Chapter Thirty-Nine
Thirty-Nine
A Pearl of Wisdom
from Renny Russo
“Memory Lane is the best place to run into people you love.”
Tallulah
On Tuesday morning, a wheel on the book cart squeaked as I headed for adult nonfiction, basking in the routine of shelving. I was oddly energized for someone who’d had very little sleep over the last few days. Though in some ways the sleeplessness had been beneficial.
During the wee hours of the last few nights, I’d finished my Trivia Night proposal. I’d written down more wisdoms. I’d pinned house-decorating ideas to a Pinterest board. And I’d downloaded the application for the MLIS program.
One of the requirements was a short personal essay, and I decided that when the time came, I’d write about what the library meant to me.
How when I was younger, libraries had been my home base, my saving grace. Because at their core, they were always the same. A place of comfort. Security. Familiarity. They’d brought a sense of peace otherwise missing in my life and a consistency I’d craved.
Plus, they reminded me of my grandmother. Which reminded me of love.
“Do you think I’ll be accepted to the program?” I asked Deckle, as if she had any clue what I was talking about.
I swore her head bobbed, and I smiled.
She’d been following me, leaping gracefully from shelf to shelf, and I found myself enjoying her company rather than being annoyed by it.
I rounded a corner, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Evanthe looking out the window facing the back garden. Her face was in profile, her chin lifted. Her shoulders were drawn back, her hands clasped behind her.
I watched her, wondering what she was thinking when she stared out that window. Was she remembering days long past? Old loves? Old friends?
Then I caught sight of movement in the garden. Someone coming into view. Jed, I realized. He was sweeping the patio. He didn’t seem to notice she was watching him. Or see how a shy smile began to turn the corner of her lips upward.
I glanced at Deckle and grinned. “How about that?” I whispered. “She has to be thinking about compromises, right?”
However, instead of giving me a head bob or a whisker twitch to answer my question, she hopped onto the book cart. Where she promptly knocked a book onto the floor.
I stared at her.
She stared at me.
Finally, I gave in and blinked, then looked down at the book that had landed at my feet. It was a Southern Living cookbook titled The Southern Cookie Book.
I swallowed hard. It had been a while since Deckle had knocked a book in front of me—not since the day of the paperback book swap. It was as if she knew I was coming around and simply needed to give me a little more time to sort through my feelings.
That breathing room had allowed me to see that it was time to let go of this grudge once and for all.
“Trust the process?” I said to her.
Her tail swished.
I picked up the book, and for a moment, I simply stared at the pile of chocolate cookies on the cover. My heart began beating faster and faster.
Deckle meowed, as if encouraging me.
“Okay,” I said, then borrowed words from Jake. “I’m choosing to trust you.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I let the book fall open. Once the pages settled, I glanced down and saw a recipe for Outrageous Peanut Butter Cookies.
Deckle’s golden eyes watched me closely, and I noticed a depth to them I’d never seen before that hinted at an old, wise soul. I felt a sense of calm come over me as I lifted the book upward so I could inhale deeply, pulling in the scent of ink and paper and life. Bibliosmia.
In a flash, I was in my grandparents’ kitchen, making cookies with my mamaw. I was just a little bit, sitting on the counter next to her, my tanned legs swinging as she put cooled peanut butter cookies onto a plate.
Her dewy eyes glittered with happiness. I’d never known anyone so full of joy.
“These here are your papaw’s favorite. He’ll gobble them all up without a second thought, so we best hide a few away for ourselves, eh?
” She pulled an old coffee tin from one of the cabinets.
“I call this here can my treasure chest. He doesn’t like coffee, so he won’t likely think to look inside.
It’s where I hide all my most precious things.
” She laughed, then added, “Sometimes, when I’m hiding something extra special from your papaw, I ask Miss Evanthe to keep this here can safe for me.
So if it ever goes missing, you know where to look. ”
She gave me a wink and a kiss on the top of my head, and then, just as quickly as the image of her had come, it disappeared.
My knees had gone weak, and I had to lean against a bookshelf. I was taken aback by what I’d seen.
What I felt.
The love I had for my grandmother was all balled up in my chest, crackling, ready to break open. She’d been gone for eighteen years now, and I was so filled with happiness from seeing her once again, hearing her voice, that I could cry.
Deckle jumped off the book cart onto the floor and started bumping against my legs. I picked her up, held her close, felt the rumbles of her purrs.
“Thank you,” I whispered into her fur.
We stayed that way for a good minute while I replayed the memory over and over, until I finally figured out what I’d been meant to recall.
Impulsively, I kissed Deckle’s head, then put her back on the floor. Then I abandoned the book cart and went looking for Evanthe. She was no longer at the window, so I checked her office. She was sitting behind her desk, her glasses perched on her nose as she studied a computer screen.
“Yes?” she said, glancing up at me.
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Tallulah? Is something wrong? Are those tears in your eyes?”
My legs were still a little wobbly, so I sat in one of the chairs across from her. “Deckle gave me a memory.”
Evanthe’s eyebrows lifted, and she set her glasses on her desk. “Oh?”
“I saw Mamaw. She was baking cookies and hiding them from Papaw in her coffee tin. And I think she was telling me that—” My voice caught. “Do you have her coffee tin? It’s been missing since she passed away, and Papaw swears he didn’t get rid of it.”
For a moment, she studied my face, searching, seeking. I wasn’t sure for what.
Without saying a word, she stood and strode to a filing cabinet. She used a key to unlock the drawer, which squeaked when she pulled it open. She reached in and pulled out the tin, hugging it tight against her chest.
My jaw dropped.
She slowly walked over to me, her long linen dress swirling around her ankles, and sat in the chair next to mine. “I spent a lot of time with June in her final days. Reminiscing. Trying to make amends for failing her.”
“You didn’t fail her,” I said.
“I did.” She looked upward and pulled in a deep breath.
“It’s one of my life’s greatest regrets.
I foolishly convinced myself that if I didn’t see her ill, then she wouldn’t be.
I simply did not think I could survive losing someone else I loved so immensely.
I chose to live in denial until one day I woke up to Calliper knocking a book onto the floor next to my bed.
A thin volume of poetry by Emily Dickinson.
When I breathed in its scent, I was reminded of a time when June and I were young girls.
We were here at the library, our noses in books, as they often were in those days.
June had been reading Emily Dickinson that day.
When she came across the poem titled ‘In a Library,’ she read aloud its beginning to me.
” Her lip quirked. “She may as well have been a Shakespearean thespian, altering her voice, gesturing wildly, as she recited, ‘A precious, mouldering pleasure ’tis. To meet an antique book.’ We’d dissolved into a fit of giggles and had to be shushed by Miss Primrose, the librarian. ”
Tears filled my eyes, my heart full as I imagined my grandmother clowning around. She’d always been one to lighten a mood or light up a room. But I was having a harder time picturing Evanthe. “I can’t imagine you giggling.”
“I was a different person then.”
Before grief stole her joy.
“‘Forever—is composed of Nows.’” She looked at me. “Those were the words written on the page I breathed in the morning I finally came to my senses. The day I realized I could spend my time hiding from what was to come or I could spend it with June, honoring our friendship. Celebrating it.”
“She understood why you hadn’t been there,” I said softly, gently. “She never once held it against you—none of us did. She loved you and she knew you loved her. She didn’t need you to be by her side. Or hear you say the words. They lived in her heart, her soul.”
Tears gathered in her eyes, and she pressed a shaky hand to her chest. “You’ve no idea what that means to me.”
I thought, maybe, I did. I suspected that in order to move on, she’d needed forgiveness. From Mamaw. Perhaps from me as well. I hoped that now that she knew how we felt, her walls would come down, once and for all.
Thumbing away tears, she glanced down at the tin.
“On the last day I saw June, she gave this to me. By that time, word had arrived that you and your parents might not make it back to Forget-Me-Not for quite some time. She asked me to keep the tin safe until you came to me for it. She seemed to believe that you’d know where to find it. ”
I could hear the raw emotion in my words as I said, “Surely, after eighteen years, you had to realize I had no idea.”
Her gaze softened as she looked me in the eyes. “Yet here you are.”
Yet here I was.
With a faint smile, she stood up. “Though I will admit to growing impatient. There was even a time recently when I sought to intervene, placing the tin directly in front of you.”
I tipped my head, confused. Until I remembered where I’d seen the coffee can recently. I glanced out the office window, to the storybook Tudor house across the street, its blue tarp clear as day. “The Library House.”
She dipped her chin in acknowledgment. “I was behind Georgia Smith in line at the coffee shop and heard her speaking on the phone, telling someone she would be showing the house to you later that day. I concocted a plan, one that clearly failed, so I went back, collected the can once again, and knew I simply had to continue to be patient. My interference was not welcomed.”
This explained why the coffee tin had been missing during the second showing. I glanced up at her, seeing her in a whole new light. “So you weren’t interested in the house at all?”
“No. However, I’m unsurprised you were drawn to it. I’m not sure you’re aware, but it is a house June had much admired.”
Having said that, she held out the tin to me.
Chills swept down my arms as I took it from her. “Do you know what’s in it?”
“I believe June called them treasures.” She placed her hand on my shoulder, gave it a comforting squeeze. “Take your time.”
In a swish of linen, she was gone, out the door and into the stacks.
My heart was thrumming as I carefully lifted the lid and peeked inside the large can. Immediately, I saw the recipe box stuffed full of Mamaw’s treasured, handwritten recipes, and if I weren’t so close to sobbing, I’d probably have squealed with glee.
Also in the tin was a square jewelry box.
I pulled it out, and the gold box felt warm in my hand, like sunshine on a cold day. A yellow sticky note attached said Tallulah in Mamaw’s handwriting.
My gaze traced the lines of her penmanship. The loopy ls. The dramatic h.
I could barely breathe as I shimmied the top off the box, set it aside. Nestled in thin layers of white tissue paper lay a gold necklace and pendant.
As I lifted the necklace, the weight of my love for her, my grief, pushed against my chest. Crushing it. Crushing me.
I took a moment to close my eyes. Breathe.
Then I looked at the charm more closely, cupping it in my palm.
It was a gold disc engraved with a beautiful compass rose, an eight-pointed star, just like the ones she used on her quilts.
Just like the one carved into the newel post at the Library House.
I flipped the pendant over, and my eyes filled with tears as I read the engraving.
ALWAYS FOLLOW YOUR HEART
IT KNOWS THE WAY HOME
I closed my fingers around the charm and just sat there for a minute, allowing myself to feel what needed to be felt.
I didn’t smother the emotions. As I pictured Mamaw picking out this necklace, choosing the engraving, my heart swelled.
She’d known how I felt about having a home.
A place where my heart belonged. With this gift, she was sharing a valuable pearl of wisdom.
Maybe home wasn’t a place at all.
It was a feeling.
It was love.
Was it just a coincidence that I’d found love here in Forget-Me-Not? In the library, no less?
I didn’t think so.
Not even a little bit.