The Bookseller(72)

I lean forward, wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him deeply. I want to burn the memory of his lips, his touch, into my mind and heart. I never want to forget—but I never want to be back here again, either.

Finally, we break apart. I give him one last sorrowful look. “I’m going to bed now,” I say, standing up. “I’m going to go lie down in that imaginary bed in this imaginary house, and I am going to go to imaginary sleep, and when I wake up, I will be back in the real world.” I touch a curl of hair behind his ear—tenderly, as if he were one of the children. “Good-bye, my darling,” I whisper.





Chapter 26


When I wake up, I’m not sure where I am. The room is dark, and the bed is narrow and high. Curtains close off two side-by-side windows. The coverlet that envelops me is chenille, soft and cozy.

And then the smell hits me, that roasted-squash-and-lavender smell that I would recognize anywhere, and I realize that I’m at home. Not my home, not my duplex, but my parents’ home. I am in my own childhood bedroom in the house on York Street.

Throwing off the covers, I pad to one of the windows and open the drapes. It is still dark out, and misty. I can’t tell if the sun has not yet risen or if we have a cloudy day in store. I have no idea what time it is; there is no clock in this room. I make a mental note to remind my mother that she needs to add one.

Some years ago, after I moved out, my mother depersonalized this room. She pulled down my South High School banners and my movie posters—Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind; Deanna Durbin in It Started with Eve; William Holden and Martha Scott in Our Town. My mother painted the walls, which had been sea green, a more impartial beige. She replaced my old pink-and-yellow patchwork quilt and matching curtains with this austere colonial-blue chenille spread and coordinating drapes. On the walls, she hung several small reproductions of French Impressionist paintings: Degas ballerinas, Renoir café scenes. “It’s perfect for a houseguest,” my mother proclaimed when it was finished. I honestly can’t remember my parents ever having a houseguest here, though my mother is right; the room would be lovely and ideal if a guest were to arrive.

I glance down at my body, which is covered in a too-large white nightgown, high-necked with a lace collar. Doubtless it belongs to my mother. What happened? Was I so drunk they couldn’t even get me home to my own place? Good heavens, how humiliating.

My mother has thoughtfully placed a glass of water on the bedside table, and I gulp it in its entirety. My head is pounding softly. I open the bedroom door and creep into the hall.

I glance at my parents’ bedroom door, which is closed. It’s all I can do to stop myself from flinging it open and hurling myself into bed with them, as a six-year-old might. As a six-year-old has, I remind myself wryly, in that imaginary world.

And then the horror of what Lars told me in the dream comes back to me. A small, barely audible cry escapes my throat. I stop walking and stand motionless in the dim hallway, my arms wrapped around my body for warmth.

My mother had mentioned something about the Honolulu flight on Tuesday being “dreadful,” so it seems likely that Lars’s information was correct. An airplane coming from Hawaii must have gone down in a storm, though I hadn’t heard about it here in the real world. I feel an overwhelming sadness for those who lost their lives and those who lost loved ones. And then I feel a vast sense of relief that my parents were not on that plane.

I try to imagine this life, my real life, without my parents. I know it happens—airplanes crash, people die. And I know that unforeseen death, whether via illness or accident, could happen—to my parents, to Frieda, to anyone I love. But the point is, it did not happen. Not to my mother and father. Not in my life.

I make my way down the hall in the darkness, heading for the kitchen and the coffee percolator. It’s no matter. I am not going back to that imaginary world. I am not sure exactly how I am going to keep it from happening, but one thing is certain: I’m not going back there again. I simply can’t let my mind go there again, I tell myself as I fill the percolator with water.

The truth is this: I am terrified that if I end up there again, I may never be able to get back home.


I can’t tell my parents, of course. Who would want to hear such a thing about themselves? I fix breakfast and wait for them to wake up. The day before yesterday, I went to the market and stocked their refrigerator with a few staples so they would have what they needed on their first morning at home: orange juice, a loaf of bread, cream, eggs. The smell of coffee wakes them and they both emerge from their bedroom, robes belted around their waists, noses in the air.

“Kitty.” My mother takes a long look at me. “Did you sleep at all, darling? Look at those sandbags under your eyes.” She reaches for a coffee cup and pours from the percolator. “I’m sorry we didn’t take you back to your apartment,” she goes on, her voice even. “We just felt that you—”

“It’s all right,” I interrupt, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry.” My father sits at the table as my mother fills the familiar rose-patterned china creamer—a staple in this house for as long as I can remember—and sets it, along with a cup of coffee, in front of him. “We’ve all been there, honey.” He pours cream into his coffee, adds a lump of sugar, and stirs. Then he sneezes the way he always does—loudly, sounding less like a person sneezing than like some large dog, a Labrador or a Great Dane, saying woof. The sound, though familiar, catches me off guard. I realize that the self in my other life—were I to go back there, something I fully intend not to do—would never again hear what for me is a very normal, everyday noise.