Chapter 17 #2
I knelt to examine the wooden crate and saw it was one that had come off the rails long ago to be delivered to us Pack Horse librarians.
After the shipped books were unpacked from trains, many of the crates would be donated to businesses and factories across the state.
Others had recirculated when they were rescued from barns and vacant buildings.
Once, I spotted several in a large feedstore in Tennessee that had been reused for grain bins, and another as an umbrella stand outside a funeral parlor in Kentucky.
Seeing this one brought back fond memories.
The old crate cross-stitched with nicks and cracks had a black-painted address on its planks made out to the Pack Horse Librarians in Knox County, KY. from a library in Cleveland, OH. Grinning, I lingered on the lid. Book Women Eddie Black and Jincey Miller would’ve likely unpacked this very one.
I recalled a young woman from up in Winchester.
Agnes Griggs had driven a truck to our center one day to donate books.
She’d also left us a pretty woven picnic basket filled with homemade treats from her kitchen.
I’d unpacked the book crate and inhaled oak, citrus, and ink, marveling over the distance Agnes had ridden to get books to us, thinking of Janlyn Weintraub in Louisville doing the very same.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my hands over the address, calling up my route and home.
How many crates of used, donated books had I trudged into the Troublesome Creek Center from the train depot and unloaded and cataloged?
I raised the splintered oak lid and caught a strong whiff of apples that must have once been stored inside. It now held a lot of classics and some older reads, along with poetry books and newer novels I’d never heard of.
Looking over my shoulder, I stole a glance at the warden. She had her head bent toward her paperwork as the fan’s breezes tousled the chestnut curls she’d styled into a poodle-cut hairdo like the ones I’d seen movie stars wear in magazines.
I ran a palm down my own dull, unkempt hair and turned back to the crate.
One by one, I pulled out the books. Then I saw it.
A copy of the present Jackson had given to me on our wedding day: the collection of Yeats poems from over at the men’s library that I had toted around while waiting for Jackson to appear.
I turned it over, inspecting carefully.
Breathless, I ran my fingers across the buckram and beveled edges, lightly tracing the title on the worn leather label. Again, I peered over my shoulder.
Carefully, I opened the book to the title page.
His penciled-in inscription read:
I won’t ever give up.
—Jackson
The very last words he’d said to me on the day we were arrested.
I flipped through the pages until I found our poem.
Pulling the book closer, I mouthed the last verse.
“‘To an isle in the water. With her I would fly.’”
Jackson had written beneath the final stanza:
My Dear Bride,
Don’t you give up on us either.
The words blurred as I pressed my palm to my mouth, comforted by the warmth of Jackson’s spirit.
Warden called out from her desk, “Find yourself a good one?”
I closed the book. Turning around, I masked my face with a sheepish grin and held up the poems.
Warden said, “I never could pass up a Yeats collection.” She leaned her head toward the window as she quoted his work in a reverent voice:
“‘I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not oneself.’” Then she finished with a wistful sigh, “From Per Amica Silentia Lunae.”
Warden turned to stare at me, pleased, and I gawked back, surprised by the quote she’d chosen. For a second, I feared the woman might take the collection away, but she just nodded an approval and said, “You may keep it,” and turned back to her work.
Clutching the only book I wanted, I tilted my head toward the window, waiting to be properly excused, my thoughts lingering on Jackson’s inscription. Jackson—I pressed the book to my chest—I won’t give up. I promise.
Outside, the wind picked up, skittering its buzz across the boughs of singing leaves, fluttering the tired drapes. Content, grateful for my book, I inhaled the sweet breaths of an approaching rain, and my mind drifted again to his words.
In a moment, a bright-red cardinal caught my eye when it landed on the tree branch. It flew away after a crow perched on the branch above it, then another a second later. Yet a third crow joined them and brought back the old nursery rhyme Mama taught me long ago:
“One for sorrow,
Two for mirth
Three for a funeral—”
Warden Sanders banged a drawer shut, pulling me away from the silly superstition.
She continued, “One more thing, Lovett: If you need the handyman, write up an order and send it to my office instead of putting it in the inbox to the men’s prison.
Unfortunately, the prisoners over there will not be available to fulfill our requests for an unforeseen time.
Hopefully in August, it will all pass.” Warden exhaled loudly.
Pass? Her words confused me.
“Ma’am, uh, they sure had themselves a lot of good books over there. I don’t mind volunteering to go back…if it can help you out.”
“I fear that will be a while.” She tossed the pen onto her stack of papers and pulled out a desk drawer, digging inside until she snatched up an envelope.
“The prison is on lockdown due to the rapid spread of fevers, and all their men are in isolation because of the polio outbreak. Buttermilk Sullivan’s contracted it, and they don’t know if the poor soul will make it. They’ve lost five men already.”
“Polio,” I barely breathed, horrified for the kind maintenance man. Did Jackson have it? Was he even alive?
“Poor Mr. Sullivan.” She kissed her teeth, tsking. “Well, I believe we covered everything today. And now you’ve been given a rebirth. Well done, Prison Book Woman. I’ll see the crate is delivered to your library in the morning.” She turned her attention back to the pile of papers and dismissed me.
With the news that my husband could be suffering—or worse—I felt the life leave me, the coldness cloaking, twisting and knotting as I reached out a hand wildly and latched on to the warden’s desk for support.
“Lovett? Lovett.” She shot up and stepped back. “Are you sick?”
Quickly I righted my spine and pressed the book to my chest. “I apologize for the alarm, Warden. I’m just a little weak-kneed from skipping breakfast, and it’s, uh, well, my—” I looked down and mumbled monthly, then turned toward the door before she could see the lie in my eyes and the color bruising my face.
“Strawberries in season again. Well, I don’t miss that.” I heard the snap of paper and her sliding chuckle.
That. “Ma’am?” I looked back at her.
She frowned.
“That! Your…whatever your kind calls it,” Warden said, flicking her wrist. “That. That. Straw. Ber. Ries.” She clamped her teeth, loudly annunciating the word.
“That,” I repeated stupidly, the word pummeling and taking root, to land uneasy in the pit of my belly.