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I love you, child. I’m afraid that I, like Mr. Bennet, did not always show it like I ought. (You’ll understand once you read the novel. Which you should. It’s excellent.) And I’m proud of you, especially for the way you’ve cared for me and for this town in a time of sickness and need. It could not have been easy.
I hope that now you are able to live the life you want, away from this old invalid and his dusty books, whatever path you choose to pursue. I hope you find happiness, companionship, and purpose, and that your child finds the same. I wish more than anything that I had been a part of that all along.
Instead, all I can leave you is the summer home you used to love, before it became a prison, and a library you never quite loved. That, I believe, might be my fault as well.
There are others, though, in this town who do love it.I hope you meet them, and that you let them into your life. For I have found that books make fine friends—but fellow readers even better.
With all my love,
Father
Louise stared at the book in her hands, rereading the words that had been left unsaid for so long. The only one of her father’s collection not a first edition, yet now the most valuable of all.
I didn’t do this, Father, she felt like assuring him, knowing how he’d ache to see this scene. Yes, she’d burned the garden but not the library. That had happened on its own.
But something about the letter and the determination of the volunteers bustling around gave her hope that perhaps it wasn’t destroyed after all, not for good.
After tucking the book away in her car, where it wouldn’t be accidentally packed away, she scanned the crowd for one face in particular. In the chaos of the night before, she hadn’t been able to pass along some important news.
Whatever amount of sleep Avis had managed to get, it hadn’t been nearly sufficient, but Louise knew better than to order her home to bed. It would be like trying to reverse the tide. Instead, she only asked if she’d step outside, away from the group of women who had begun to sweep ash and small bits of rubble into wheelbarrows to be carted away.
“Is there something else you’d rather I do, Miss Cavendish?” Avis asked anxiously. Always so eager to please.
“Not exactly.” She cleared her throat. “I only wanted to say that I look forward to future meetings of the Blackout Book Club. We can use Windward Hall until the rebuilding—unless, of course, you’re worried about me making some of my ‘pointedly arch comments,’ as our eminent book club secretary once put it.”
Avis became the timid mouse she’d once been, swallowing hard. “You ... you read them.”
Louise tried to keep the amusement from her face. “I did. In their entirety. Yesterday, actually, trying to decide what to do next.”
“That wasnotwhat I meant to give you.”
Louise had gathered that much. “I found them refreshingly honest. Even entertaining, in parts. I hadn’t expected that from you. It reminded me of your brother.” She’d always thought of Anthony as Avis’s opposite, but perhaps they had more in common than she’d realized. “Do you know what he told me twenty years ago when I first thought of closing the library?”
“I couldn’t guess.”
She’d have been too young at the time to remember. Louise, though, could picture him, skinny and determined. “He said, ‘Miss Cavendish, people say you’re going back to New York. I bet it’s a real nice place. But if you go, can you leave the books? We need them more than we need you.’ I tried to keep a straight face, because he was so earnest, but I don’t recall ever laughing so hard in my life.”
Avis raised a hand to her cheek, blushing on her brother’s behalf. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”
“He did mean it, and he was right, in a way. No one in this town would miss me if I were to fade away, only what I’ve given them.” The present efforts on the library lawn were proof of that.
Instead of offering an empty, overly cheerful assurance, Avis studied her for a moment. “There’s still time.”
And Louise found herself nodding. “There is, isn’t there?”
“If you want, I’ll give you the other notebook,” Avis added. “The one with the stories. People love this place.”
Louise looked around at the workers shaking ash from bindings, opening crates to check for water damage, spreading children’s books open to dry in the bright autumn sunlight. “That’s fairly apparent.”
She’d read the testimonials eventually, if only to know why each of these people had taken a weekday morning to volunteer in the rubble.
This town did need books. Oh, so did soldiers overseas and children at a nursery school. But she’d find other ways to get them reading material.
“I’m not closing the library.”
Avis blinked as if she’d just stepped from a dark room into sudden sunlight. “Pardon?”
Louise explained about Mr. Hanover’s call and the federal grant, but it didn’t seem like Avis was registering the details, as though her comprehension had stopped at that first phrase. “Do you really mean it?” she interrupted partway through.
