The Bookseller

by Cynthia Swanson

  “My own parents had been gone for such a long time . . . and I always felt . . . I felt . . . that with Tom and Claire, I received a second chance to have parents.”

  And suddenly I discover something about grief that I had not known before. When I was a child and a young adult, when I’d lost grandparents, pets, friends during the war—not to mention that awful day when my father told me that my baby brother had died—those grievings were huge and sad, nearly immeasurable in my young mind. But they were my own. There were times when I had to attend funerals, offer condolences, send sympathy cards. But I did not have to think too much about anyone else’s grief. I could go home and fall apart; I could cry and cry, for as long as I wanted to. I did not have to hold it together for anyone else.

  In that other life, I am the center of my world. Of course, I love and care about other people—many other people. But at the end of the day, my thoughts and actions are mainly about managing my own life and my own emotions.

  Here, that is not the case. My life, and my love, are bigger than that. Even in grief, I have to hold other people close.

  I reach forward and clasp Lars’s hands. “Tell me . . . if it’s not too hard . . . tell me about the funeral.”

  He shrugs. “No . . . um, no bodies, of course. No caskets. Nothing but . . . well, we put up some photographs and flowers.” He smiles. “Lots of photographs and lots of flowers, as a matter of fact. It seemed you couldn’t get enough of either.”

  “Because that was all that was available,” I say, not really wanting to think about what that means.

  He shrugs. “Anyway, it was a nice service. The church was packed.” He looks away, then back at me. “So many people, Katharyn. I couldn’t believe all the people. Men and women that your father worked with over the years. Everyone your mother knew from all her volunteer time at the hospital, all the community work she did. All your neighbors from Myrtle Hill and our neighbors from here. So many people that you went to school with—high school, college. People you knew over the years, when you had the bookstore.” He smiles at me. “Everyone, Katharyn. Everyone was there.”

  I am appreciative of this. But there is only one name I really want to know about. “Lars,” I say softly.

  “Yes?”

  “Was . . . was Frieda there?”

  Lars stands abruptly. He puts his hands on mine. “Katharyn,” he says. “Don’t torture yourself like this.”

  I shake my head, incredulous. “So she didn’t come,” I say. “She didn’t even come to my parents’ funeral.”

  “My love.” He kneels in front of me. “My love, there are things in our past . . . that we just can’t change.” He stands. “I don’t think there’s anything you could have done . . . not a single thing . . . that would have changed how things turned out with Frieda.”

  I lean back in the green chair and blink away tears.

  Lars puts a hand on my shoulder. I see him glance toward the clock on the nightstand.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper. “I know you have to go.”

  “I don’t want to leave you like this.” He looks into my eyes. “Katharyn,” he pleads. “I think you should talk to someone. A psychiatrist. Please, let me make some calls . . .”

  A psychiatrist. A doctor. I think about the things doctors have said over the years—all their “truths.” Telling my mother not to have any more babies. Telling Lars and me that our child has an incurable disease, and it’s my fault. Telling me, I think ruefully I as remember Kevin’s rebuff all those years ago—not in so many words, but telling me by his actions—that I was not good enough to be a doctor’s wife.

  I shake my head and look up with resolve. “No doctors. I’ll be fine.” I stand and put my arms around him. “Thank you for telling me,” I say. “I know it sounds crazy . . . that I can’t remember.”

  He nods. “You just tell me what you need,” he says gently. “Whatever you need, Katharyn . . . anything . . . I will do it for you.”

  I smile. He is so amazing, so perfect.

  But he can’t give me the one thing I want.

  He can’t give me back the people who—in my real life—I love the most.

  After Lars leaves the house, I go to the kitchen and ask Alma to fix lunch for Michael. “What for you?” she asks me, frowning.

  “Nothing,” I tell her. “I’m not hungry.” I go to the staircase and call Michael. He appears in the doorway to his room. “Come down and eat lunch now, honey,” I say. “Alma will sit with you.” I turn to her. “After he’s done, he can watch television,” I say. “Then he won’t be in your way. Is that all right?”

  She shrugs and nods. I tell her I’m going to lie down.

  In the green bedroom, I lie on the bed and cover myself with an afghan that matches the colors in the wallpaper. I don’t recognize the afghan itself, but I recognize my mother’s favorite knitting pattern. She must have made it for us after we moved into this house. It would have been like her to make me one that matched my perfect new master bedroom.

  I close my eyes and wait, knowing exactly where I will be when I awake.

  Chapter 28

  It’s sunny when I open my eyes. I am in my own living room, lying on the sofa. Across my body is my familiar, cozy afghan—also my mother’s pattern, of course, but this one purple and blue, colors I chose. Aslan is curled alongside my stomach.

  To my surprise, my mother is sitting in the armchair to my right. Her knitting needles click quietly; it looks like she’s making a baby sweater. Blue, for a boy. “Hi,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

  She looks up and smiles. “Well, good morning, sunshine.” She turns her wrist and glances at her watch. “Actually, good afternoon. It’s almost two.”

  “Oh, good heavens.” I throw off the afghan and sit up. Aslan, disrupted by my sudden movement, also rises. He arches his back and then settles down at the end of the sofa, where he has a good view of my mother’s flashing knitting needles. “How could I have slept so long?”

  Mother shrugs. “Frieda rang us when you didn’t come in to the shop by eleven. She had called here several times, and there was no answer. So she asked us to swing by.” She frowns. “Your door was unlocked, Kitty. That’s not safe, you know, not for a woman living alone. It near about gave me a heart attack, when I saw you lying on the davenport. Dad and I thought perhaps you’d been strangled by a burglar and left for dead.”

  I grimace. “Yikes, I’m sorry. I guess I was sleeping really hard.” I rub my eyes. “I suppose I fell asleep reading, after you and Dad left last night.”

  “I suppose you did, all right. You must have been exhausted. When your father and I saw how soundly you were sleeping, we decided not to disturb you. We telephoned Frieda and explained the situation. She said it was all right, that you should take the day off and rest. Then your father left; he wanted to get the brakes checked on the car, said that the car sitting idle in the garage while we were away had not been good for it. The brakes weren’t responding quite right to his foot . . .” She shrugs again. “In any case, you slept right through all that. So I just settled down here, and I’ve been knitting and waiting for you to wake up.”

  It is exactly like my mother to have the foresight to grab her knitting bag when she has been called to her adult daughter’s home to check whether she’s dead or alive.

  “You were sleeping so deeply. It’s like you weren’t even in there,” she says, tapping my forehead teasingly with one of her needles.

  I duck away, smiling. “Who are you making that for?”

  She looks down at her work. “My neighbor Rose’s daughter,” she tells me. “You know Rose and Harry; they’re the couple that moved in to the Freemans’ old place, around the same time you moved over here. Their girl, Sally is her name, she’s expecting in January.” She shrugs. “Now, Rose insists it’s a boy. Sally already has a girl, so Rose says this one has to be a boy.” My mother winks at me. “But I’m making a pink one, too, just in case.”

  I wink back.
“Good thinking, Mother.” I look out the window. “You don’t always get one of each.”

  My mother shakes her head. “Now, that is certainly true,” she says, not meeting my eyes. And I know she must be thinking of my brothers, those three babies who never breathed a single breath of life.

  “Mother.” I turn to face her, tucking my legs under the afghan. She looks up at me. “Are you ever . . . does it ever bother you . . .” I hesitate, then go on. “That I didn’t marry and have children?”

  My mother casts her glance back to the needles in her hands. “Now, that’s not a fair question,” she tells me. “Bother me? What a strange way to put it.” She finishes a row and looks up, meeting my eyes. “Did I want you to marry and have children? Of course I did. What mother doesn’t want that for her daughter? But am I ‘bothered’ that it didn’t happen? Well, that’s just silly. I want you to be happy, and you seem . . .” She starts the next row. “You and Frieda . . . you both seem happy.”

  I laugh aloud. “Talk about a strange way to put it!” I stretch my arms, releasing the tension in my shoulders. “Frieda and I aren’t lovers, Mother.”

  Her face reddens. “No, of course not. I didn’t mean . . . that wasn’t what I meant, Kitty.”

  “Some women are, you know,” I say playfully.

  “I know that, too, darling. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “But not Frieda and me. That’s simply not the way we feel about each other.” This discussion has taken a surprising turn, and now I find that I am the one to blush. My mother and I have always been able to speak openly with one another, but I think I can say with assurance that in the thirty-five-odd years I’ve known how to verbalize my thoughts, she and I have never discussed lesbianism, on either a personal or a purely social science level.

  “Well.” Thoughtfully, she puts down her needles. “You and Frieda are true companions. That’s not easy to find, you know. Some people search their entire lives for it. Some people—many people, really—marry, and don’t get that with their husbands or wives.”

  This makes me wonder about Lars and myself. Do we have that, in the other world? Are we “true companions,” as my mother puts it? I believe we are, actually. He seems to read me so well, like he’s known me forever. The way that Frieda does, in this life.

  Who do I lean on in that other life, if not on Lars? Certainly, I lean on him more than any other person. Without Lars, how would I manage Michael? If the memories that return to me in my dream life are any indication, it’s clear that I have done, and continue to do, a poor job of parenting Michael. And it would be all the poorer if it were not for Lars.

  But suddenly I realize who else I must lean on, in that world.

  My parents, of course. They are my champions there.

  Mine, and—more importantly—Michael’s.

  Another memory comes to me, or maybe something I’m making up in my head. Who knows anymore? In either case, I can see us in my mind’s eye: my children, myself, and my mother.

  We are at the library. It’s the Decker Branch Library, the one that’s within walking distance from my duplex and from Sisters’. Is there no library closer to Southern Hills? There is so much new construction out that way; you’d think there would be a library. But perhaps one has not been built yet. Or perhaps one has been built, but in that life, I prefer the old-time library in my former neighborhood.

  We are in the children’s section, and it’s story hour. All of us—Mother, Mitch, Missy, Michael, and myself—are sitting cross-legged on the carpeting. A number of other mothers and their children are settled in to listen, too. The children all seem similar in age to mine, perhaps three or four.

  The librarian holds up a book and begins to read. The book is called Ann Can Fly. It tells the story of a girl who gets to fly with her father in his single-engine airplane. He is flying her to, of all places, her summer camp. Lucky girl.

  The children listen thoughtfully—a twitch or a wiggle here or there, but the story is mesmerizing, and the librarian is an animated reader. She has everyone’s attention.

  Everyone except Michael.

  He is seated next to me, with his knobby knees up around his chest and his eyes on the floor. His upper body sways side to side. I know, because I’ve seen him do it before, that this helps him concentrate and block out any sensations that disturb him. His swaying is rhythmic, steady, and silent, but I note that his movements are getting wider and more dramatic. He doesn’t seem to realize that he is moving more and more rapidly as the story goes on.

  I am not the only one to notice. Several of the other mothers, those in close proximity to me, turn to glare. Two of them lean toward each other and whisper, then look my way again. I can tell exactly what they’re thinking: What’s wrong with that child?

  My mother is looking straight ahead at the librarian, Mitch on one side of her and Missy on the other. She has her arms around both of them, and they snuggle against her.

  Michael’s swaying gets even more exaggerated; he almost reaches the floor with each shoulder as he moves his torso from left to right. It is distracting, I have to admit. I duck my head, feeling ashamed—not of Michael, but of myself. I am ashamed for wishing so desperately that my son could simply be ordinary.

  One of the mothers leans toward me. “Please,” she whispers loudly. “Your boy’s swaying is distracting. It’s hard for the children to concentrate.” She gives me a long, pointed look. “I don’t really think he belongs here, do you?”

  I stare at the woman, unable to answer. I find that I am blinking back tears.

  Before I can say anything, my mother—still spry despite her fifty-odd years—slides on her bottom until she is between Michael and me on her left, and the other mothers and children on her right. She puts her arm around me and reaches her hand to gently ruffle Michael’s hair. “This child,” she whispers fiercely to the woman, “has as much right to hear the story as any other child. He and his mother belong here, the same as any other mother and child.” She glares around at the women. “The same as all of you and your children.” She raises her hand and points her index finger directly at them. “Don’t forget,” she says to the other mothers, “that all children are God’s children.”

  My mother reaches into her pocket and hands her handkerchief to me. “Dry your eyes, beautiful girl,” she tells me. “These people are not worthy of your tears.”

  Now, recalling that moment, I gaze appreciatively at my mother. I am grateful for this memory, for this understanding that in the other world, she is not only my advocate but my child’s as well.

  And then I remember that in that world, she is no longer there. That she will never be there again.

  I don’t want to think about it. I wrench my mind back to the current conversation. What were we talking about? Not children, because in this world I have no children.

  Oh, yes. Now I remember. Companionship.

  “I agree,” I say softly. “I can see that if one were married, companionship would be the most important part.”

  She nods, studying the sweater in her lap. “It is,” she concurs. “You know, the other part . . . the physical part . . . that’s not always all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Jeepers. She really is telling it all, isn’t she? “Do you mean . . . you and Dad . . .”

  “Gracious, Kitty, that’s hardly something I’m going to discuss with my daughter.” She pulls yarn from her bag, and Aslan bats at it. “Get away, you.” She pushes his paw away, and he jumps down, heading for the kitchen, no doubt wondering if there is any food left in his bowl.

  “But you’re all right, aren’t you?” I face her, my slippered feet on the floor. “You and Dad—everything is all right? You’re happy, aren’t you?” My voice becomes a hoarse whisper. “Please tell me you’re happy.”

  She smiles. “Your father and I have been married for a good many years, and we are lucky that we still like to spend time together. We’re lucky that we know how to find common ground. Do I want to be wi
th him all day long? Does he want to be with me all day long? Goodness, no. He has golf and reading; he has friends and plenty to do. And I have my knitting, my ladies’ club, my volunteer work at the hospital. In the evenings, we have each other. True companionship? Yes, we have that. But that doesn’t mean we need to spend every waking moment together. And that”—she pulls more yarn from her bag—“is how it ought to be.” She frowns. “You want a companion, yes. But you’d never want someone to be your whole world, Kitty.”

  “No,” I say slowly. “No, even if one is married . . . there ought to be more. Not just your husband, not even just your children.” I blink a few times. “Family is important, it’s the most important thing. But it can’t be everything. If it is . . .” I look away, toward the front window. “If it is, when your family life doesn’t go as you expected it to . . . why then, you’re in for a huge disappointment. If that’s all you have.”

  “Exactly.” My mother gently folds her handiwork and places it in her bag. “Why do you think I work with all those poor ailing children at the hospital?” she asks me. “Why do you think I’ve spent so much time there? Do you think I would have done that if things had gone differently? If you had not been an only child?”

  I have never considered this before. She is of a generation in which married women in the workforce were a rarity—not that there are loads of mothers working outside their homes nowadays, but certainly more than when I was a child. That lifestyle was out of the question for my mother—indeed, for most women of that time. But as a mother of just one child—and a mother who had hoped for many more—what was she to do with all her time, once I was past infancy, once I was in school? She had more than enough time to spend on me; she lavished time on me. And yet I was a good kid, an easy kid. She always said so, they both said so. With just one easy kid, she would have had buckets of spare time. So she spent that time on other children, on babies who took the place of the babies she did not get to raise.

  “In either case,” my mother says briskly, rising from her chair, “now that I know you’re perfectly all right, I’m going to call your father. He ought to be home by now, and he can come back down here and pick me up.”