by Amy Meyerson
The baby’s in NICU, but Evelyn—Suzy was unable to finish her sentence and Lee clasped her hand, indicating that he understood.
Lee sat beside Suzy, holding her right hand. David held her left hand. When the doctors told Suzy she could see the child, she thanked Lee for coming.
Miranda, Lee told Suzy. Evelyn was going to name her Miranda.
Suzy nodded. Lee couldn’t tell if she knew the reference. He watched as she followed the doctors farther into the hospital. As she disappeared, a quote from The Tempest appeared to him. Thy mother was a piece of virtue. It was the single reference to Miranda’s mother, a figure otherwise absent from the play, absent from Miranda’s life, absent from her memory.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable as Lee continued to talk about Evelyn’s death. While the cushions were firm, it was the story itself that cramped my arms and back. I couldn’t have remembered that time. Still, it seemed like it should have felt familiar, like it was part of me.
“After Ev died, I didn’t see Billy for six months or so,” Lee said. “They had a funeral, but there was some big fight between Evelyn’s father and Billy, so they kept it to family.”
Lee was mourning. The devotees of Prospero Books were mourning, too. So they decided to throw a memorial of their own. At the store, the employees and the regulars each read a passage that reminded them of Evelyn. Lee didn’t tell anyone what had happened to Evelyn, but tragedy had a way of revealing itself, of spreading like streams between people.
The store still overflowed with Evelyn. Boxes of books she’d ordered continued to come in daily. Lee cried when he saw the cover of The Handmaid’s Tale. Gray stone walls. Crimson garments. Evelyn had been so excited to read it. Her handwriting remained across the classics and literary correspondences sections. Lee knew he’d eventually have to take down the shelf-talkers she’d written. The store would have to recommend other, newer books. He held off on removing her notes until they were yellow and disintegrating.
“So Billy didn’t contact you for six months?” I asked Lee. “Did that seem strange?”
“It’s hard to know how to behave when someone you love passes. Lots of things feel wrong. Nothing feels right. I think for Billy, coming to the store must have felt wrong until one day not coming felt worse.”
Lee froze when he noticed Billy lingering by the door. He’d lost weight since Lee had last seen him.
“Billy and I weren’t that close when Evelyn was alive. We spent a lot of time together, couples’ time. Evelyn and I gravitated to one conversation, Billy and Paul to another. They had mathematics in common. It was clear to anyone who saw Billy and Evelyn together how much he loved her, so I respected him for that, but we never really had a connection.”
Once Billy returned to Prospero Books, he started visiting the store regularly. He and Lee never spoke about what had happened. He would ask Lee about the sales, if Lee needed anything from him. Lee assured him everything was fine.
“Those were the days when the store thrived. We were the only bookstore around. This was before huge commercial retailers and the internet, before DVR and on-demand. Back then a bookstore was a viable business.”
There was nothing Billy needed to do, which seemed to comfort him.
“What about me?” I asked. “Did Billy tell you how I ended up living with my parents?”
“Not directly.” Lee paused, studying me. I remained calm, externally, anyway. “Are you sure you want to hear this? I can’t explain why Billy did what he did. I won’t justify it.”
“I’m not looking for you to justify it. I want to know the truth. I think that’s why Billy wanted me to talk to you. He knew you would tell me the truth.”
“I’m not sure I know the truth. I know what I saw.”
“I want your truth, then,” I insisted.
“Well,” Lee began, debating how honest he should be. “Truth is, first time he came in, he didn’t mention you. I thought you’d passed, too.” Billy told Lee that he was staying with his sister. He’d said, I’m staying with my sister, not we, we’re staying. “Then one day he said something about his niece, Miranda, and of course I knew.”
Billy had been coming to the store for several months. After close, they would sit at one of the tables in the café, drinking whiskey as Billy amused Lee with stories from his latest adventure abroad. Billy treated his body like armor meant to be abused. He’d returned from Taiwan with his arm in a sling after tripping on debris from the Tsaoling landslide. In Tehuacán, he’d been stung by a swarm of bees. Welts rose on his legs and neck. Lee let Billy talk. All his stories were about his travels. Never about Evelyn. Never about me.
He said it so casually Lee didn’t immediately register what he’d heard.
What book should I get for a one-year-old? It’s my niece Miranda’s first birthday. My first birthday, also the one-year anniversary of Evelyn’s death.
Lee wanted to ask him, Miranda? You mean your daughter? She’s still alive? He wanted to ask Billy how he’d never mentioned his daughter. He wanted to ask how his daughter had become his niece. Billy fumbled with his whiskey glass, not meeting Lee’s eye, and Lee understood that this was Billy’s way of confessing he’d been unable to care for me. Lee was speechless. He wanted to shake Billy, screaming, This is Evelyn’s daughter, you can’t abandon her, but Lee saw in Billy’s distant and nervous face that anything he wanted to say to punish Billy, Billy had already inflicted upon himself.
I’m sure we can find something for your niece, Lee said. Billy looked visibly relieved when Lee handed him a copy of Goodnight Moon.
“From that point on, you were Billy’s niece. I wonder what would have happened if I’d said something to him.”
“He probably would have stopped coming to see you,” I said because it was true.
“That’s probably right,” he agreed. From that point forward I was Billy’s niece, which worked because I looked like Mom. I became her daughter.
“It’s not that you don’t have Evelyn in you. You have her energy. Her calm. That’s what people loved about Evelyn. It was her demeanor, her poise, that made her not just another pretty girl. I see that in you.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I saw it the first time I met you.”
When Billy first brought me to Prospero Books, he’d held my hand as he guided me inside. Lee watched my eyes wander around the store taking everything in at once, giggling like I had an inside joke with the space, the books. He saw instantly that I was Evelyn’s daughter.
Can we find something special for my favorite niece? Billy said when he introduced me to Lee.
For years, Lee had known that I was being raised as Billy’s niece, but seeing me in Prospero Books, saying to Billy, I’m your only niece, Lee understood in a way he hadn’t before that Evelyn was gone.
I held on to the ends of my pigtails, swaying foot to foot in anticipation of the perfect gift. Lee had no idea what book to give Evelyn’s daughter, what might be special enough. Nothing seemed right, not E. B. White, not Roald Dahl, not Frances Hodgson Burnett. Lee peered down at my freckled, eager face, searching for sadness that wasn’t there, for that eerie foresight children sometimes have. Between the pigtails and the freckles, and my striped T-shirt, Lee thought I looked like Pippi Longstocking. Unable to come up with a better choice, he guided me to the children’s section and handed me all the Pippi Longstocking books that were in stock.
Right away, Lee realized it was a mistake. He watched as Billy began to read to me about Pippi’s mother who had died when she was very young, about her father who had been swept to sea. Lee waited for Billy to glare at him, castigating Lee with his eyes. But Billy kept reading, his voice even and his attention remaining on me.
Do you like this story? he asked me.
I had pointed to the page. Read, and Billy c
ontinued to read how Pippi never believed her father was dead, how she waited for him to return to her. Lee debated whether he’d subconsciously chosen this book to urge Billy to be honest with me. Truth was, Lee didn’t remember the story of Pippi Longstocking. He remembered she had pigtails and freckles. He saw mine. It was just a terrible mistake.
As we were leaving, Lee grabbed Billy’s arm. I’m so sorry, Bill. I forgot what the story was about.
Don’t give it another thought. She loved it. Lee searched Billy’s face. He sincerely looked content. Happy to be with his niece. Happy to have given her a book she loved. Lee watched Billy and me leave, hand in hand, missing Evelyn terribly.
“So after that, Billy brought you into the store every few months, and as the years passed, fewer people in Prospero remembered Evelyn.” Lee chuckled suddenly. “You used to prance in like you owned the place.” Lee said I would strut up to any kids in the store and tell them that it was my store, that it was up to me whether they were allowed to have any books. Billy should have scolded me or lectured me on the virtues of sharing. Instead, he would muss my hair and lure me away from the shelves with hot chocolate.
“The perils of being an only child,” I told Lee. “You never have to learn to share.”
“They were all your books, though. The store was always yours.”
“Do you remember the last time I came? When I was looking for Billy?” My voice was weak. I wanted him to remember. I didn’t want him to remember. I still didn’t know what I wanted.
Lee nodded. “I didn’t realize it was a mistake to call your mom until I saw the look on your face.”
You called my mom? I’d said so desperately, so terrified Lee realized that Susan didn’t know I was at the store.
When Susan arrived, she threw the door open, her eyes racing across the room until they found Lee’s. Where is she? she asked frantically, and Lee saw that even if she hadn’t birthed me, she was my mother. He pointed to the back. Thank you, Lee. Thank you for everything.
“You should know,” Lee said, massaging his hands. His fingers were thick, swollen. “Billy talked about you for years. It took me a while to realize that he didn’t see you anymore. I noticed he didn’t bring you to the store. I figured since you went there when you weren’t supposed to, it became some symbol of disobedience.”
Billy still came to visit Lee at the store whenever he was home between devastating earthquakes. He’d detail an earthquake that struck Turkey, the thousands of people who had died, tens of thousands who were severely injured, hundreds of thousands left without homes, focusing on one person: me. Miranda would say hummus sounds gross, but it’s actually pretty good. He said I would like the Blue Mosque. The baseball stadiums in Tokyo. The puppets in China. Would like. The conditional tense. Never, Will like. Never the future.
“How’d you respond when he said things like this?” I asked.
“I just let him talk,” he said.
“So Billy took over the store once you decided to move?”
“Paul’s mom started to get worse around 2000.”
So you want to move back to Santa Barbara? Lee had asked after Paul broached the topic one night over dinner.
I’ve always wanted to move back to Santa Barbara, Paul reminded him.
Who will manage the store? Lee asked, and Paul understood what he was really asking.
It’s been fifteen years. You need to let her go.
Love. Work. Place. There was only one person Lee couldn’t live without, no matter how much he loved Prospero Books, no matter how much he missed Evelyn.
They reached an agreement. Lee wouldn’t leave until he knew Prospero Books was in good hands. He wasn’t certain how long it would take him to find someone who understood the changing neighborhood, its reading preferences, someone who would get along with Billy, who knew how to turn a profit, not that the store had turned a profit in years.
“That was the era of You’ve Got Mail, stand up to the big, bad chain store.” If Billy ever noticed how few people bought books, how the taxes had increased, how more cafés had opened around Sunset Junction, luring coffee addicts away from Prospero Books, he didn’t let on. Billy checked the finances each month, or his lawyer did, Lee wasn’t sure. All he knew was that every time finances were dangerously low, money would appear in the account. Lee didn’t see how Billy could afford it, but like most topics with Billy, they never spoke about money.
Lee was waiting for the right time to tell Billy that he was quitting, even if Paul said there’d never be a right time. The earth had been particularly mobile those months while Lee tried to find a good time to quit, or possibly Billy was particularly restless, or maybe Paul was right, maybe Lee was simply stalling.
Then one day, after Billy had returned from Taiwan, for some reason Lee couldn’t listen to another one of Billy’s stories. His stories were all the same. They had different epicenters, different magnitudes, different death tolls, but they were all tragedies that never belonged to Billy. Lee was tired suddenly of all the things they didn’t say to each other. Or maybe he was cranky. The drives back and forth to Santa Barbara were taking a toll on him.
We’re moving to Santa Barbara, Lee told Billy. Lee explained that Paul’s mother was sick and he needed to be with her.
Lee expected Billy to fight him, to be his usual self, not understanding others’ needs, particularly when they were inconvenient or undesirable to Billy.
Instead, Billy said, Of course you should go. You have to take care of family.
I’ll wait until we find the right replacement, Lee said.
Who can we trust? Lee frowned sympathetically at Billy. He had invested in a dying industry. Not dying. Fatigued. Billy had invested in a fatigued industry, and Lee didn’t know who they would find that could put up the necessary fight. It was a romantic job, but like most romantic jobs it paid little. Billy’s face beamed. Me. We can trust me.
Come on, Billy. You’re always away.
That can change. Billy sounded more eager than Lee had heard him in a long time.
You love your job, Lee told him.
Not as much as I love it here. I’m serious. At that moment, with the store closed, glass of Scotch in hand, Lee had no doubt that Billy was serious. What about a week later, when an earthquake crippled some village in Italy or Indonesia? Would he be serious then? Or when he was invited to lecture at a conference in Osaka or Buenos Aires—would he decline the invitation? You don’t think I can handle it.
It’s a quiet life, Bill. There aren’t adventures.
There are thousands of adventures here. There were adventures. Overflowing toilets, difficult customers, delayed deliveries—not the type of adventure Billy chased.
Day in, day out. It’s the same thing, Lee said.
Maybe I want that, Billy said.
It’s not as a romantic as it looks, Lee replied. He wasn’t sure if he was talking about the job or about being in Evelyn’s space, all day, every day, without her.
“Maybe for Billy it was the greatest adventure of all, staying still, confronting his past, finally learning how to live without Evelyn. I didn’t agree to it right away, not that it was my choice. It wasn’t until the earthquake in India that I was comfortable letting go.”
January 26, 2001. The Gujarat earthquake. Republic Day. At 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale, the quake was felt from Bangladesh to Pakistan. Over twenty thousand dead. Other seismologists, engineers and sociologists rushed to investigate the damage before cleanup missions began. At ten that morning, Billy was waiting outside Prospero Books like it was any other day. He ordered his coffee, occupied what had become his regular table and read about the destructive quake in the newspaper. It was then that Lee believed Billy was serious about staying put.
January 26, 2001. I was a freshman, recently fifteen, trailing Joanie through the halls of our high school, trying to mimic her ea
se as we passed groups of older boys, her indifference. I didn’t hit puberty for another year, and I had nothing to fear from those older boys beyond their total disregard for me. By high school, I’d lost interest in getting a dog. Instead, I was obsessed with the breasts I didn’t have, the curves that never appeared, how when I stood beside Joanie I looked like her younger cousin rather than her best friend. I wasn’t thinking about Billy. It didn’t occur to me that he’d still be traveling across the world, that he might have returned to LA. I was a teenager, coming of age. I had an excuse for not thinking about him, or at least a reason. Billy didn’t. He’d decided to stay put. He’d decided to face his fears. Still, he didn’t try to find me.
Lee stood abruptly and walked to a cabinet in the corner of the room. He opened the top drawer, and handed me a padded envelope. “Bill left that for you about a year ago. He didn’t tell me he was sick, but I knew.”
While Billy had looked tired and thin, it wasn’t the physical symptoms that made Lee realize Billy was dying. It was the nature of their last exchange.
Billy and Lee sat on the balcony of Lee’s apartment, watching the ocean below as each wave broke and rolled onto the sand.
You’re happy here? Billy had asked. This is what you want?
Lee wasn’t sure how to answer. He missed walking the stairs of Silver Lake, evenings at the observatory, dinners in Thai Town. He missed his friends, the regulars at Prospero Books, but this was where Paul was. So, Lee told Billy that he golfed whenever he wanted, that he sat on his balcony every afternoon, watching the ocean. He told Billy that he was happy.
That’s important, Billy said.
Eventually, it grew too brisk to sit outside, and Billy said he should probably get going. Before he left, Billy handed Lee the padded envelope. If she comes, please give this to her.
Lee didn’t ask whom he meant. He shook Lee’s hand, and the handshake seemed oddly formal. Lee knew he would never see Billy again.
I held the package. Hard and square. Another book. Part of me didn’t want to open it because I knew it had to be the last.