The Lending Library

by Fogelson, Aliza

  “It’s my husband,” Joon replied matter-of-factly.

  Opening my eyes wide, I pretended to be shocked. “You already have a husband? Aren’t you a little young for that?”

  Joon giggled and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “No, silly, he’s my husband in the future.”

  “Ah, I see. Why did you decide to make him your husband?”

  “Well, because I like the look of him. Also because he listens to all my stories. And also because he brings me flowers every day. That’s how I know he loves me so much . . . Miss Fairisle, why is your face turning purple?”

  I exhaled; Joon had made me see how simple it was.

  If I wanted to trust Shep again and to believe he could love me unconditionally, I needed to see Not Dad. I needed to understand what had happened so that I could put him behind me once and for all.

  Deep down, I’d been trying to fill a hole he had left. There was some part of me that was still afraid of not being deserving of love or unable to keep it once I had it. Was that why I also wanted a baby so badly? Because a baby would love me unconditionally, would be truly mine? Was that why I had been so unwilling to fail or ask anyone for help to the point where I had ended up risking what I loved, including the library? Maybe seeing Not Dad would give me some kind of clue.

  In those first years after he left, when he was apparently living around the corner, Mom had evaded our questions. When we became teenagers, she would answer them, then add, “You can see him, if you want to.” But I never had. Neither had Maddie. Or Coco.

  At least, as far as I knew.

  I texted Maddie and Coco and asked if they could video chat at six.

  Maddie asked what was so urgent and if I was pregnant. I texted back, Not unless by immac concep, all fine, see you 2nite.

  “Hey, Do,” Coco said, blowing me a kiss when we signed on later.

  “Hi, sis.” I blew one back.

  “Where are Mark and Boo?” I asked.

  Coco smiled. “Boys’ night out so we can have girls’ night in.” We each poured ourselves a glass of wine.

  “They’re going out for sushi with Mark’s parents.” Coco looked at me pointedly. I laughed sheepishly. They had introduced a lot of foods to Terabithia but hadn’t been able to change his far and away inexplicable preference for sashimi.

  “How are you?” Coco asked, her brow knitted with concern.

  “Overall, better. I’m not as angry anymore. More disappointed.”

  “That’s kind of worse, right?”

  “Yeah. But I really miss him,” I admitted.

  At that moment, Maddie popped up. “If I had known you were both going to be drinking fancy wine, I wouldn’t have bothered mixing up some of my Ice-Cold Hot-Pink Lemonade in your honor.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Coco and I said in unison. The last time Maddie had made her Ice-Cold Hot-Pink Lemonade, the three of us had ended up with absolutely no memory of where we’d been—or how we’d gotten the temporary (thank God) tattoos of the Chippettes on our right buttocks.

  Never one to miss a trick, Maddie sweetly inquired, “Did I interrupt something?”

  “No way!” I rushed to say. “We would never start the serious talk without you here.”

  “Good. Now we can focus on your pregnancy.”

  I considered it progress that I was able to laugh at that.

  “Did either of you ever see . . . Not Dad?” I asked.

  Maddie looked down. Coco’s eyes widened. She frowned.

  “NFW,” Maddie said. “Coco, however . . .”

  Coco sighed. “I almost did.”

  “How could you guys not have told me?”

  “That’s your first question?” Maddie retorted.

  “Yes, it is. No, it’s not.” I pouted. “So what happened?”

  “It was actually right before Mark and I got engaged. I was worried about saying yes to Mark. What if I had more of Not Dad’s genes than Mom’s? I was so scared that I might hurt Mark that way.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Really? I had no idea you ever had any doubt about marrying Mark.”

  “It wasn’t a doubt about marrying Mark,” Coco corrected. “It was a doubt about myself. And my genetics. So yeah, I was a little concerned that I might have a weird personality break after marriage and turn into a deadbeat.”

  “But wasn’t Dad already kind of a deadbeat before he and Mom got married?” Maddie pointed out. “Like, when they were dating and she got the flu and he avoided her for three weeks to make sure she was rid of all the germs before he would see her again?”

  “I know, I know. But I loved Mark so much I thought it would be good at least to . . . meet Not Dad. You know I was so young when he left that I don’t have any memories of him.”

  “I get that,” I said. “So what happened?”

  “I called him up and asked him to meet me for coffee. It took him two weeks to return my phone call. And I decided, you know what? It’s not worth it. This has already told me everything I needed to know. I never called him back.”

  “Do you ever wish you’d gone?”

  “Not really.”

  “What about you?” Maddie said. “Did you ever think about going to see him? Or go but not tell us?”

  “Sure, I thought about seeing him over the years. But I figured it doesn’t really matter. We had the best dad ever in Walter.” I raised my chin.

  “I don’t believe you,” Maddie said. “And there are about six books in your towering collection having to do with little girls finding their birth fathers to prove you otherwise.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Coco said.

  “Okay, fine.” I sighed. “It does matter, but I didn’t see him because I figured it wouldn’t change anything. I mean, he rejected us all those years ago. He’s never done anything to rectify that or to try to have relationships with us. So I knew what the result would be. And it was painful to think of that rejection happening all over again. I’d rather not go there.”

  Coco and Maddie were silent for a minute, reflecting. Then Coco murmured, “But you are going there. That’s why you called us here. And that’s probably why you still aren’t sure what to do about Shep. Regardless, if you went, maybe you wouldn’t have to keep reliving that rejection over and over again every day. Maybe you could finally get some closure and see him for what he is. Maybe you would stop hoping it’s going to change and really know, once and for all, that it never will.”

  Maddie was nodding, but her brow was furrowed.

  I let Coco’s words sink in. I knew she was right because a huge wave of homesickness for Shep washed over me, and I couldn’t will away any of its dizzying impact. I put my head in my hands. Coco and Maddie waited.

  “Would you think about going now? With me?” I asked.

  “Yes, I will,” Coco promised.

  Maddie was conspicuously silent.

  “So will Maddie,” Coco said pointedly.

  Maddie grabbed the toxic lemonade and poured herself a tall glass, then slammed it back on the table. “Nope. No desire to talk to that asshat.”

  “You might find out a thing or two about yourself, Maddie.”

  “Okay, Mother Teresa. Can we stop talking about ourselves now and start doing something useful like watching Shag on TBS in six minutes?” Maddie begged.

  Coco and I both laughed. Conversation over . . . for now. “Oh, bluuuuue,” Coco crooned.

  “I can’t feel my teeth!” I said in my most exaggerated southern slur.

  There was a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. A bit like stage fright. The anticipation was the worst. We were going to see Not Dad.

  The reception area at Not Dad’s office was frigid. My hands were trembling, so I sat on them. The least I could do was leave my sweaty palm marks on his chair. That would show him! I thought wryly . . . then had to bite my lip to avoid breaking into nervous giggles. Even though it wasn’t neutral territory, the three of us had agreed to meet him there. We could leave whenever we wanted. And at least
it was somewhat private.

  “Can I get anyone a glass of water?” Not Dad offered when his assistant ushered us into his office.

  I shook my head, took a breath, and got right to the point: “Why did you leave?”

  Not Dad sighed. “I knew you would ask me that.”

  Maddie tensed on the chair beside me but said nothing. I could tell she was trying hard not to interfere.

  “Well, it’s been about twenty-nine years, so I think the least you owe us is a few minutes of your time today,” I retorted. How dare he be annoyed at me for asking what was my right to know?

  “Of course,” he said, as if he was trying to placate me, which only made me angrier.

  “How could you do that to us? We were only kids.”

  Looking me straight in the eye, he said, “It wasn’t you I was leaving. It was your mother.

  “I loved her. Just not enough. I knew that even before we got married, but I thought it would get better when we had kids. Instead, it made me realize I couldn’t yoke myself to a life with her. I intended to try to reestablish a relationship with you three after the dust had settled a little bit with your mother. Then Susan got pregnant. It didn’t seem as important anymore.”

  Maddie got out of her chair and started whispering swear words under her breath. I thought I heard “I will strangle him with his tie” and “I will fill his balls with paper clips.”

  My nails were digging into my palms so hard I felt blood on my fingertips. Coco covered my hand with hers. My voice quavering, I managed to whisper, “Even us?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. A shrug. That’s what I got in response to putting my heart in my hands, asking these questions. A shrug, a hammer—they pretty much amounted to the same thing. “Why was it different with them?”

  “Because of the way I love Susan,” he said simply.

  I remembered how I had wandered around the house opening doors looking for him for weeks after he left until Maddie told me to cut it out because it made Mom cry. Coco didn’t talk about Not Dad for a year after that, but her little brow had been permanently knit. Maddie used to go in her room, even in high school, and turn up her rock music loud. But not loud enough to cover her sobs. “You are a bad person.”

  “You would see it that way.”

  I flinched as if he’d hit me. That was the most hurtful thing he could have said. Because underneath it were the words he wasn’t speaking: I love my real family. I am a good dad to them. That’s how they see it.

  There were more questions. There was so much anger. I could feel it warring with the grief, the disappointment, the fact that there had been no surprises—he was exactly how I had thought he would be. Except a little worse, colder. He was so arctic, and I was burning up with anger like it was a fever. I wanted to throw a paperweight at his head. A computer. A chair. I wanted to wring his neck. For my mom. For Maddie. For Coco. And for me.

  Coco stood up. “I think we’re done here. Right, Do?”

  “Right.” I grabbed my purse.

  “Oh, I disagree!” Maddie announced. She turned to Not Dad, seething. “You stink more than sporty testicles!” she began. Then the expletive floodgates opened. She used every swear word I had ever heard. She even made a few up. “Let’s go,” she said, slamming the door behind us.

  But not before we heard Not Dad say, “Nice language, Coco!”

  He couldn’t even tell us apart. It was clear now in a way it hadn’t been before: we shared absolutely nothing with that man but biology.

  I didn’t dissolve into angry tears the moment we got to the parking lot. Instead, I thought about the shocked expression on Not Dad’s face during Maddie’s colorful and inventive tirade. A laugh bubbled up in the back of my throat. I let it come, giving into it until I was howling. And the best part of all wasn’t the brand-new swear words I’d learned or even the fact that my sisters were cry-laughing with me. The best part of all was that I finally felt free.

  I dug around in the back of my closet, behind my shoeboxes, until my hands closed around a small white paper bag. There was a book inside. A receipt fell out of it. February 17, 2008. It was for the copy of The Lady of the Camellias that Maddie had bought me on my birthday day trip not long before Shep and I got together. On the day we got engaged, I gave him a copy. When he left, I hid my own copy away with the receipt in it. It had been a long time since I’d read the book.

  I was emotionally exhausted from the day. I couldn’t even think straight, let alone imagine indulging in some tragic romance. I would only read a few pages, refresh my memory. When I had gotten more sleep, I would finish the rest.

  Four hours later, tears were streaming down my face, and my bed looked like a tissue bomb had detonated all over it. The real tragedy in the book was that Marguerite and Armand had never told each other how they felt until (spoiler alert!) it was too late and she was dead. I had always understood that. Now, I also saw what it meant for me. Life’s too short, I thought. You have to tell people you love them when you love them. You have to trust that they love you back just as much even when they make mistakes.

  Most of all, I told myself, you have to stop blaming yourself. Sometimes terrible things happen. Sometimes it’s your fault, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault.

  Nothing I could have done would have changed Not Dad’s decision to leave us. I finally stopped thinking that if I had been smarter, sweeter, less whiny, the outcome would have been different. I knew now that for me, the outcome of my love story, of my future children’s lives, would be different from my mom’s and Not Dad’s.

  I suddenly understood the biggest gift of all. The one that Shep had contributed to by leaving. The one that over the past painful months, my friends and my family and my loneliness and the townspeople and my books had conspired to give me: I could believe that everything would turn out okay even if I wasn’t always perfect. Even if I stopped trying so hard to make everyone else happy that I forgot what I wanted, what I deserved for being the person I was, flaws and all. The person that Shep loved, and the person that Shep had come back to. But most importantly, the person that I had become on my own and for myself.

  Twenty minutes later, Shep opened the door to my frantic knock. I threw my arms around his neck and felt his own wrap me in return, strong with love but weak with relief.

  “You’re back,” he whispered happily into my hair.

  “Yeah,” I murmured, thinking, So are you.

  Leading me to the couch, he watched me carefully, as if he was afraid I would bolt. He blurted, “If you want a baby, Do, we can start trying. Or fill out the adoption paperwork.”

  “I don’t think so, Shep.”

  “I know it will take time to win back your trust. But an international adoption will probably take a couple years anyway. I’m ready when you are.”

  I had imagined someone saying those words—let’s go for it—for such a long time. But things had changed. I had changed. I now knew that playing with Terabithia for a few hours, even every day, wasn’t the same as being up all night with him when he had night terrors or when he couldn’t sleep for missing Sullivan. I hadn’t had to rearrange my schedule at the last minute and scramble for a school sub when he got sick. I could have and would have done all that and anything else to keep him safe and happy and well. I had already figured out that I wasn’t ready to do it alone, though.

  It seemed like Shep was back for good, but you never knew what the next day would bring. I owed it to my child-to-be to feel certain that I wouldn’t need to move back home with my parents or to move in with Maddie or Coco and Mark. I didn’t want to leave Chatsworth. I didn’t want to leave the lending library. Those were important parts of me too.

  “No, Shep. You were right. I’m not ready.”

  Shep’s eyes widened. “Okay,” he said finally. “Then we’ll wait. I’ll wait,” he promised.

  We were both different. He was steady and sure. He was there, and he was listening. I was there, too, in a way I ha
d never been before. And I still loved him so much it was like liquid excitement coursing through my veins. If he kept gazing at me with that utterly-devoted-to-Do look, and if we kept slowly finding our new normal—eating long meals, reading together with our legs entwined, sharing my joy in the library, and talking about everything this time around—we could get back to where we had been and even move ahead.

  With no comment, Shep placed the ring box on my bureau. I wasn’t even sure when the box had appeared there—by then, he was already woven into the fabric of my life again, the gorgeously disorienting blur of day after day spent together. I began putting the ring back on for little bits of time. I found myself wearing it more and more.

  —TWENTY-FIVE—

  June 2009

  Elmira had finally been released from grounding in time for the summer. She was squirming on the car ride to our very special destination. I knew exactly how she felt.

  After waiting in a line of cars to get into the parking lot, we found a spot toward the way back. That was fine with me, though; it gave me more time to drink in the sights as we approached.

  WELCOME TO CHATSWORTH LIBRARY—RENEWED AND IMPROVED! the banner on the front of the building trumpeted. I was so grateful.

  Elmira and I grinned at each other.

  I couldn’t believe it had been almost two years. First, the asbestos. Then the other systems. Then money problems with the recession. Still, while I’d been wrapped up in my own library dramas, the Chatsworth Library was slowly and surely being renovated. It was finally ready to reopen, thanks to Shep, with a big bash.

  “Thank you so much for taking me, Miss Fairisle. I asked my mom and dad, but they said—”

  “My pleasure.” I slung my arm around her and squeezed so she didn’t have to tell me why or justify anything. I felt a painful twinge but pushed it away.

  “Hey, I forgot to tell you,” she said. Her shining eyes revealed that it was something big. “My mom baked me a cake the other night to celebrate my good grades. And bought me five new books.”