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She glanced up sharply. A flicker of movement disappearing behind shelves indicated the culprits were launching their offensive from above, in the children’s section.
A brief prayer for patience and someone else to address the situation yielded no results, so Louise mounted the stairs herself. This was, after all, her library, and a meeting she had chaired. The least she could do was protect attendees from aerial assault.
A distinctly panicked “She’s coming!” confirmed her instincts, but there was no other way down and very few places to hide.
It is a bit sparse, isn’t it?The faded rug on the floor was the only seating, and while the shelves were well stocked, they lined plain beige walls. The gleaming oak balustrades and railing were the only decorative elements. Louise made a note to look into some improvements when the nursery school renovation began. One more thing to spend money on—but it would make the place more welcoming.
“I know you’re here,” she called. “You might as well come out.”
The two Bianchini children, with Gio attempting to stuff two neatly folded models up his shirt, shuffled away from the last shelf and looked guiltily up at her.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?”
“We’re sorry,” Rosa squeaked.
“We were bored,” Gio explained at the same time, which was neither an apology nor a satisfactory explanation, not for a boy of twelve who ought to know better.
“Where is your mother?” she asked, making sure her voice was appropriately stern.
“I don’t know.”
She circled behind them, guiding them along like Jeeves when he couldn’t suppress his herding instinct. “Let’s find her then, shall we?”
Martina was more to blame than the children. Mischief and misbehavior were the near-inevitable products of childhood, but an adult ought to know better than to let them roam free and unsupervised, knowing the mischief they were capable of.
After a search of the main floor, they finally found her tucked in a chair in the farthest corner, leaning overThe Code of the Woosters, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, the rest of the world clearly a distant annoyance.
Even when Louise cleared her throat, Martina didn’t look up. It took her name, spoken loudly, to get the woman’s attention, and even then, she left her finger on the page as if waiting to get back to it as soon as possible.
That changed after Louise explained the situation. To her credit, Martina immediately prompted an apology from her offspring, along with her own for leaving them to their own devices.
Still, she made no movement to hurry after them when, freed by Louise’s acceptance, they scurried away. Instead, Louise caught the backward glance Martina gave to her book, abandoned on the chair, before refocusing. “Again, I’m so sorry—”
“As I said, I’m sure it won’t happen again.” But was she sure? With their father away and their mother distracted, it seemed unlikely.
A sudden impulse overtook her. “Would you come with me for a moment, Martina? I want to show you something.”
Louise wove through the shelves—along the way, plucking a plane that had met its doom in a crash landing on the spines of the biography section—to a cabinet on the east wall, the oneAnthony had installed to be too high for any children to smudge with fingerprints, just as she’d requested. Never checked out, never touched—but, she noted with satisfaction, apparently frequently dusted. Avis had her strong points.
She unlocked the cabinet and stepped aside so Martina could see. “This is my father’s collection of first editions. Their value and condition varies, but most are quite rare.”
Martina took an uncertain step forward, eyes scanning the spines of the books inside. “I never knew these were here.”
“I don’t make much of them. Which is for the best, since I plan to auction them off to raise money for the nursery school.”
Though she said it casually, this was a new decision, one made when the contractor had presented the final—and outrageous—costs for the construction to begin in September. Wartime supply inflation, he’d called it, rather than her own preferred verbiage: highway robbery. Something had to be done to raise the additional money.
Martina stared longingly at the books, her hands tucked behind her back as if she were afraid of spoiling the yellowed pages by proximity. “Aren’t they special to you?”
“Because they belonged to my father?” She shook her head. “Every book in this library is his, in a way. That these are among a few he chose to set aside holds far less weight to me than their financial value.”
“But ... this is an original collection of William Wordsworth poetry. And a first editionTom Sawyer.”
There it was again. The same awe and reverence Louise had heard in her father’s voice whenever he had spoken of his precious books ... and never once employed when speaking of his children.
“Martina, I want to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before. It is quite possible for a parent to become too involved in books. To neglect his family, to defend his solitary hours with such ferocity that all other priorities become secondary at best.I know this because my father—” she took a deep breath and pressed on—“was one such person.”
Martina’s eyes widened, clearly not anticipating such a speech. Neither had Louise, really.
