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Maple Ridge has a small library, but I couldn’t register for a card because I didn’t have proof of my address. I can now. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to pick up a book or two while I’m here.
I walk, almost sprint, past the romance section. After everything I’ve been through, that’s one genre I can’t be bothered with. A few aisles later, I find myself staring at the self-help books. Books about improving your life, dealing with life after a trauma, time management, finding your creative self in a busy world, and other motivational topics.
The authors smile brightly on the covers, silent promises on their faces, but none of the titles call to me.
I stumble across a book on job hunting and résumé writing that looks promising.
Shame squirms inside me at what Anne would think if she sees the book. We haven’t talked about my past or my future when it comes to what I plan to do with my life. But she does know I’m recovering from a traumatic event, I recently left a bad relationship, and I’m starting my life over. She must realize that at some point I’ll need to look for a job.
I start walking past the kids’ section but stop at the display table stacked with picture books. New books I’ve never seen before and the ones by authors whose stories I used to read to Amelia. I run my fingertips over the cute cover with a bear and woodland critters on it. I pick up the book and read the story about a bear who can’t sleep.
A little girl zooms a tiny toy car on the floor while making engine noises, reminding me I don’t belong in this section.
I return the book to the table, longing for those days when I used to read to my daughter, and continue on to the general fiction aisle. There, I find a novel about a woman starting her life over again after a tragic loss. Maybe it will inadvertently have some pointers, even though our situations aren’t the same. I add it to my growing pile.
I head to the front of the store to pay for my collection. On the way, I stop at the table with new releases and scan the suspense and thriller titles.
One of Garrett Carson’s novels is on the table. I check out the blurb. It sounds good. The book is a political thriller. Not a genre I read, but neither is the other novel I’m buying.
I join the short line of customers to pay for my books.
A toy truck slips from the hand of the five-year-old boy in front of me and lands on the floor with a softthud. He bends to pick it up. When he straightens, his eyes go to the ugliest scar on my face, and he stares at it, his body unmoving.
And I pretend to study the cover of Garrett’s book.
“She don’t look so pretty now.”
“Hey, pretty girl.”
Those were the kinder comments following the attack that resulted in the worst of the scars on my face. But even the harshest of inmate insults paled in comparison to my husband’s mean words when he was in one of his moods.
The memory of the insults stoops my shoulders and strangles my self-esteem. It threatens to light a match to my self-worth, to burn it down.
The words shouldn’t matter anymore. They shouldn’t have power over me. They can’t cut or eviscerate.
Words can hurt, no matter what the sticks-and-stones children’s rhyme may claim. But the words my husband hurled at me can no longer destroy me like they once did. Not unless I give them the power to do so.
I gather my inner strength, the strength that kept me alive for the past ten years. That kept my lungs filling with oxygen, kept my heart pumping blood. And I use it to curve my lips into a gentle smile.
The little boy grins and waves his chubby hand. I wave back.
He presses his face into his mother’s leg, much like Amelia used to do when she was being shy with strangers.
A burst of pain hits me square in the chest at the memory. I push it aside. This isn’t the time or place to let that pain fester.
I pay for my books soon after and join Anne, who’s waiting for me near the door, reading the back of a book from the nonfiction table. She looks up at me and shows me the cover. “My book club wants to read this. It’s supposed to be really good. Have you read it?”
It doesn’t look familiar. I shake my head. “What’s it about?”
“Virginia Hall. She was an American spy in occupied France during the Second World War.”
That gets my interest. “Some of the magazines your great-aunt saved had articles about the war. And there were also a few commemorative issues.”
“Auntie Iris believed the more you know about the world and about past events, the less ignorant you are. She kept telling me while I was growing up that ignorance leads to hatred. Knowledge leads to understanding and love. It was why she read so much and why she became an advocate for reading. When I was in elementary school, my mother wasn’t able to volunteer there even though she wanted to. So, Auntie Iris went in her place. She helped with the school’s reading program.”
“How old was she when she died?”
Anne tells me. Based on my calculations, Iris would have been in her late twenties during World War II.
