The Lending Library

by Fogelson, Aliza

  “Of course.”

  “Dodie, what’s happening?” Shep asked when I walked through the door. “I got your text. I can’t believe the timing.”

  “Shep, I have something to tell you. I want to adopt him myself,” I blurted. “I can’t go through this again knowing he might be far away forever.” I wish I hadn’t been so blunt after waiting this long to tell him, but there was no time to waste now.

  Shep was silent as too many agonizing seconds passed. “But that’s not a reason to try to adopt him yourself.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” I said. “I love him.”

  “Of course you do. But are you really ready to take care of him?”

  “Yes,” I said without thinking.

  “To be his mother?”

  “Yes. I know I can do it.”

  “I’m sorry, but how do you know? From babysitting?”

  I didn’t like the tone of Shep’s voice.

  “Tons of first-time mothers don’t have anywhere near that much experience,” I pointed out.

  “That may be true. But from what I can see of my nieces and nephews, being a parent is pretty much all-consuming. And you have the library . . . and your job . . . and . . .”

  “I want to be a mother more than anything,” I said.

  Shep blinked, then leveled his gaze at me. “More than you want to be my wife?”

  “What is that question supposed to mean?”

  “You said you want to be a mother more than anything. And you and I are engaged. So does that take precedence over everything? Is that why you’ve been putting off setting the date with me?”

  “No, it’s not. I mean, I haven’t been putting it off.” Even as I denied it, I knew there was some truth to what he was saying. Part of the reason I had said next fall was because it was far off enough that I didn’t have to worry about the specifics yet. Still, I couldn’t believe that’s what he was focusing on right now. “Are you asking me to choose?”

  “Are you asking me to choose?” he shot back. “This is the first I’m hearing about your wanting to adopt Terabithia. What about my feelings on kids in general? Or right now? Or adoption? Or Terabithia? Do I get a say in this?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I didn’t want to assume that you would be on board with it.”

  “Okay, well, but if that’s true, what if I’m not? What does that mean for us?”

  It was a fair question. One I hadn’t really allowed myself to think about. And his anger—which was obviously growing the more the timeline added up in his head—was totally reasonable too. “Are you?”

  “That’s not the point. What does it mean for us if I’m not on board?”

  “So you are asking me to choose. You or Terabithia?”

  Shep sighed. “Dodie, I’m not asking you to choose. Not yet. I’m not promising that I won’t. I’m trying to understand this news you’ve dropped on me. I mean, how long have you been considering this?”

  I squirmed. Should I tell him that it had been a glimmer of an idea since right after Sullivan’s death? “A while.”

  “And when were you planning on telling me?”

  “When it was a little more concrete.”

  “As in, irreversible?”

  “No, of course not. Listen, Shep, I don’t know if Mackie and Jeff would even consider letting me move forward.”

  “But you’ve talked to them about it?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “I said something when Jed and Eileen first met him. But they made it clear they couldn’t really consider it. Now maybe they can.”

  “You talked to them about it before you talked to me?”

  I nodded. It sounded so bad when he put it that way.

  “Did you bring it up again today?”

  “Yes,” I confessed. “But I knew I was going to be talking to you about it before anything would happen.”

  Shep stood and walked a full circle around the room, rubbing his hands through his hair.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. Here I am envisioning the rest of our lives together, and you’re thinking of introducing a child into the mix but don’t even mention it? Why?”

  “Honestly, because I was afraid you would react this way. It’s pretty clear you’re not happy about the idea.”

  “I don’t even know how I feel about it. I need more than five minutes to react. I need to process it.”

  “Okay,” I said. That was a reasonable thing to ask. But what scared me was that I felt a hardening inside already. Like I was steeling myself for him to disappoint me and maybe even leave. It wasn’t reasonable for me to expect him to say immediately, I’m in. Some part of me had thought he would, though.

  He gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” It would be the first night we had spent apart in months.

  “Okay,” I repeated. As soon as the door shut, I called Coco and left a message. She would give me her honest perspective. Hopefully with some reassurance. And I could finally tell her I was planning to adopt too. She was getting ready to leave for Liberia, and I knew her hands were full. But this was an emergency. Three hours later, after I’d reorganized all the pretty blank journals I’d been buying at museums, I gave up waiting and climbed into bed.

  The next day, Shep finally showed up in the late afternoon unshaven and with circles under his eyes that matched my own.

  I made peppermint hot chocolate, and he stood in silence watching me stir. I tried not to think that he kept glancing at my ring as if he was wondering whether he should have given it to me.

  When we sat down, he bit his lip and said, “I’m not sure, Do.”

  I tried not to panic. “About me? About us?”

  “No, I’m sure about us. But I don’t know if we’re ready for a child. If I’m ready.”

  “But I’m ready.”

  “I know you . . . are.”

  Was that a you-think-you-are pause?

  “So what does that mean?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I guess I need more time to think about it.”

  “Okay.” Despair clutched at my throat. Somehow, through all the time I had delayed telling him, it hadn’t fully registered that he might give up on us because of what I wanted. It would be his right. “I don’t want to lose you, Shep.”

  “I don’t want to lose you either.”

  But this is me, I thought with all my might. This is who I am and who I want to be. Instead, I said, “What can I do right now? Do you want to put the engagement on hold until you decide?”

  Anger flashed through his eyes. “No, I wasn’t thinking that.”

  I backpedaled. “You need time to process this. We don’t have to decide anything right away. Let’s see how things go, and we’ll figure it out from there.” I owed him the time since I had certainly taken plenty of my own before telling him. I felt sick to think of the choice I might have to make soon.

  Coco called the next morning. Before she could speak, I couldn’t resist sniping, “Well, somebody is very busy.” I had really needed her calming, listening ear—and it had been almost two days.

  I heard a stifled sound before Coco tried to speak. “Do-o . . . I—the . . .”

  I could barely understand her through her sobs. “Coco, what’s wrong? Is it the baby? Is she all right?”

  Coco heaved a few more times, then managed to say, “The . . . baby’s . . . fine. But her parents have decided to take her back.”

  Oh, no. No no no no no.

  “Are you sure?” I felt sick to my stomach. On the one hand, if the baby’s birth parents had changed their minds and were certain they could take care of the child, well, I could understand that. But my poor sister. And that poor child. All the months of waiting. All that time the baby was at the orphanage. And with international adoption, the child wouldn’t have been assigned to a family here unless the parents had officially given up their rights.

  “Yes, I’m sure. The birth father and mother reconciled after years apart, and th
ey want to start over. The agency has told us that we could fight it and that we might win based on how far into the process we are since they forfeited their legal rights. But how could we?”

  “Coco, I’m so, so sorry,” I kept repeating. I couldn’t ask her what was next. Grieving, obviously. I thought of the picture she had shown me of that sweet baby girl. Sianeh. I could only imagine how many times she had looked at it.

  She cried, quieting little by little.

  “What can I do?” I asked. “I can hop in the car and come see you?”

  “Thanks, Do. I appreciate it. But I think Mark and I might need to hole up for a little while and grieve.”

  “Of course. I’m here when you’re ready. Maddie and I can come cook for you guys and pamper you—or just cry with you—when you’re up for some company.”

  “Thank you. Will you call Mom and Dad and Maddie and tell them?”

  “Yes. Let me know if you think of anything else that would help.”

  “I wanted so badly to . . .” Coco started to cry again.

  I waited, but that was all. “I know, Co. I know.”

  Maddie unleashed a giant torrent of swear words when I told her. “Poor Coco. Do you think some cheese would help?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Let’s send her and Mark a cheese basket.”

  “Um . . . okay. Not a bad idea, actually.”

  “Are you going to go visit her?”

  “In a few days. She and Mark need some time to themselves first.”

  “Well, let me know when you and Shep are going, and I’ll meet you guys there.”

  “I . . . don’t know if Shep will be with me.”

  “Why the hell not? He’s your fiancé.”

  He still was . . . at least for now.

  “Do, what’s with the silence?”

  “Shep and I are having some problems.”

  “Are you fighting about the wedding?”

  “No. It’s about Terabithia.”

  “Is he acting jealous because Terabithia is staying? Because if he is, I will crush his—”

  “No!” I interrupted her. “We’re just having some . . . growing pains,” I said. I really could not bear the thought of telling her about my plan to adopt Terabithia and how Shep had reacted to it. Not right now, and not when Coco was in so much pain.

  “I’m here if you want to talk about it. Seriously. No more bodily harm threats. Just a gentle, completely partial listening ear.”

  I smiled. As much as I loved Maddie, I didn’t know if she would even understand why this was so important to me. I couldn’t put this on Coco right now. And the other person I wanted to talk to the most about it, the one who would understand more than anyone else, was Sullivan.

  —SIXTEEN—

  Whether I would have Shep’s help and support or not, it was time to put Operation Adopt-a-Boo in motion. Now or never. As soon as he headed to work on Saturday, after an oddly cordial breakfast at Marvel Betty’s, I took my place at the circulation desk, got out a pen and paper, and started doing calculations.

  The library expenses continued to be higher than I expected. As it happened, people still needed toilet paper. Even though I was baking far less often, there were other costs due to wear and tear now that I hadn’t had to worry about in the beginning. I figured I still needed about $1,000 a month to cover those expenses. Add that to my living expenses, the adoption attorney fee, enough money to provide for Terabithia for at least a few months, and the portion that I would be paying toward the wedding venue, which I really needed to book stat to ensure Shep and I could get married in the fall. I tabulated a little extra for unforeseen adoption expenses. The total came to . . . $11,023. What the Sam heck?

  I did the calculations again. First by hand. Then on my old-school Texas Instruments calculator. Then on my phone. Then on the internet. I had forgotten to carry a one. Eesh, $12,023, then. That was a lot of money. I would find some way, though. I had to be resourceful.

  Two weeks later, Kendra shanghaied me at the library. She had been wandering the aisles deciding on something to read. She set Love the One You’re With, Twilight, and Atonement down on the desk to check out.

  “Hold on,” she said and dragged a chair over to the circulation desk so she could speak quietly. Uh-oh. Was I in trouble?

  “What’s the deal with the jam?” she asked. “Because you’re going to have to come up with something better than that.”

  “What jam?”

  She raised her eyebrow at me. I silently pleaded the Fifth. She sighed. “The jam you’re obviously trying to mass-produce . . . alone.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Cut the crap, Dodie. I heard you talking to Chloë at Foodie Book Club, and you’ve been showing up here with pieces of raspberry stuck in your hair, not to mention you smell like Marie Antoinette’s garden half the time.”

  I sighed.

  “And . . . ?” she prompted.

  “I was making raspberry-rose jam. Chloë said she would sell it in her gourmet food store. I’m trying to make some extra money. There are a lot of expenses right now.”

  “Sure,” she said. “With the library and all.”

  “Right.”

  She paused for what felt like a whole minute. “Does this have anything to do with Terabithia?”

  “It might.”

  “Please tell me you have talked to Shep about it if you are even remotely considering . . .” She trailed off, glancing in both directions to make sure we weren’t overheard.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “I’m assuming from your expression that he didn’t respond the way you’d hoped?”

  I shook my head. “If . . . theoretically . . . I still wanted to explore that possibility I mentioned . . . ,” I began gingerly, “do you have some kind of creative expense-paying ideas up your sleeve?”

  “Nope.” Kendra shook her head.

  My stomach sank. I couldn’t believe how much even the suggestion of it had raised my hopes—or my increasing desperation, if I were honest with myself.

  “I’m not wearing sleeves,” she replied, a grin breaking through as she flapped her poncho sweater thingy around for effect. “My big idea for financing whatever the hell crazy scheme you’re cooking up is actually right behind you.”

  I turned around. There was nothing behind me except the painting of the two mermaid sisters that I had been steadfastly ignoring since the library opened.

  Except it wasn’t the painting of the mermaid sisters. It was another old painting of mine of a girl looking down at the sleeping dog whose head was in her lap, her face etched with love. Eek!

  “I’m c-confused,” I stuttered. “Did you get rid of the mermaids and swap this in this morning?”

  “Nope. I put this one up yesterday.”

  “What happened to the mermaids?” I asked in spite of myself. I didn’t want to look at them—had managed not to look at them for months and months even though they were literally over my shoulder—but it was a little sad to imagine them going back under a cloth in my attic.

  “You’re kidding, right? Jesus, you really don’t pay attention. The mermaids have been gone since before Mother’s Day, Dodie. I sold them to Mike. He wanted the painting for a present for Lula.”

  “Did she like it?”

  “I guess so because she’s bought two more of your paintings since then,” Kendra said levelly.

  I gripped the edge of the desk. “Where did she see them?”

  “On the wall behind you.”

  “So there have been . . . other things up besides this one?”

  I was starting to piece it together—the petty cash box that seemed like an endless cup of sweet tea miraculously refilled each time I got up to go to the bathroom (which was pretty often when you were drinking an endless cup of sweet tea). Most people had a problem with someone sneaking money out of petty cash. Apparently, I had someone sneaking it in!

  “Yes. Four, as a matter of fact.”

  “F
our?”

  “Four. Have you not heard people talking about them? When I sit here, people ask me all the time who are they by—are there more? Maybe no one asks you because word’s gotten around that you’re a secretly talented artist who hates to talk about it,” she suggested.

  I was shaking my head in disbelief. “Thank you,” I said even though there was a knot in my stomach. Thinking about those mawkish and sentimental pieces being paraded in front of the Chatsworthians’ eyes . . . Or, heaven forbid, on their own walls.

  Kendra shrugged modestly. “You should really think about doing a show . . .”

  No way. Not on Charles Darwin’s life.

  “ . . . sell a bunch of pieces at once . . .”

  Over my unconscious body.

  “I’ve been selling them for about two hundred dollars, and you have a few bigger ones up in your attic, so I figure you could make a few thousand dollars.”

  Not a chance in Helena Bonham Cart—

  “Seven grand, maybe even eight or nine . . .”

  Okay, fine. Problem solved. Probably.

  My paintings hung on the walls of the library on the night of the art sale. Aside from the possible earnings, it was exciting to bring together my love of art and my love of books. Maybe in the future we could hold children’s art exhibits or invite illustrators in to talk about their work. First, I had to make a heap of money.

  Fortunately, the chief fire marshal was in Jamaica. As deputy fire marshal, Anoop blessed the gathering at the beginning when it was only Shep, Kendra, Geraldine, and me, and then he announced that he was taking his fiancée to a showing of He’s Just Not That into You and wouldn’t be back to check on the occupancy level at my house.

  “This is amazing, Do,” Shep said, kissing my hair. He was putting on a supportive face; whenever he assumed I wasn’t looking, his mouth sank into a frown, and I knew he was thinking about what I hoped to do with some of the proceeds.

  “Eight thousand dollars!” Kendra and I were screaming on the phone the next morning. Every single painting had sold. I was so much closer to my goal. Coupled with my salary, some savings, and my birthday money, I might be able to prove to Mackie and Jeff soon that I was on the financial footing I needed to be.