The dread from last night creeps back when he heads upstairs to bathe. I should’ve skipped breakfast and attempted to hide Amelia’s novels while he was eating. I don’t know if he can handle more crying. And what if he boxes them all up and throws them out like he did JMB and Fiona’s books?
He returns wearing clean clothes and smelling like a new man. Still, I can’t help but feel nervous when he takes up residence on the sofa again. He’s picked a different paperback to read this time, and he’s on his back, holding the book over his head. It doesn’t look comfortable to me, but he’s humming as he reads.
I must be staring because he turns to acknowledge me. “Harold, did you know this is a series?” He gestures to the bright yellow cover. “Stephanie has two sisters, Lucy and Sophia. This is Lucy’s story.”
He doesn’t have to tellmethat, but I’m not upset when he continues.
“She loathes Adrian. She has since they were kids because he used to ignore her, or so she thought. And now that they’re adults, he’s acting like he’s got a mouth full of rocks instead of speaking up for her at the town council meeting. He didn’tmean to—he’s just so stunned by how beautiful and funny she is, and kids used to tease him about his accent. But now she thinks he’s the same aloof kid she knew and hated,” he says, shaking his head. “Harold, I swear Adrian is based on me; I didn’t ignore Amelia, but she knows I used to be self-conscious about my voice when I was younger. Regardless, I havenoidea how he’s going to prove her wrong. He may have a killer career and those V-shaped stomach muscles—but as of right now, this guy’s got work to do.”
He sure does.
He continues. “I mean, why can’t he figure this out without putting Lucy through all of that first?”
Sometimes humans really make me question the validity of the entire food chain.
Then he holds the book in front of his eyes again. “More soon,” he murmurs. “See you on the other side of this chapter.”
By “chapter,” he apparently meant “book,” because he’s still reading at lunchtime. But I don’t want to bother him because at least he’s not crying or talking about closing the store. And honestly, though I need to pee again, it’s kind of fun to see him turning the pages like his life depends on it—and maybe it does.
At some point he shifts into a seated position. Watching him is like witnessing a storm pass through: First come clouds, then rain—he’s already cried twice—followed by a hint of light. And then he breaks into the sunniest smile I’ve seen on him since Before.
When he finally closes the paperback, he places it on his chest, sighs deeply, and says, “Ohhh, that was satisfying. Heneededto go through all that, and so did she. That’s the point,isn’t it? They had to work and change to find each other. To find love.”
I hope he’s listening to himself right now.
After feeding me and taking me out back, he clears out the bookshelves at his eye level, moving his thick hardcovers to the bottom shelves where Amelia’s books were stored. Then he places all her paperbacks on the empty shelves, wedging a large, polished agate in the gap at the end of the second stack. I remember that rock; he bought it for Amelia when we were in the Upper Peninsula.
He regards the shelves for a while, moves a few copies around, then retrieves another novel in a color I can’t make out. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Sophia,” he says before throwing himself on the sofa yet again.
And this is what we do for the rest of the daylight, with neither of us leaving the living room except to tend to our basic needs. While he reads, I laze in my bed or lie beside him on the sofa and listen to him tell me about the story. I wonder if he realizes that I was there for most of those novels, though a handful were written before my time. And when he reads me lines aloud, it’s almost like Amelia’s here with us. “ ‘I am done with people. The only one I can rely on is my dog,’ ” he quotes, laughing. “Wonder where she got that one from, huh, Harold?”
Speak for yourself, Miguel,I think, even though I do adore that passage.I love people.
Then again, if he keeps reading, there’s a slim but real possibility that at some point he’ll remember that he does, too.
“Trust issues!” he declares when he’s nearly finished. “Theybothhave them! So did the characters in the last novel. It’s like a weird theme she keeps returning to. Maybe it’s because I’mnot great about relying on others.” He frowns. “That’s probably why I’m up a creek with the store right now.”
Ding ding ding! The question is, what’s he going to do about that?
Instead of elaborating, he finishes the novel, then grabs another from the shelf. He waves it at me. “I’m going to read the last one she wrote next. Then I’ll work my way through the rest of her backlist.”
Even as he’s telling me this, the house begins to buzz. We both startle. “Power’s back,” he says, but he doesn’t sound as pleased as you’d expect for someone who’s sweated through several shirts. He looks down at the book and thumbs through the pages. “It’s hard not to skip ahead. But also, I wish it could go on forever. This has been…really nice.”
It has. It might be the best time he and I have ever had together without Amelia, even compared to Chicago. And while he has cried nearly enough to make up for all the crying he didn’t do in front of me before, he looks—I won’t say good, as there are still dark circles under his eyes, and he needs a haircut if he wants to avoid morphing into an unshorn alpaca. He looks better, though; less haunted and more alive.
“Actually, I’m going to save this one,” he tells me, his eyes skimming the copy on the back of the paperback.
But I wanted to hear his thoughts on Adam’s proposal!
“I’m pretty sure Amelia wrote this, or at least finished writing it, when she was already sick, Harold.” He smiles faintly. “I’m glad you’re a dog, because I’m not sure I could say this to anyone else, but I have a sneaking suspicion this one’s about us, even more than the others. Now, I know she wasn’t an academic and I didn’t inherit a grocery chain, but…well, I’ll have to find out later. Since the electricity’s back on, I’ve gotthings to do. Things I can’t do alone,” he says solemnly, answering the question I could not ask. “But I’m going to have to make a whole lot of apologies before anyone evenconsidershelping me.”
He seems to have forgotten that the four most endearing words in the English language are “I need your help.” “People love to be useful and to be valued,” Amelia informed Miguel one time when he was hemming and hawing about asking Derrell, a neighbor a few houses over, to figure out why our lawnmower wouldn’t start. “Think about it,” she told him. “You might prefer to take care of things yourself, but you never actually mind when someone else asks you for a favor.” Miguel got over his pride and went to Derrell’s, and the next thing I knew, he was back to terrorizing the neighborhood with that awful machine, and Derrell grinned and waved whenever he drove by in his truck.
“If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes,” says Miguel, placing the paperback on the table beside the sofa. He turns to me. “Harold, it’s time to make things right.”
Thirty-Nine
Miguel decides he’s going to Amelia’s office the next morning. “Do you want to come with?” he asksme.
