The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections(75)

“There’s really no need.”

“You’re soaked through, darling.”

He had called her darling through all their years of marriage, but on that night the word only conjured Francis. Francis who had used it last. Francis who had begged her to return the sentiment.

“A tea would be lovely, John.”

“Good,” he said.

“Did Hannah stay?” Liesl asked.

“No.”

“What a pity. I would have liked to have breakfast with her in the morning.”

Liesl made her way to the kitchen table and sat herself down, the night’s chardonnay sloshing around in her belly.

“She had schoolwork to attend to.”

“Of course. Did the two of you have a nice dinner?” She fought off a vibratory yawn.

“It was nice. You had quite a bit to drink?”

“Not so very much.”

“Didn’t you? You’re speaking in that strange way you do.”

The kettle began to whistle.

“I’m mostly just tired.”

“Would you like a glass of wine then?”

“No, John. Just the tea is fine. The tea is perfect.”

Her foot was hot where Francis’s had touched it. Her head was swimming where the chardonnay was slipping between her neurons. John studied her and could see every bit of it. She was sure of it.

“Good,” he said.

“I’ll have to go in for a bit tomorrow, but the library will be closed, so I’ll be around during the day.”

“Your decision? To close it?”

“President Garber’s. I don’t mind. There will be work to catch up on, but it seems the respectful thing to do.”

“Right.”

“Gives us all a chance to sleep it off, anyway.”

“Right.”

“Did you and Hannah have a nice dinner together? Pity I couldn’t come.”

“Yes.”

“I asked that already. It’s been such a long day, and there really was quite a bit of wine.”

“Milk in your tea?”

“Please,” she said. “And just a touch of sugar.”

He brought the two cups of tea over to the kitchen table and sat down next to her. He drank from a large orange mug, she from a cream-colored teacup. She hated the types of homes that had dozens of mismatched mugs, but she let him keep the one because Hannah had bought it for him with money from her first paper route.

Each took a first sip of the hot tea. She was still wearing her damp clothing, but he hadn’t suggested that she go change, so she didn’t. She crossed her legs, and her knee began to bounce with anxiety. He looked down at her bouncing foot.

John looked at his wine-weary wife, down at the bouncing foot. Signaled to her that whatever was happening, he wasn’t blind to it.

“Your stockings are shredded.”

“I saw,” she nodded and nodded, too long. Looked at her foot instead of at him. “I’ll have to throw them out.”

He kept watching her face, taking a long sip of tea as he watched, waiting for the eye contact that wouldn’t come.

“Did something happen, darling?”

“Two deaths. A funeral,” she said. A subdued shrug, but still she didn’t look at him.

“Something tonight, I meant.”

“What could have happened?”

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

He refused to look away from her. He knew there was something there, and finally when she believed she had composed herself, she lifted her head and met his gaze.

“John,” she said.

“Liesl,” he said. “It’s the middle of the night. You’re drunk. You’re upset. Talk to me.”

“I have to go to bed.”

He reached across the table and took her hand. She smiled at him, or she tried to. His eyes were big and watery and a little bit bloodshot because he was tired too. In the kitchen, over tea, she almost told him all of her secrets. All of the secrets of a forty-year marriage.

“Stay a little longer,” he said.

“I promise everything is fine,” she said. She got up from the table, took her mostly full cup of tea to the sink, and poured it down the drain. John stayed drinking his. He had let go of her hand; he didn’t get up to try and follow her.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“Well, I can’t help that.”

Liesl and her secrets went to bed.

***

She had worn jeans and an oxford shirt. The jeans made Liesl look younger. Looking younger undermined her authority. The white shirt collar made her skin look pinker. She wouldn’t have worn it if she thought she needed her authority on that day, but the library was closed. Rhonda rang and asked if she could come by.

In her jeans and white button-down, Liesl was too impatient to sit and wait for Rhonda. She had tried the humanities building, the religious studies library, the coffee shop, and the garden behind the music building where faculty liked to go to think. The class schedule was an afterthought but one that was rewarded because the class schedule answered for Liesl the question of where Professor Mahmoud was at that exact moment and where he would remain for the next ninety minutes. It was only days from the auction, so no matter how strange it was to go visit Professor Mahmoud in a lecture hall, Liesl was carried by her loafers and her determination to Lecture Hall LL 104 in the Sid Smith Building.