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The truth crashed into her, seconds too late to have stopped her angry reply:She doesn’t have any loved ones. Not really.
Her parents were both gone. There was a brother and his family, she’d heard, but they were estranged. She’d never married, had no children, and had few friends, certainly none of drafting age.
It was, as Gio would say, a below-the-belt strike, but once the words had slipped out, Avis couldn’t take them back.
“I suppose I have no reply to that.” Louise turned away, her shoulders bowed from their usual confident posture, pumps beating a more subdued pattern on the library floor. “Good day, Avis. Let me know if you have any questions about the Victory Book Campaign.”
This was not how this meeting was supposed to go. “Wait! I have something I want you to see.” Avis gripped her satchel, fumbling through it, hurrying while there was still time and nerve. Her hands found the notebook’s binding, and she thrust it at Miss Cavendish, who frowned.
“What is this?”
“I thought you might like to know what your father’s library has meant to so many in this town.”
It was only a slight motion, more a twitch than anything, but Avis caught Louise’s reaction to the mention of her father. Perhaps that had been the wrong tactic.
“I see.” Louise held the precious notebook of stories between two fingers as if she meant to toss it in the nearest bin.
“Will you promise to read it?”
“If I must.” Her retreat toward the library entrance was more hurried now, as if afraid Avis would attempt to say something more. “I will see you on Saturday.”
Avis stared after her.That could have gone better.Yet Miss Cavendish was a stickler for keeping her word. She would read the stories Avis had collected, and maybe somehow it would make a difference.
Reluctantly, Avis spent the next couple of hours before the library closed gathering books for donation. As she readied to leave, she reached into her satchel to tuck Miss Cavendish’s list from the Victory Book Campaign inside the front pocket and brushed her hand against a notebook. Removing it, she frowned at the opening line:The Importance of a Library.
Then what...?
No. She couldn’t have.
But as seconds passed and Avis searched in her satchel, just to be sure, certainty and dread struck at the same instant. There had been two very similar composition notebooks in her satchel, both taken from the library’s supplies.
And she’d accidentally given Louise Cavendish the notes from the Blackout Book Club.
All of the snide comments she and others had made about Louise—her pretentious opinions, lack of humor, moral stuffiness—came flooding back to her. And that wasn’t even mentioning the personal details about Russell or the existence of the storage closet filled with contraband romances.
“Oh, Anthony,” she whispered. “I’ve lost your library for good. And this time, it’s all my fault.”
From Russell to Avis
August 17, 1942
Dear Avis,
Finally, some action!
Probably shouldn’t start off a letter to my wife that way, but I figured you’ll know the Jerries didn’t blast us to bits since I’m here to write this. So I’ve spoiled the ending.
Just at dawn, I heard a strange new sound: a mechanical whirring from the listening device above the noises of the ocean that nearly lull me to sleep. I knew it was them, Avis, sure as I knew my own name. When I ran to the deck, the fellow on watch was pointing. Water was dark as tar, but we could still see it only forty yards away: the top of a German U-boat pushing through the water.
Captain Sherman got on the radio—knowing the fellows in the sub were listening too—and reported the U-boat, giving our exact location.
For a moment, all of us held our breath.
Then the sub dove under the surface. Ran away, tail between their legs, just like I told you they would. Not fast enough, though.
Two bombers came and salted the water with depth charges, sprouting up plumes of water to the sky, then confirmed a hit and told us to get out of there while they dealt with things. Wasn’t much of a thanks, but we celebrated on deck and again once we came back to shore.
We did it, Avis! Finally. Oh sure, we’ve been usefulbefore now. A preventive measure, Cap always says. What he means is, the wolves can’t come up for air anymore, not with the picket boats swarming everywhere. Too easy to be spotted.
