The Printed Letter Bookshop

by Katherine Reay

  “I need to talk—I need to talk to your brother. Can you set that up?”

  I’d woken him up. His “Janet?” had been groggy, but his “What’s going on?” was clear and urgent.

  “Nothing. Nothing that serious, I shouldn’t have woken you, but . . . I need help, Chris.”

  “We’ll be right over.”

  “No, I—” I stopped midprotest. He’d hung up. And while I hated that I’d woken him and knew he would now wake his brother, I was also thankful. I was so terribly thankful not to be alone.

  Within a half hour, tea was made and Chris and Luke sat with me at my kitchen table. I told them what happened at the shop and what led to it, and how I felt. To hear the words tumble from my mouth startled me. I said things that were true, but also things I hadn’t known were inside me—anger, yes, but also pain, regret, fear, longing, and shame. The shame was deeper than I fathomed. It felt endless. I concentrated on Chris. I trusted him. To tell all this to a priest was too intimidating. At least that’s what I told myself until halfway through when I realized it wasn’t.

  Father Luke drew out my story and my feelings with no judgment. He led me to my own conclusions and to my own heart with such care, I went deeper and allowed myself to admit more than I ever had before. It was like falling backward into a pool. I kept falling and falling, but there was no fear, only warmth as I was drawn deeper.

  He shared two verses with me. The first made me feel safe and the second startled me: You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. I felt the powerful, soothing truth of the words and I rested there.

  The second verse I recognized from Maddie’s letter to me. On the second page, she’d transcribed a chapter from the book of Proverbs. I’d read it all winter, but rather than bringing me comfort, it had pricked me—and here it rose again, on this night. I pulled her letter from my book and slid the pages across the table.

  Luke broke it down for me. Maybe Maddie knew I wasn’t ready, maybe she understood I’d need time with it. But now it opened like the flowers Madeline had planted in the window box outside the store. They’d unfurled in the morning sun. Yet they also withered with the frost five days later. I didn’t want to wither. I fired questions at Luke almost faster than he could answer.

  He talked of a woman who plants a vineyard and dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong; a woman who opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy; a woman who makes herself coverings and is clothed in strength and dignity; a woman who laughs at the time to come. I wanted every aspect of that woman to be within me.

  Even now, two weeks later, imagining the ability to laugh at the time to come fills me with wonder. Is such a thing possible?

  The description went on . . . This woman opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. I memorized it all—especially the last part. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.

  When Luke finished reciting the verses that night, I laid my head on the table. “It’s about a wife. I already threw that away.” I hadn’t realized that’s where it was all headed, and the hope I’d felt vanished away.

  But then that touch . . . lay your hand upon me. It was Luke’s hand on top of my head, the way my father used to do when I was very young, and again I felt safe and warm. I felt loved.

  Luke spoke softly, as if addressing that young child. “It’s about a woman, who may be a wife. But it’s first and foremost about a woman, and it’s not an unattainable description of an idealized woman. She’s born of experience and, I like to believe, knows her worth because she knows who created her. One of my favorite things John Paul II ever said was ‘Woman transcends all expectations when her heart is faithful to God.’ All expectations. And I’ve seen it too. My mom was amazing. My sisters are strong women—two are unmarried, by the way, and this is who they are. They don’t need a husband to be this woman. I believe God can do tremendous things through you—once you stop trying to wield all the power yourself.”

  Luke ended our time in prayer and offered to visit again—and we did. The next time, two days later, I was brave enough to meet with him alone. Chris had work and I needed to take my own steps, in courage and, as Luke advised, in faith.

  We’ve met every day since for coffee or tea or a cookie, and I’ve read and prayed . . .

  And I still don’t have the courage to talk to Madeline, or to Seth.

  “This is tremendous.” Claire’s voice draws me back to my work.

  I step back to stand beside her. The window is green now, and I’ve filled it with books forming bouquets of bright spring colors and stories. Publishers have defied winter’s gloom, the nation’s gloom, and showered the public with colorful covers that promise fresh starts and new beginnings. The spring offerings provide a chaotic mix of genres and colors and artwork, and it looks glorious.

  Claire drapes an arm over my shoulder and pulls me close. “This is your best work.”

  “Thank you.” I sink into her embrace. “Any movement on the shop?”

  “Interest, but nothing definitive.” She glances back to the office. “She won’t talk to me about it. Go easy on her. She’s lost weight. I don’t think she’s eating.”

  I nod in understanding and commiseration, but mostly because I’m unable to speak.

  * * *

  Claire

  Claire left Janet to her work and returned to the office, puzzling over the conundrum that was her friend. Janet had been more distracted at times in the past two weeks than she’d ever seen her, and yet she had never been so present either. Which, like everything with Janet, made no sense. She would check out with a smile across her face, but then Claire would turn around and find some annoyance put away, a coffee on her desk, a troublesome customer soothed, or, like now, a window display that rendered her speechless. What would it be like to carry such creativity and talent within?

  Claire bounced back in her seat and tapped closed an Excel file.

  What would it be like?

  The question lingered. She thought of Brittany. Though untrained, she possessed talent like Janet’s. Her art—impromptu sketches of pencil and pen, watercolors, pastels, oils—covered her walls and they were extraordinary. But there was nothing new. Claire had noted again yesterday when putting away the laundry that it had been weeks, maybe months, since anything new was pinned on the walls. She had walked over to the desk and noted that a fine layer of dust now stretched beyond the watercolor palette to the sketch pad and the metal boxes of art supplies. Something intrinsic to her daughter had been lost and she didn’t know how to recapture it.

  “She doesn’t draw anymore.” Claire had curled into bed next to Brian last night.

  He kissed her head, pulled her close, and dismissed her concerns.

  “But it’s part of her and she won’t talk about it.”

  “Then make her.”

  Claire had rolled back to see his eyes. He wasn’t being cavalier. He was serious, and Claire found the statement wasn’t as shocking as was his complete confidence that it could work.

  When she didn’t reply, he continued. “Don’t worry. She’s a teenager. She’ll come back to it. Besides, when does she have time? Between school and whatever it is on that phone that’s so exciting, she’s pretty booked.”

  “I’m still concerned.”

  “She’s almost eighteen and heading off to college. I think you can take a breath now.”

  Claire hadn’t felt sure, but as Brian rolled closer, she forgot to dwell on it further. She’d remembered it again that morning, but came no closer to any answers.

  “What are you doing up so early?”

  Matt had wandered into the kitchen a full half hour before the kids usually left for school.

  “I asked Brittany to leave early. I need help from my math teacher, and if I’m not ready Brit won’t be happy.”

  Claire set her coffee down on the counter and perched next to her son. “She doesn’t se
em happy regardless. Has she said anything?”

  “She never talks to me.”

  Matt shrugged, but it didn’t hide the truth. He was hurt. He and Brittany had been close once, wrestling, fighting, warring as kids do, but always with an element of fun behind it. That was gone too.

  “What’s the trouble in math? I’m good at math.” Claire laughed at Matt’s expression—it was a better option than tears at his incredulity. “I was a math major in college.”

  “You were?”

  “How do you not know this?”

  Matt shrugged again. “You’re Mom.” He opened his backpack and pulled out a sheet of double variable algebra problems.

  “Well, your mom can do this . . . Let me show you how.” Tutoring was a mix of learning algebra and learning Mom. “I was state math champion senior year in high school, did you know that? And after college, I worked at Price Waterhouse, right before it became PwC, and friends and I started a consulting group on Saturdays to do pro bono work, mostly for businesses we liked so that they wouldn’t close, but it was fun. We got free drinks, free breakfasts, and one clothing store outfitted me for a couple years in thanks for the help we gave them. And—”

  “Why’d you stop?”

  Claire put down the pencil. “We got busy and Brittany was born and we started moving and . . . Those were good reasons then, but we’re in a different place now, aren’t we?”

  “I guess . . . Is this the right answer?”

  It was. Claire hugged her son as her daughter entered the kitchen with a scowl.

  “Let’s go.”

  “I don’t need to go early. Mom helped me.”

  Brittany looked from Matt to her mom, then to the door. “Well, I do, so grab your stuff.”

  She was out the door with Matt trailing.

  Claire sat at her desk and let it all shift before her. Like Matt’s math problems, there was an answer. If she could shift the variables she might see it clearly. She might see Brittany clearly.

  The truculence of January and February had morphed into invisibility. Now Brittany ate in silence, went to her room and worked in silence, slept, then went to school and returned again. There was no chatter, none of those ever-important friends lighting up her phone, and no study dates.

  She didn’t even question the grounding, which had expired—unnoticed—last weekend.

  Chapter 16

  Janet

  Dr. Oz says we emit electrical signals, that attraction to someone else is not only a mix of pheromones, but a result of the electrical signals our bodies send. He also claims that you can feel them, and not only in romantic situations. They generate within us during any emotional situation like a non-shocking static cling thing, I guess. I doubted him. But I was wrong and he is right—I feel them. Right. Now.

  I enter the shop a full two hours before opening, because today I want to talk to Madeline and Claire. I rehearsed it all night. Words I’ve never said. Words I am late in saying. The shop has been busy lately, giving me no time and no privacy. Which is a good thing—Claire actually smiled as she paid the bills a couple days ago.

  “We’ve got money in the account. Real book-sales money that puts us ahead this month.”

  I thought she might cry.

  Now I’m the one who feels like crying, I’m so nervous. I look to Madeline and I pray she won’t fire me—again.

  Pray. Another word I’d never said, an action I’d never done. Until now. In the past month, I’ve felt called to it, wooed toward it—it feels like bread and wine and chocolate, all in one.

  “Can I talk to you both?”

  Madeline’s head lifts and without a word she spins in her chair to face me.

  Claire bounces back in hers. “What’s up?”

  Clearly the signals are real. They feel them too.

  “I’ve been studying, reading, and praying a lot this last month, and I need to . . . I need to apologize and ask for your forgiveness.”

  I pause a beat to let my words sink in, and begin again before either can reply. Waiting is too stressful, and going off script is not an option.

  “I’ve been a mess, and that’s not an excuse, it’s a fact. But I let that mess consume me. I fed it and it spilled into everything and I’m responsible for that. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done that put me and my mess ahead of you and ahead of my job here. And . . .” I take a deep breath. “I ask you to forgive me for leaving the shop open that night. I will try to repay the lost stock and the repair bills, but as you know, that could take time, lots and lots of time, but if you’ll let me, I’ll stay, I’ll ‘work with willing hands’ and bring you ‘good, and not harm.’ And after the shop sells, I’ll still work to make this right between us.”

  “What did you just quote?” Madeline speaks first. Her eyes narrow.

  “Proverbs 31. I memorized it this month.”

  “It was in your letter from Maddie.” Claire speaks this time.

  “On the second page. Yours too?”

  She nods and waves her hand at me to continue. “You memorized it?”

  I spread my hands apart. “Yes, but that’s not the point, or maybe it’s another point. The real point is . . .” I look to Madeline. “I am truly sorry.”

  Madeline stares at me. I expected it would be tough, but Luke didn’t warn me about how vulnerable you feel when apologizing. It’s a standing-naked-before-a-judge kind of vulnerable. I look down. I’m kneading my knuckles into swollen red balls.

  “What does it mean to you? The proverb, I mean. Do you know why she put it in your letter?”

  I almost hug Claire for breaking the moment and changing the subject.

  “It’s advice to a son about a good wife, but it’s also what we women can be, married or not.” I look to Madeline. “It must have been a favorite of Maddie’s. And it’s who she was, who I can be, and who I want to be. It can’t be too late, not for me, because I don’t believe Maddie would tell me about it if it were. But to get there, to be that person, I have to start by saying I’m sorry. I destroyed what we had, and the three of us did have something special, for however long it was going to last. I’m so sorry I caused such harm to it and to us—and to Maddie. I ruined what she built here, and it’s not just this physical place. I know that too.”

  Claire glances to Madeline. She wants Madeline to speak. It’s not going to happen.

  “That’s all I want to say . . . Oh, and thank you. I want to thank you for letting me work here this past month. It was very generous of you.” I turn to walk into the shop and begin my first-of-the-morning ritual—tidying that darn kids’ section.

  “How do you know it’s not too late?”

  Claire’s question surprises me. Her tone shocks me, especially the break at the end, right before the lift. It is soft, curious, and exposed. I look to Madeline first and suspect she agrees with me, for she is staring at Claire too.

  “For the shop?”

  Claire shakes her head, and it is the saddest, slowest motion I’ve ever seen.

  I have no pride left, so I plunk into my desk chair and wheel it toward her like a crab. I press my hand to my heart. “Because I keep reading and feeling this yes, right here, again and again, and it’s not that I’m agreeing with anything—it feels like the opposite, that I’ve gotten so much wrong, but yet I’m loved and, if I ask for forgiveness, I can be forgiven and it can be spring. And that compels me to change. All the grace and mercy and love that’s there for the asking, for the receiving, is not a fairy tale.”

  “I like fairy tales.” Claire’s smile is again so sad I reach for her hand.

  “I do too, especially true ones.”

  It feels like it’s only the two of us in the office.

  “Tell me the whole thing.”

  As I recite what I’ve memorized, I pull out my sketch pad. I glance to Madeline. Her jaw hangs open, that inch of disbelief, as she pushes from her chair to hover above us. It’s only a drawing, but they seem to like it. I took all the strong words, the actio
n verbs, from the verse and interwove them in a word cloud. The cloud forms the long silhouette shape of a woman standing, and the words are a mixture of block letters and script, inks and colors, tone and texture. I used some wonderful light water-based pens and overlaid them with thicker inks to create motion—as the woman in the verse clearly is not standing still.

  “It’s gorgeous.” Madeline stares at me.

  “Thank you.” She’s talking about my picture, but I feel like she’s accepting my apology too. They are the first words she has spoken to me and not at me in a month. And truth be told, this is the first morning I have given her the same courtesy.

  I tear the page from the pad. “You may have it.”

  She jumps back. Her hands fly up. “I can’t take that.”

  “I can make another. You should see what—” I stop. Madeline is not interested in what I’m doing.

  But Claire is. “We should see what?”

  “I’ve been working a lot lately, and I’ve got some things I really want to sell. My dream would be to host a show at that new gallery on Chestnut Street, but it’ll take years to build up inventory for something like that. Also, I put my house on the market again, at a lower price. It’ll all take time, but I will pay for the damages, Madeline.”

  Claire smiles. “That’s amazing, Janet.”

  “It’s time to move on, and it’s not so amazing.”

  “Work here, between customers, at least for now.” Madeline’s voice shocks us both. Claire’s jaw drops and I resist using my pointer finger to lift it shut.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Madeline points to the small room with the skylight. Even on this cloudy day, it’s flooded with beautiful light bathing a ton of boxes and debris. “Let’s clear that out, and you can work there. You wouldn’t need a lot for a show here. We could pair your works with books and make an evening of it.”