When Women Were Dragons(67)

I still had my hand on the lock. I still hadn’t opened it. “But,” I began. I swallowed. “How on earth did you know where I lived?” Even the schools didn’t know where we lived. All our mail went to my father’s house.

“I’m a librarian,” she said curtly. “This sort of thing goes with the job. Now, open up.”

And I did.

My apartment, I should explain, was tiny. It had a main room that served most purposes, and a tiny bedroom at the back. The bedroom was hardly more than a closet—one small window, with just enough space for Beatrice’s bed on one side and a long closet rod along the other side. We kept our dresser in the main room, which was eight paces, wall to wall, with a kitchenette along one side. A chrome table with two chairs occupied the center of the room, and the walls were lined with bookshelves, most of which I had made myself using cast-off lumber and old bricks that I had braced together with brackets I had fabricated in metal shop, when I was the only girl in metal shop.

I turned on the kettle, because that’s what my mother would have done, and set out two teacups with bags of Lipton. My mother would have also put out sugar cubes and wedges of lemon, but I had none, and so we drank our tea with puckered lips instead. Mrs. Gyzinska hadn’t spoken since she entered the room and neither had I. I hung her coat in silence and she sat at the table in silence and I made the tea in silence and we sat, facing each other, sipping in silence.

Finally:

“I am sorry, dear,” she said. “About what happened last week. And I’m sorry for not coming sooner. I kept expecting you to return to the library. I apologize. I should have known to be more . . .” She thought for a long moment. Beatrice snored loudly in the other room, a gentle, undulating wave. “In my younger days, I knew how to tiptoe into a conversation. How to listen both to what is said and unsaid. It was a skill that once served me well, and I’m afraid I’m a bit rusty. My long career has allowed me to stomp rather than sashay, and it appears this time I stomped right into it.” She folded her hands and rested her chin on her knuckles, peering at me intently. “I didn’t want to upset you, Alex, I truly didn’t. And it breaks my heart that I did.”

And then we were silent again.

I looked down at my hands. The gas stove hissed and the kettle rattled.

“Listen. I haven’t always been the feisty old lady who lives in a library, though I’m sure it must seem that way to you. I understand you, Alex, just a little bit, because I used to be a lot like you. I was only thirteen when my teacher told my immigrant parents that I needed to go to college, and so the parish priest took up a collection and off I went. I didn’t know what I was in for, but I took that qualifying exam and I blew it to pieces, just like you will. There was absolutely no question that I deserved to be there and there was no question that I could outthink and outlast anyone who coasted in on their granddaddy’s wealth.” She scowled, apparently just thinking about the people she went to school with. “But I still needed someone to help me get there. One of the teachers at my Podunk school knew that world, and she knew it wouldn’t be easy, because the doors to ivory towers don’t open automatically to the daughters of poor farmers.” She closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a long slow breath through her nose. “She knew the value of opportunity, and she wrestled that opportunity into submission and handed it over to me. I trusted her. My parents trusted her. I often think of what would have happened if we didn’t.” She took a sip of her tea. “I need you to trust me, Alex. I need you to trust me. And I know that’s a lot to ask.”

Beatrice, dreaming in the other room, sighed and snorted and rolled over. Her bed creaked. I craned my head and perked my ears and Mrs. Gyzinska watched me watching. Beatrice returned to her soft snoring, and I relaxed.

“Your situation, of course, is different. It’s much trickier. You have a cousin who is your sister who is your child. I know that’s not how you see it, but that is the fact.”

I shook my head. “I have a sister. My mother is dead. My father does what he can.”

Mrs. Gyzinska waved this away with a snort. “You have a mother who you almost lost when you were little, and who almost left again during the dragoning—oh, don’t look so shocked. It’s just biology. Are caterpillars disgusted by butterflies? No. Of course not. People’s aversion to that whole business makes no sense. And obviously, I know all about what happened. I’m a librarian, for god’s sake. It’s my job to catalogue information. You lost your mother for good at possibly the worst time for anyone to lose their mother. It wasn’t her fault, and she tried her best, but there it is, and you were left alone. And you have a father who has abdicated his responsibility to a teenager, which is the lowest thing a man can do. And the only reason why I haven’t called social services—and trust me, I considered it—is because I couldn’t bear to be the person who separates you and Beatrice. It is a real possibility, if they involved themselves, and it would be a true calamity. I won’t let it happen.”

I looked at my textbook. It was a library book, but Mrs. Gyzinska had allowed me to take it for the whole year. “I know you’re good for it,” she had said. “And anyway, I know where you live,” she had added with a wink. I assumed at the time that she was talking about my father’s house. How long had she known?