by Sarah Jio
And through it all, there was this bookstore, this marvelous bookstore. It always kept me going when I felt I couldn’t anymore. It was, and is, my rock, my peace. I hope it will be that for you too. You’ve been gone too long, honey. Come home, and this time, stay.
There is one more thing. A final plea, if I may. As you’ve read the letters between Margaret and me, I trust that you’ve picked up on the theme of sisterhood throughout. Margaret was like a sister to me during the time she walked this earth. She helped ease the pain of my estrangement from my own sister, Lucille. Sadly, Lucille died before we were able to reconcile. It wasn’t the ending I’d hoped for us, and it has haunted me every day since. I pray that you and your sister, Amy, won’t have that same end. In fact, even more than I fear the loss of Bluebird Books, I fear for you and Amy. Sisters are part of one another, no matter what. They belong to each other. Going about life without your sister is like going without a limb. You feel it every day. I want a happier life for you, and for Amy. Promise me that you both will try?
I look up and my eyes meet Mom’s. “She’d be so happy,” Mom says through tears. I nod and turn back to the letter.
Oh, and the locket. How many times did you ask me to show you what I kept inside? I lost count. Is it around your neck now? Of course it is. Open it, dear. Inside is one final surprise.
With all my love, from this lifetime and the next,
Your loving mother,
Ruby
I’m so choked up, I can’t speak. Mom’s arms are draped around me. Gavin watches with tears in his eyes.
Nobody says anything. It’s a comforting silence. A silence thirty-five years in the making. All I can think of is Ruby. My mother. My mother. I feel so many emotions, but mostly love. Such love. I reach to my neck, where her locket rests, and follow the chain to its edge, where I unclasp it and let it fall into my palm.
“Sit down,” Gavin says gently.
I nod, and take a seat on the bench by the fireplace, then fiddle with the hook on the locket. It sticks, but I try again. This time it clicks open, and I see a tiny lock of blond hair.
“It was yours,” Mom says, “when you were a baby.” She points to an inscription. “Look, there’s your name.” I squint and see “June Patricia” engraved at the center of the locket. Of course, Patricia was Ruby’s middle name. I always thought Mom named me that as a way to honor Ruby.
“J.P.,” I say through tears.
“She never took it off,” Mom says. “She always said it kept you close to her heart.” She wipes a tear from her eyes.
“The scholarship I received,” I murmur. “It was Ruby, wasn’t it?”
Mom nods. “She took out an additional mortgage on the shop to send you.”
“Oh, Mom,” I cry, burying my head in her shoulder. “I didn’t know.”
“Yes, you did,” she says. “Your heart knew.”
I nod. Yes. Everything that anyone would ever look for is usually where they find it.
Resting at the bottom of the chest is a thick stack of old envelopes, tied with twine. I know they’re the remaining letters exchanged between Ruby and Margaret in the years before Margaret’s death, and I can hardly wait to read them.
I look up when I hear the shuffling of footsteps behind me. May stands in the doorway. “I can tell by the way you smile,” she says. None of us heard her come in, and at first it startles me. How long has she been here? Her normally perfect hair looks a little disheveled. She’s been crying, but she’s smiling. “You look just like her.”
“May, I . . . I don’t know what to say,” I begin. “I realize this must be as life altering to you as it is to me.”
“This makes us sisters, I guess,” she says, taking a step toward me. “All this time, I thought I had a brother.” She wipes away a tear from her cheek. “I guess I just assumed that my father would have loved him more than me.” She looks around the bookstore. “This was where his heart was, here with Ruby. He’d come home late every night. I’d wait up for him, though, just so I could see him for a few moments before my eyes got heavy. You see, he chose Ruby over me. It sounds awful when you lay it out like that, but it’s the truth.”
“Oh, May,” I say, touching her shoulder. “Your father was in a very difficult position.”
“Our father,” she says.
My eyes sting. I’m still struggling to make sense of it all. Amy is gone, yes. But now, as May stands before me, I feel that I’ve been given an unexpected gift. A sister.
“He once gave me a copy of Goodnight Moon,” she continues. “It was a first edition. I didn’t know it at the time, but he must have gotten it from Ruby. All I knew is that he brought it home on my tenth birthday, and I thought it was the most glorious thing I’d ever laid eyes on. On the inside cover, he wrote a poem. A love letter to his daughter. These were the only words he’d written to me. And I treasured the book that held them. But when I came home for my father’s funeral and learned that Ruby was pregnant, I was so angry. It was the ultimate betrayal to Mom and me. So I boxed up the book, and the only photos I had of him, and left it at the bookstore with Ruby’s name on it. I wanted to sever that last tie, to his memory.” She lets out a deep sigh, tinged with pain. “And even in spite of my anger, there was a part of me that wished I had forgiven him, accepted his love of Ruby.” She shakes her head. “But it was too late.”
I blink hard. “Why didn’t you just come talk to Ruby?”
“I couldn’t,” May says. “I just couldn’t. I came into the shop a few times after Father died, hoping I’d see the book on a shelf somewhere. I even wrote a letter to Ruby years ago, inquiring anonymously about the book. I wrote that I’d pay a small fortune for it. I was too prideful to face her, to face the fact that I’d heartlessly returned such a precious gift of my own accord.”
“But she would have given it to you,” I say, “if she only knew.”
“I just couldn’t face her. I was too angry.”
“You were hurt,” I say. “People act out of character when they’re in pain.”
“Even all grown up,” she continues through tears, “I still didn’t feel that I deserved my father’s love.”
“But you did, May. And I’m sure he regretted that you were trapped between two worlds the way you were.”
May takes the copy of Goodnight Moon in her hands and flips to the inside cover, where the note from her father might have been. “Well, it’s gone now,” she says.
“Wait,” I say, remembering the final few boxes under Ruby’s bed that I still need to sort through. “Come with me.”
Mom follows May and me up the creaky staircase to the apartment and picks up Little Ruby from her Pack ’n Play. She winks at me before returning downstairs to Gavin, leaving me alone with May.
“I always wondered what it was like up here,” May says. “Their little love nest.” Her words aren’t harsh and cold like they were on the first day we met. The edges are softer now.
We walk through the doorway, and May takes in the sight. “It’s lovely,” she says. “I can see why my father liked being here. The place is so simple, but that’s what makes it special. Mom couldn’t do simple. Everything had to be gilded and ornate.”
I kneel down beside Ruby’s bed, and May takes a seat beside me. “I’m sorry,” she says to me.
“For what?”
“For breaking in to the bookstore, for spying on you the way I did. I only wanted to—”
“I forgive you,” I say quickly.
“You really do?”
“I really do.”
I pull out a box, and then another. Each contains books and notebooks, old bills and paperwork bound together with string. Then I reach for the third box and lift the edges. I can tell by the look on May’s face that she recognizes something inside. “That’s it!” she cries, leaning closer. “That’s the box.”
I watch as she pulls out a framed photo of our father with May as a child. She looks angelic with her dark hair and velvet coat. They’re holding hands, and May looks up at him as if he’s the greatest person in the world.
Beneath a few other framed photographs is the book. I recognize the cover immediately. May takes it into her hands and the spine creaks as she opens it.
“My darling daughter,” she begins, reading the words her father wrote on her birthday in 1947, “when you’re sad and lonely, and when you doubt the good in this world, I wish I could always be there to make it right for you, to cheer you up. But when I’m not, I hope you’ll look at the moon and feel my love. Love always and forever, Daddy.”
She leans down and kisses the words on the page, then begins to cry. Her chest shakes as she weeps, and I set my hand on her shoulder. “We were named after the most beautiful months in Seattle,” I say. “May comes before June.” I pause. “You came first. Don’t forget that.” May nods, and we cry together, unself-consciously, like only two sisters can.
Chapter 25
Gavin’s standing in the doorway of the bookstore on the night of the fund-raiser. He looks handsome in his gray suit. “What do you think?” he asks, grinning. “It’s a book party, so I thought I’d go for the F. Scott Fitzgerald look.”
“You look crazy handsome,” I say, planting a kiss on his lips. I feel fidgety and nervous. “I just hope the night goes well. It has to.”
“Where’s Little Ruby?” he asks.
“Mom’s upstairs with her for the night,” I say. “I figured I wouldn’t be a very good event host with a baby strapped to me.” I see that Gavin’s holding something behind his back. “What do you have in your hands?”
He smiles mischievously, then reveals a tiny calico kitten purring in his arms. “Every proper bookstore needs a kitten,” he says proudly.
“Aww, that’s sweet,” I say. “What should we call her?”
“How about Margaret?”
“Too formal. But Ruby used to call her Brownie. How about that?”
The kitten purrs at my feet, and Gavin smiles. “You know, she actually looks like a Brownie.” He reaches into his back pocket. “Oh, I have something to show you.”
He hands me an eleven-by-seventeen sheet of paper that’s been rolled up and smashed a bit from its time in his pocket. “You remember how we were talking about making this Bluebird Books and Café?”
I nod.
“Well, I had an architect take a look at how we might do that,” he says as I unfurl the paper. “These are just preliminary sketches.” He leans in over my shoulder. “See, the bookstore would remain just as it is. We’d take this wall down, here, and join the two together.”
I study the drawings carefully. The architect has done a wonderful job, and I can almost feel the sense of community through the drawings—children stocking up on new storybooks, then having lunch or hot chocolate and a cookie with their parents next door.
“I love it,” I say. “I really do.”
Gavin exhales. “I was hoping you would.” He folds the drawings back up and tucks them into Ruby’s old desk drawer.
“The place looks great,” he says.
“Did you see the impatiens out front? A local nursery donated them. It’s funny, I kept looking at the front of the shop and thinking, ‘What’s missing?’ And then I remembered the impatiens.”
“Why do they call them impatiens?”
I smile the way Ruby might have. “They’re a reminder for us to be patient.”
Gavin nods in agreement. “And we will be. We’ve done our work, and now we see if the community can come through with the rest.”
Peter and Nate arrive first. Gavin hands them each one of the special edition copies of Goodnight Moon, with a list of further donation options tucked inside, and they marvel at the bookstore. “It’s gorgeous,” Peter says, embracing me. “I can see why Margaret Wise Brown was inspired by this place.”
“Thank you so much for coming,” I say. “You scored some serious friend points, you know?”
He grins. “Where’s the munchkin?”
“Upstairs with my mom. Come by tomorrow and I’ll introduce you two. She’s going to love her godfather.”
Peter and Nate help themselves to hors d’oeuvres and wine as more guests filter in—the owners of Geppetto’s, Joe and his wife, J.P. and three of his coworkers from the library, and dozens of other people I don’t recognize. Gavin and I greet them all and extend our heartfelt thanks. And then, just as the jazz band from Antonio’s begins to play, Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, appear. A man in a black suit with an earpiece stands in the distance, and I assume it must be a bodyguard. Bill (Bill!) extends his hand to me with a warm smile. “You must be June,” he says.
“Yes, hello, Mr. Gates,” I say, smiling.
He introduces me to Melinda, then marvels at the bookstore. “It’s just as I remember it as a boy,” he says, walking to the spot where Ruby used to hold court at story time. “I’d sit right here and listen to your aunt read, and I swear it was one of my fondest memories of early childhood.”
“Ruby would be touched if she knew that Bluebird Books meant so much to you,” I say.
“I’m sorry to hear of her passing,” he says.
Gavin hands Melinda a copy of Goodnight Moon, and she and Bill smile and each grab a glass of white wine. Just then, I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Excuse me, June?” A thin man who looks to be in his seventies, with gray hair, stands beside me.
“Yes,” I say.
“My name is Clive,” he continues. “I wanted to come tonight because, well, when I was fifteen years old, I was on vacation here in Seattle. Thing is, I hated the trip. I hated the rain. I hated the annoying cousins I had to bunk with. Then, one day, my mom took me to this bookstore. I was completely against the idea at first, but then I sat down at a little table right over there, and an author, a real author, talked to me and some other children about writing. She wrote books for children, and she talked about writing stories inspired by our lives. Her enthusiasm was absolutely infectious. I went home and wrote my first story. I suppose it’s why I went on to write as many novels as I have.”
“Wait,” I say, astounded. “You said your name is Clive. Are you Clive—?”
“Clive Cussler, yes,” he says with a disarming smile. “It all started here, here in this bookstore. It’s why I think I keep coming back to the Pacific Northwest as a setting.”
Gavin sidles up beside me. “Is that who I think it is?” he whispers into my ear.
“Yes,” I say. “Clive Cussler. I’m kind of freaking out right now.”
“I think everyone’s here, just about,” he says. “Want to go up and say a few words?”
I nod, taking a deep breath.
Gavin squeezes my hand. “You can do this. For Ruby. For Little Ruby. For us.”
I smile, and walk up and stand in front of Ruby’s desk. I tap a knife to my wineglass and smile out at the crowd, which quickly quiets.
“Hello, everyone, and thank you so much for coming to the Bluebird Books fund-raiser this evening! I’m June Andersen, Ruby Crain’s . . . daughter. I know that many of you were touched by my mother over the years. Tonight I’ve talked to world-famous authors and technology entrepreneurs—you know who you are—who came this evening to pay respect to this store and to my mother’s lifelong work of introducing literature to children. And I am so amazed by the stories I’ve heard about the many ways this bookstore has inspired so many people.” I take a deep breath. “As you know, Ruby shared a friendship with one of the greatest children’s book authors of all time, Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon. Rather than boast about her friendship with such a luminous woman in literary history, Ruby kept quiet about it, leaving the discovery for me to find when I inherited the store a few months ago. And a discovery it
was, indeed. In letters between Ruby and Margaret, I saw how each of them, in her own particular style, confided in and encouraged the other. And perhaps most notable was the way Ruby encouraged Margaret to keep writing when she felt she’d lost her way.”
I pause to look around the room, filled with warm, smiling faces. I see Adrianna and her new boyfriend standing together, and I feel a burst of contentment then, for her, for myself. I clear my throat, and begin speaking again. “You may be excited to learn that this bookstore, the very place we all are standing, was actually the birthplace of Goodnight Moon. HarperCollins has graciously sent a special edition copy for each of you. And as you thumb through the pages of the book, I hope you’ll see it with fresh eyes. For on each page is a piece of Bluebird Books, and a piece of Ruby.”
The crowd cheers and claps, while I smile, take a deep breath, and reach beneath the desk, where the mockup and first edition wait. “And I am delighted to show you two items Ruby treasured, which have never before been seen in public. First, the only known existing mockup of the book, as given to Ruby in 1946, shortly before Goodnight Moon was published. And, also, the very first printed copy, which Margaret plucked for Ruby from the printing press the day the first batch was printed.”
Gavin appears by my side, and I hand him both the mockup and first edition, which he’ll later take up to the apartment for safekeeping. “As you know, Bluebird Books is facing significant financial hardship, not an unfamiliar plight for children’s bookstores in this age. But we are determined to continue Ruby’s legacy and fight an uphill battle if we must. But we can only do that with your help. Inside your very own special edition of Goodnight Moon is a pledge sheet, which lists the various ways you can lend your support to this bookstore. If you will, please take a moment and fill out the form and leave it with Peter, the man by the door, who will see that the funds are collected this evening.” Peter waves to the crowd. “Please enjoy the music and the wonderful appetizers from Antonio’s restaurant, and thank you all, again, so much for your wonderful support.”