Books--The Food of Life

After two years of enjoyment, the closing of my town’s little library brought me misery. Not only did I lose the lovely early evening walk down the lane to the town square, with its cozy library on the busy little street on the east side, and the Coffee Pot Café next to it, but I lost the weekly Tuesday meeting with people I felt comfortable with.

The five members of the club had welcomed me when I moved back to the small Midwestern town I’d grown up in to live in my parents’ old home, left to me after the awful car crash that took them and my husband from me, leaving me horribly injured. I had endured months of rehab, not really happy to be alive and alone in the world. But the hospital had assigned me a lovely psychiatrist who made me see that I really had no choice. I was religious enough to believe that tall, redheaded whirlwind’s suggestions after months of looking back at what I’d lost. And finally, we charted a path I somewhat skeptically decided to embark on.

First, I sold the Manhattan coop my husband and I had purchased for a song in our thirties, which turned out to be worth enough to leave me comfortably placed for what might be a long time. I’d recovered enough after numerous surgeries to walk with a cane, but my leg was so mangled I’d turned to slacks instead of skirts. My facial surgeries had healed enough that with my hair long, the one bad remaining scar on the side of my face could be hidden. I’d never been a beauty, but the nice new nose, shorter and without a hump did cheer me up.

Then came the move back to my childhood home. The family lawyer Jay, who was the And Son of his father’s law firm, was someone I’d known in high school. Once the papers making me the owner had been signed, he volunteered to take me to inspect the house, which had been vacant since the accident, but that he said he'd checked every once in a while.

On the ride over we caught up; he told me about his five kids and his wife, a stay-at-home mom. He knew my story from the obituary for my parents in the newspaper, and the things he’d learned about me from my parents when taking care of their legal matters.

And then we were there, my old home, a pretty two-story house of stone with blue trim and a copula. We got out of the car, and walked over from the driveway, me leaning on my cane heavily while transversing the grass to the front door. When Jay opened the door, I took a deep breath and looked around. 

Books and books piled haphazardly on every surface just as they’d always been, as they’d been on my last Christmas home two and a half years ago, as they were at my home with Liam. I hated looking at a room with no books lying around for it meant no dedicated readers, readers who would pile up books that they weren’t sure they’d finished with or who wanted to look further into a subject.

I guess, to me, books lying around meant books were important to the people who owned them, who loved reading, acquiring new information. Most of our friends had books lying around, but not many to the extent we did.

We’d spent alternate Christmas holidays with Liam’s family in Canada and mine here in Kansas. In Liam’s home books were few, and in a couple of neatly arranged bookshelves. The family, a large one, preferred playing games: cards, Monopoly, Dominoes, you name it, they played it. They never came to visit us, surrounded as they were by Liam’s multiple siblings.

My parents were different. In addition to our Christmas alternate year visits, my parents came to New York to visit for a week every summer. They loved wandering the various parts of the city, from Soul Food restaurants and jazz clubs in Harlem to the New York Public Library midtown, to Chinatown, the South Street Seaport, and bookstore after bookstore: used books at the Strand, Shakespeare and Company uptown, and glorious Fifth Avenue specialized, often foreign bookshops.

They were so proud when they came to my office at City University, where I taught English, and saw my diplomas on the wall. It was a career I relished and came to naturally. My mom had been a kindergarten teacher, my dad worked at the Kansas City star, covering local district politics until retiring three years ago. Also, I was their only child.

Suddenly, memories overcame me, and I started to cry. Jay led me to the nearest chair, and removing the books sitting on it, helped me down into its soft low seat. “I’ll go see what I can scare up in the kitchen, he said softly. That all right with you, Sarah?

I managed a nod, and he disappeared. He was gone for a while, coming back with a teapot and saucers—three of them.

“Why three?” I asked.

"I asked my wife to come over. I want you to meet her. She’s active in everything, from the PTA to the Democratic club to the local Goodwill Shop and so on. She can update you on the best places to shop, local events, restaurants—well everything. I think you two will enjoy one another…”

I cut him off, saying, “I’m not ready, Jay, not for interacting with people.”

“Sarah, you don’t have to interact, just gather information. Do you need to find a doctor? Maybe someone to do your cleaning? Where—oh, I don’t know…where to buy books? A car?”

“Funny, Jay. I don’t drive—and books, look around,” he laughed, and I added, “I guess I’ll need a car service. No taxi’s cruising the streets, here, hmm.”

Jay smiled and poured the tea, asked if I wanted sugar, then we both began sipping silently. A few minutes later, the doorbell chimed, and then Jay was presenting me to Emma. I relaxed instantly warming to her smile. She was about five six, a bit overweight, wearing a flowered wrap dress, sneakers, and had a simple ponytail of graying, brown hair. But that smile was out of this world, highlighting a dimpled face with bright green twinkling eyes, marked by small, smile wrinkles at the sides.

I felt old, pale, and crumpled, but somehow trusted she was somehow going to fix me, make my life bearable again. And so it began—a friendship such as I never experienced before. I remembered wanting a sister in my somewhat lonely childhood, and in only a couple of months I felt I had one. 

Emma helped me find someone willing to clean with the caveat not to move books around, but to leave them where they were. I planned to eventually to buy more bookcases to house them, but wanted to figure out first why they were where they were, thinking it would give me insights to what was fascinating my parents at various times.

I had yet to figure out how I was going to deal with the books from Liam and my home and our offices, which were in storage. One of Liam’s colleagues had offered to pack them up and would send them to me when I was ready. I told Emma about that, and she said, if they’re in storage forget them for now, and so I tried to.

It helped that I was kept busy with other, more immediate issues. With Emma’s guidance I found a doctor that I felt I could trust, a dentist, a hairdresser, a lovely butcher shop, the best grocery for deliveries, a car service—the list was seemingly endless.

Better than that, I came to know Emma and Jay’s children, all five, ranging from the ten-year-old twins to sixteen-year-old Lucy. An only child and childless, I succumbed to their hugs and delightful and very different personalities and interests. Then Emma began to push me out into the broader world. 

I found myself volunteering to help write the local Democratic Party Club’s newsletters. I gave two late afternoons a week to tutoring students at the local high school. And best of all she introduced me to a member of a book club, five women of various ages who were avid readers. They met in the small local library, whose sole librarian was a member and kept the library open on Tuesday nights for our meetings.

Kathleen, the oldest member, well into her seventies was clearly, if clothes are any indication, the richest. She always brought treats to the meetings, delicious small things you pop in your mouth and down quickly. Joan, the librarian, was somewhere, I guessed, about sixty. Age never came up although families were mentioned if they were the reason for missing a meeting.

The youngest member was Tiffany, still in High School, and sneaking out from her helicopter mom to attend, claiming she said to be receiving tutoring in math, her worst subject. She wore very plain, a little long for her age, dresses with knee high socks and loafers. Emma had warned me not to ask her any questions bordering on personal subjects because her family belonged to a strange sect that lived in a kind of commune on the outskirts of our small town.

The other two members of the group, Sylvie and Georgette were in their thirties, avid readers and nurses at the local hospital. Sylvie, a striking blonde was divorced, while Georgette was plain, with mousy brown hair and the mother of three.

That was my assessment on first meeting them, but over the next few months, I learned a lot more, bits and pieces, because we really were focused on discussing the books we read for the meeting. And oh, the books we read. 

Joan, the librarian, garnered five copies each of two books for us to choose from for the next meeting. I noticed they seldom ran over three hundred pages each, given possible time constraints. The week I joined, the choice was between The Red Badge of Courage and O Pioneers. O Pioneers was the unanimous choice. When we met the following week, the discussion touched on immigrants and their role in the making of America, dealing with unexpected deaths (I managed not to cry, but mentioned the time it takes to ease the pain), and making choices. Each part of the discussion was tied to the book’s content. It was like when Liam and I would share a book and then talk about it. 

Week after week, for about a year, we happily met, and then disaster struck. Because of finances, the state decided to close a number of small libraries saying that there were some larger ones that would be the “hub” for an area. Joan was so close to retirement that she took the generous severance package and decided to move to Florida to live with her sister, a recent widow.

Our little Tiffany said she had to drop out because the only reason she had for being a member was that it gave her a quiet place to study subjects that needed concentration, hard to do in the busy, noisy commune. 

That left me, Kathleen, Georgette, and Sylvia. I said we could meet at my house and Kathleen said she was willing to host the meetings also. Sylvia looking frightened, explained she had a small three room apartment, without a table large enough to sit around. Seeing how uncomfortable she was, Georgette jumped in, saying she was also a problem, because of her children, adding that her husband wouldn’t be happy about it.

“Well,” Kathleen said, “we can meet at my house next week. Let’s decide what we want to read, and I’ll have my maid pick them up and bring them to you.”

A little startled at the mention of her maid and buying the books for us, we nevertheless agreed. The meeting was a disaster. Kathleen greeted us in her parlor, filled with lovely antiques, then led us into her dining room for tea. After that she brought us to the library/music room. Not a thing out of place—so formal we three found it uncomfortable in the extreme.

The next meeting was in my house, still with stacks of books all around, but I had cleared off the chairs and dining table for our meeting, stacking the books I removed in a corner. Kathleen looked around and immediately offered to send her maid around, saying, “My dear, of course you couldn’t reshelve books given you need that cane.”

I was immediately on the defensive. “Kathleen, I’m always stacking books around, I love to feel I’m in a world of books.”

“But this is unacceptable. It is slovenly. We will simply meet at my house from now on,” Kathleen announced. There we were, back again the next week. As we were sitting at the table, having tea, Kathleen said, “I want you to forgive me for what I said Emma. I didn’t understand your behavior, but I consulted a friend who explained that you were suffering from OCD, and she defined it for us, “Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a long-lasting disorder in which a person experiences uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), engages in repetitive behaviors (compulsions), or both. People with OCD have time-consuming symptoms that can cause significant distress or interfere with daily life.”

I walked out without saying a word. I was angry and devastated—no more Book Club? I made it to Jay and Emma’s, exhausted by the long walk, still angry and tearful. Emma opened the door and pulled me in and sat me down, asking her eldest to make some tea, wrapping me in a throw, and just hugging me.

Lucy came in with the tea, and after a few sips I told them what had happened.  

Lucy started laughing, then pulled me up, handed me my cane, and said, “Please come with me. I know it’s upstairs, but we’ll go slow.”

I followed her and she walked me to a door that had a sign on it reading in big red letters, “OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK."

She flung the door open, and I saw the stacks of books strewn all over the place. I looked at her, and then smiled. She hugged me and said, “Oh Aunt Sarah. I don’t think I suffer from OCD. I do obsess about deciding what college to choose, what dress to wear to my prom, whether someone will ask me to the prom. But books are like food to me. They are necessary in the same way.”

Relieved, and delighted that she called me Aunt, I said, “You’re one smart cookie, Lucy, I do obsess about politics, about one of the boys I’m tutoring, about the library situation in this town which makes it hard for people to get books to read. If I focus more on those things, I can make a difference. And when I’m in need of sustenance—I have my books."