Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
A Pearl of Wisdom
from Renny Russo
“Love stories are the best stories. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
Juliet
I could practically see the moisture in the hazy, humid air on Monday afternoon as I made my way to Juneberry on foot. Right now, the sky was filled with puffy white clouds, but there was rain in the forecast for the coming days, and I was trying not to worry about it.
“Why do you sound all out of breath?” Amy asked.
“I’m walking.”
Today’s visit to the cottage would be a short one. I only needed to fill out the necessary volunteer paperwork, go through a truncated orientation, and meet the rest of the staff. My official start day would be on Wednesday, an evening shift, fit in around Tallulah’s schedule.
“Why? Is something wrong with your car?” Amy asked.
I laughed overly loud and lied through my teeth. “My car is fine. The town is small, easily walkable.”
We’d been talking for a few minutes already. I’d told her how I ended up offering to watch Mary Joy and had given her a quick rundown on the cookbook club meeting. She’d made gagging noises when I mentioned the prune whip.
“Isn’t it like a thousand degrees outside?”
It felt like it, honestly. “Only ninety.”
“Aren’t you sweaty? Why not drive?”
“Walking is good exercise.” Because I knew I needed to change the subject fast, I said, “Oh! I forgot to tell you that I found out how the town got its name.”
“Don’t tell me. A field of sweet, beautiful, delicate forget-me-nots were plowed up and pushed asunder to build the town, and the name is a sad, ironic tribute.”
I kicked a pebble as I walked along. “Wow. Having a bad day?”
“Thanks for noticing,” she said.
I smiled, not the least bit bothered by her flippant attitude. “What happened?”
“Mom happened.”
Why that statement made my stomach knot, I wasn’t sure. “What’s that mean?”
She let out a long sigh. “You know how she is when she gets something in her head.”
I did. I do. “What’s she want you to do?”
“Rearrange my whole life.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s Mom.” She sighed again. She was a master sigher. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. It just gets to be a lot, you know?”
I did know. Yes.
“Tell me about the town,” she said. “The flowers weren’t really plowed, were they?”
“No.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I wasn’t sure my heart could handle that.”
“There was this girl,” I began. “A young woman.”
“Wait. Is this a long story?”
I rolled my eyes. “Would you like the short version?”
“Yes, please. I have a meeting soon.”
“A young Irish woman with black hair and golden hazel eyes from a poor family,” I said, “falls for a rich guy from a nearby town. And he falls for her. His family isn’t pleased and forbids any kind of relationship. They send him away to school, far, far away.”
“Oh, classic.”
“She’s heartbroken, of course, and throws herself into her second love. Books. She scrimps and saves and starts running a little library out of her house, a homestead, really.”
Amy said, “Please tell me she doesn’t become a spinster cat lady. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Goals, honestly. But it’s too obvious.”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to use the word spinster anymore.”
“Seriously?”
“And does Dave know you want to be a single cat lady?” Her husband adored her, after all.
“He’s on a need-to-know basis.”
“And he currently doesn’t need to know?”
“That’s correct. Okay, fine. He can join me and the cats.”
I laughed and went on with the story. “The lady with the library does, in fact, have cats. They helped keep mice from eating the books.”
“How did I know she had cats?”
A cloud crossed in front of the sun, creating sudden shade, and it was blissful. “Because you know everything.”
“This is true.”
“Anyway, the young woman’s library eventually outgrows her home, mostly thanks to an anonymous benefactor who makes regular donations.”
“It’s him, isn’t it? I know it’s him.”
I rounded a corner onto the street that led to Juneberry. “It’s him, and she’s not too proud to accept the help. She uses the funds to have a small library built. An official library. People come from all over to visit it. The cats are a hit with patrons.”
“I can’t get over the cats.”
“Oh, just you wait. There’s more to that.”
“Hurry then.”
I laughed and said, “One day, years later, the guy reappears.”
“He still loves her, doesn’t he?”
“He still loves her,” I said.
“Knew it.”
“He’s willing to be disowned by his family to be with her—and when they do get married, he’s cut off.”
“But he’s happy.”
“Right,” I said. “They run the library together. They have two children, little boys. Then, one springtime, she gets a cough.”
“Oh no.”
“The cough gets worse. She gets weaker. Doctors tell them she doesn’t have long.”
“I don’t like this story anymore.”
“She takes the time and energy one afternoon to plant a mess of forget-me-nots around the library.”
“A mess?”
“Sorry, that’s a Katy word. A lot of forget-me-nots. So that when they bloom every spring, he’ll remember her. And also, she plants them so their story, their love story, will always be remembered.”
“My heart can’t take this.”
“After she passes, he takes over running the library. Before long, a stray cat shows up. A black cat with golden eyes. The cat isn’t a mouser. It actually starts helping patrons select books.”
“Get out. A cat with black fur and golden eyes? Are we supposed to think that it’s her?”
“I’m just telling you what I know,” I said. Though everyone at the cookbook club meeting absolutely believed the cat had been her—and that part of her spirit was somehow within all the library cats that had come after her. “But don’t you want to believe it’s true?”
With what I’d already learned of this town, I believed it possible. Plus, I liked the theory that life somehow continued on.
As I thought so, I looked for the robin but didn’t see it.
“Absolutely,” she said. “You know I’m a romantic at heart.”
“Dave will be glad to hear that, once he learns about your cat-lady plans.”
“Yeah, yeah. So how did the town actually get its name?”
“Over the years, the forget-me-nots the librarian planted spread like crazy. They were everywhere. Every spring, people trekked to see them. Soon a town was built up around the library. By a unanimous vote, the community named it Forget-Me-Not.”
“That is the sweetest thing I’ve heard, well, ever. Is her library still there?”
“Not the original one. That was destroyed by a fire about a hundred years ago. But a new one was built in its spot. One of the woman’s descendants is the current library director.”
“Okay, but is there a cat?”
“There is. Apparently, a new cat shows up on the library steps only days after the previous one passes away. The one that’s there now is named Deckle. He’s black and fluffy with big golden eyes.”
“Does he pick out books?”
I thought about the book that he knocked to the ground, the one with the bears and the lightning, and goose bumps popped up on my arms. I found myself believing the library cat folklore because it couldn’t possibly be coincidence that he’d chosen that specific book for me, especially since I now knew that the books he picked contained long-lost memories.
I had purposely withheld that information from Amy.
If she knew, she’d likely leap to the same conclusion I had—that Deckle had been trying to return my memory from the day of the lightning strike.
Amy would demand I haul myself straight to the library and retrieve the memory, but I just wasn’t sure I wanted to remember.
“He actually does.”
“That’s it,” she said. “I need to see the cat.”
I stopped to pick up a feather and looked around. The white-throated robin sat in a maple tree not too far away, and my heartbeat quickened. “Next time I’m in the library, I’ll take a picture and send it to you. Or I guess I can ask Tallulah. She works there.”
“And Tallulah is Tenn’s granddaughter?”
“Right.”
“Mm.”
“That was a very Mom-sounding mm.”
“How very dare you? But now that you mention Mom, I will say she’s worried.”
I tucked the feather in my pocket, then rubbed the spot between my eyebrows with the pad of my thumb. “I know.”
“It’s just that she thinks, she suspects, that you’re getting attached to Tenn because he’s filling a Grandpa-sized hole in your life.”
“How is that possible when I can’t even remember Grandpa?”
Which was a blatant lie.
I was remembering him—in my dreams. Short snippets of him pulling my pigtails and calling me pipsqueak.
Sitting in the audience of my school play.
At my high school graduation. Parked next to me on the couch, watching reality TV.
Sharing a basket of fries at the local diner.
Walking with me almost every night after dinner.
It was on one of those walks that he said, “Just make sure you’re doing it because you want to do it. Regret can be a lifelong companion.”
It had been this past January, and we’d been talking about grad school. I’d just submitted my application.
I’d looked at him, his wool hat pulled low, almost covering his eyes. “Do you have regrets?”
“Everyone does, Juliet. Don’t let them tell you different.”
“What would you have changed?” I asked.
He’d smiled then, a soft, sad smile, as he held my gaze. “Not a thing.”
I hadn’t told any of this to Amy. Or anyone. Rediscovering my grandfather through my dreams felt too special to share. At least for now.
“Maybe it’s a subconscious attachment?” Amy said.
“Maybe it’s a ridiculous theory.”
“Maybe you’re ridiculous.”
I couldn’t help it. I cracked a smile. “There’s nothing to worry about, Amy. I promise.”
“Mm” was all she said in reply.