and Contemporary crews show up, quickly taking over their corners, hanging their tinfoil UFOs from the drop-tile and their painted quote and cover posters from R. J. Palacio, Jasmine Warga, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jeff Kinney over in the Contemporary area.
At one p.m., the Horror team arrives with faux cobwebs and lightly spooky haunted house paraphernalia. They piece together their set in one of the two community rooms, safely tucked away from the littlest readers.
Around three, the Picture Book volunteers descend on the Story Nook. One of them—a local seamstress—has made a giant stuffed Very Hungry Caterpillar to be won by the top reader of the under-six crowd, most of whom will go home before dark, while those with older siblings hang on a bit longer.
The day’s first crisis hits at three thirty-two, and it’s a doozy.
I’m out front, helping Shirley—the ever-sticky three-year-old Lyla’s grandmother—manage drop-offs, when Ashleigh comes bustling outside, sweaty from exertion, giant topknot wobbling. She gives me a look like, We need to talk, and I excuse myself to follow Ashleigh a few yards away from the covered walkway at the front of the library.
“So,” she says, keeping her voice low, “don’t freak out.”
“Three magical words,” I say.
“Landon caught it,” she says.
I shake my head. “Caught . . . ?”
“The stomach bug,” she says. “He can’t come tonight.”
“Okay.” I nod as my brain spins through its own version of the Read-a-thon Google Doc. Landon was going to be in the other community room, the one for refreshments. He was also supposed to go pick up a lot of those refreshments.
And be our “tech guy.” Set up the projector and screen, run the videos and live streams.
“That’s not all,” Ashleigh says.
My eyes snap back to her face. The corners of her mouth pull wide in an exaggerated grimace. “Three other volunteers have called in sick too.”
“Shit.”
I should have prepared for this.
In a way, I did. I didn’t put a cap on volunteers. The more, the better. But our version of more didn’t account for losing four people, three and a half hours before start time.
I’m trying to come up with a plan, buying myself time with an evenly spaced out “Okay . . . okay,” as if some brilliant solution is in the process of being birthed.
Back under the walkway, someone calls my name.
“I’m going to take care of it,” Ashleigh tells me.
“How?” I say.
“Don’t worry about it,” she tells me.
At my snort, she says, “Fine! Worry about it. But also trust me. I’ll figure it out. You go focus on the other nine million things you need to do.”
