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1.
The alarm clock went off at 7:00 in the morning. Libby rolled over and turned it off, then rolled back and blinked at the ceiling. Yes, it was a weekday, and she needed to get up early to take Ray to the school.
Her little apartment was a big improvement over her old home in Kendall's Rooming House in a lot of ways, but she appreciated the private bathroom the most. The water wasn't always terribly hot, but in May, she could handle a tepid shower. Dried off, she dressed in a striped shirtwaist with a matching belt and elbow sleeves. She tied her sensible oxford shoes and then tackled her thick, wavy hair. The new short haircut was worth every penny she'd paid Betty: it was tidy in five minutes. There was plenty of time for a good breakfast.
Twenty minutes later, handbag and lunchbox clutched together in one hand, she climbed into her old Buick, and headed down Delhi's Main Street for Ray Garrison's apartment. He was waiting for her on the front walkway, as usual. The Dorset was the only apartment building in town with an elevator, but then the builder had spoiled it by not smoothing out the little rise between the front doors and the parking lot. The two steps might have been a hundred feet for a man in a wheelchair.
Libby parked in the nearest spot, climbed out, and opened the trunk, which she kept clear for the wheelchair. "Good morning, Ray," she called, as she came down the steps to his side,
"Good morning, Miss Turner," Ray said, smiling. He was dressed in neat flannel trousers, a blue shirt, a striped tie, and a summer jacket. His briefcase and his lunchbox were on his lap. His wavy dark hair was neatly combed, and his blue eyes were lovely in the morning light.
Libby rolled her eyes. "It's 'Libby,' Ray," she said. "Ready to go?"
"You bet," he said. He waited for her to come around and grab the handles on the back of the wheelchair, then he released the brakes. Libby pushed him off the walkway and onto the patchy grass, then got him up the little rise and onto the hard parking lot in one big shove. The wheelchair rolled easily on the blacktop and Ray took over, maneuvering himself around to the passenger side. She opened the door for him, and he set the brakes again before placing his briefcase and lunchbox on the floor of the car and swinging himself into the seat. Libby watched him with some anxiety, but she had learned that he hated being helped with these operations.
"Are you all clear, Ray?" she asked.
"All clear, Libby."
She closed the passenger door, which was out of his reach when it was fully open, then took the wheelchair around behind the car and worked the cunning latches and joints that let it fold up flat in the trunk. It was not too heavy for her; her father had always said she'd have made a fine quarterback if she'd been a boy.
"What's on tap today, Ray?" she asked, as she climbed back into the driver' seat.
"Final exam prep," he said. "The eighth graders are my big concern. They need to be ready for high school classes next fall, and it's such an awkward age."
"Don't I know it," she said. They talked about the exams and Ray's star pupils as she drove across the bridge over the West Branch of the Delaware River and up to Delhi Academy. It was a sprawling, two-story building, but the principal, a kind woman, had made sure that all Ray's classes were on the ground floor. It was an easy operation to drop him off before the big double doors, with a couple of student monitors available to open the leaves for him, and Libby was soon on her way back to town, and the library.
She arrived at the back door of the library at 9:15, so she would have plenty of time to shelve the last books from the previous day and tidy things in general. As she walked past the front counter, she was surprised to see that she had an early patron. Usually no one else was around until the retirees and mothers with pre-schoolers started arriving around 11:00.
She got the books onto their shelves, and the visitor was still there, on the front steps. From sheer curiosity, she opened the door. "You might as well come in," she said.
He was a lanky boy in his early teens, at a guess. He was a bit grubby and had shadows under his eyes, yet he seemed both calm and eager. He should be in school, she thought, and yet his whole demeanor was so businesslike that she found herself assuming that he must have some good reason to be at the library early on a weekday in May. "I'm trying to find the old Gribley farm," he said.
"I don't recognize that name," said Libby. "Can you tell me a little more?"
"Well, no one's lived on it for maybe a hundred years, but it used to be near here, in the mountains above Delhi," he said. He pronounced the name of the town properly, like a local: "Dell - high."
What an interesting boy.
"If there's anything to be found, we have it here," said Libby. Her mind was running over the sources, as eager as a pup on a walk: it was the exact sort of question she loved. "I'm Miss Turner, by the way."
He smiled. "I'm Sam."
An hour later, one of the library tables was covered with maps, local history books, and document boxes. Libby put the finishing touches on a map she had drawn for Sam to take away. "What do you want to know for?" she asked. "Some school project?"
"Oh, no, Miss Turner, I want to go live there."
"But, Sam," she exclaimed, startled. "It is all forest and trees now. The house is probably only a foundation covered with moss."
He nodded, as calm as ever. "That's just what I want. I am going to trap animals and eat nuts and bulbs and berries, and make myself a house. You see, I am Sam Gribley, and I thought I would like to live on my great-grandfather's farm."
All this was delivered as serenely as though he was explaining about repairing an old wreck of a car. He hadn't asked her not to tell anyone about him; it seemed unlikely that he was a runaway. A boy with this much interest in his family history probably had a good relationship with his parents, she thought. And what a wonderful adventure he planned to have!
"Well, I declare," Libby said and grinned. She watched him gather up the notes he had taken and the map she had made him and get up to go. As he opened the front door, she leaned her elbows on the table and called after him. "Sam, we have some very good books on plants and trees and animals, in case you get stuck."
He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'll remember that," he said and left.
2.
On a brilliant Saturday in late September, Libby was putting the finishing touches on a book display for Columbus Day. She'd balanced the picture books and middle school readers about the explorer with some carefully chosen works about the local Indian tribes, especially the Seneca. The last few patrons were either deep in their work or gathering themselves to leave, and no one seemed to notice as she stepped back, looked her work over, and beamed. Another masterpiece, Libby old thing! And done before closing time, too. She didn't want to stay late this evening.
The front door opened. In stepped a man on the brink of middle age, with thinning, close-cropped brown hair and eyes almost as blue as Ray's. He smiled pleasantly, and Libby bit back her impulse to tell him that they were going to be closing in less than half an hour. "May I help you?" she asked.
"This is kind of an odd question," he said. "But I was wondering if you had any information about child emancipation laws?"
"We might have some material for this state," said Libby, her curiosity engaging.
"New York state law is exactly what I need, I think," he said.
She got him settled with a couple of volumes of the state legal code and then finished up with her other patrons. By 4:55, he was the last one left, still poring over the books. He'd pulled out a little notebook from one of the pockets of his tweed jacket and was making some notes. She approached him; he was now on a page headed Truancy. "I'm sorry," she told him, gently. "We're about to close up."
"All right," he said, closing the volume and tucking away his notebook and ballpoint. "I think I've made a decent start. Miss Turner, is it? That's what the nameplate on the desk says."
"Yes, Elizabeth Turner. If you could come back on Monday, I could probably arrange for some inter-library loans that might provide a little more depth."
He stood up and offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Turner. I'm Professor Vince Bandy, from Bard College. I was in town for other reasons and then I saw the library, and it reminded me that I had some questions. Now that I know my way around the subject a little, I can continue back at Bard. You've been a great help."
It didn't seem to Libby that she'd done much for him, but a happy patron was the main thing. "I'm glad. Please feel free to check back with us any time you happen to find yourself in Delhi, professor."
"Good evening, Miss Turner."
She locked the door behind him and checked the clock: 5:05. She had plenty of time to square things away and pick up Ray for dinner.
3.
The nights were still chilly, but it was definitely spring in the Catskills. Easter had come and gone, but the hotel and resorts that catered to the New York City Jewish community were only beginning to get their spring guests, for this year Passover was a couple of weeks after Easter. On Friday morning, Libby was feeling anxious and short on sleep. Ray had been suffering from bronchitis, and she'd been checking up on him every evening, preparing dinner and sitting with him until he fell asleep. She had a key to his apartment, which had caused some stupid talk around town. Sometimes she thought they should just get married and move to New York City, far from small town idiocy, but the air was better in Delhi. And the streets were safer too.
Story Hour was over, and Libby was finishing her lunch when a tall young man came into the library. He had a soft, sad smile, a Roman nose, and a head of close-cropped black hair that was doing its best to curl. His clothes said city loud and clear, except that he seemed a little too tall and lanky for his sharp suit. "Hi," he said. His voice soft was soft and deep.
"Good afternoon," said Libby, wiping her fingers on a paper napkin. "How may I help you?"
"I'm staying up the road for a few days," he said. His accent was New York City, without a doubt, although she couldn't tell what borough. "These mountains are so beautiful. I have a bunch of free time tomorrow, and I want to take a hike, get away from all my meshuggeneh cousins I'm supposed to be visiting." The adjective sounded like Yiddish, although the only word she knew in that language was bubbe, grandmother, which she'd learned from a friend in college. He shook his head a little, as though he were slightly ashamed of himself. "Can you tell me a good place? A real quiet place?"
"I don't want to get you lost," she said. The last thing she needed this weekend was a Times Square denizen lost in the Catskills on her say-so. "How experienced a hiker are you?"
His smile got a little less sad, as though he knew what she was thinking and was amused by it. "I'm a pretty good hiker for a slave of Tin Pan Alley," he said. "Last summer, I did about 10 miles one day on the Appalachian Trail near Peekskill. And I have a compass and know how to use it."
"All right, then," Libby said. For the first time in months, she thought of Sam, and she remembered the maps they'd perused in trying to find his ancestor's farm. She pulled out the local ordnance survey quadrangle and got paper and pencil. "Here we are," she said, pointing out Delhi. "Where are you staying?"
"Up towards Oneonta, but it doesn't matter. I can drive down here."
Libby blinked. Tomorrow was Saturday, and a religious Jewish person wouldn't drive on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. So maybe her guesses about him were wrong. But then he winked at her. "Don't tell on me, huh? Taking a walk in the woods is a perfectly fine thing for me to do on a Saturday, I promise."
"Why do I feel like I'm contributing to the delinquency of a minor?" she said.
He laughed softly. "I promise I'm twenty-nine, Miss—?"
"Turner," she said. "And you are?"
"Aaron," he said. "Aaron Leiber. I'm from New York City."
"I guessed as much," she said. "All right, Mr. Lieber, let's find you a trail."
4.
June lay gently over Delhi and the Catskills. The children and teens were out of school for the summer, tourists flooded the towns and the fringes of the woods, and Libby turned thirty. She tried to talk to Ray about the future, their future, and he always deflected her. She could guess his thoughts, because everyone from Betty at the beauty parlor to Mrs. Rowland the school principal was trying to fix her up with someone else, someone who didn't need a wheelchair.
It was just as well the business in the library was slow, because her mind was definitely not on business. Her eyes roved unseeingly over the handful of patrons looking at the shiny new novels, the magazines, and back in the stacks. Then her gaze was caught by someone she didn't know, a tall, slender woman over by the newspaper racks.
She had greying brown hair, a face that was going from thin to gaunt, and a wedding ring. Her posture was tense, and the slump of her shoulders under her old cardigan was unhappy. As she turned to put the Poughkeepsie Journal back, Libby got a good look at the other woman's face, and something twinged in her memory.
Of course, now that Libby actually wanted to think about the here and now, she couldn't. Her mind whirred uselessly, only coming up with the unhelpful information that the thin woman looked like someone Libby knew, but not well. Even when the woman came to the desk and requested "something, anything about raising teenagers," Libby couldn't put a name to that face.
Finally, the woman came back with one of the books that Libby had found her. "I need a library card if I want to take this out, don't I?" she said.
"Yes, ma'am, you do. Here's the application."
The thin woman printed her name, then stared at the form bleakly, tapping the pen on the Address line. "I'm not sure how to put this … ."
Libby looked at the form, and the handwritten named leapt out at her: Susan D. Gribley. Libby's memory finally leapt to the task. "You must be Sam's mother," she said.
Mrs. Gribley stared at her, then looked around as though frightened. "You sound like you know my son," she whispered.
"I've spoken to him several times," said Libby, making her voice as gentle and soothing as she could. "He's a very intelligent boy. He comes to the library whenever he needs more information about what he's doing."
Sam's mother smiled at that, a grey, weary smile. "He gets that from me," she whispered. "I've often told him that a library is the best place to start getting anything done. That's what I'm doing here. But I don't want people to know who I am. The things that the papers are saying about me … you know."
Libby did. The news of Delhi's "wild boy" had been the talk of the town. "So that's why you wanted those books? Mrs. Gribley, from what I know of Sam, I don't think you need them."
Mrs. Gribley's eyes filled with tears. "You don't think that I'm an—an unfit mother?"
"I think you're a wonderful mother," said Libby, firmly. "And I'm glad to help you in any way I can."
5.
A couple of weeks later, the library door opened to admit a scrawny girl in her early teens. She wore rolled-up jeans that reveal scratched shins, a grubby T shirt, old sneakers, and a serious expression. Her short, thick, unruly blond hair was held back from her face by a bandana tied into a hairband. "Are you Miss Turner, the librarian?" she asked, loudly.
Libby looked around automatically, but it's hard to claim that the noise is bothering the other patrons when the only patrons are a young mother looking through the cookbooks and her toddler, who is industriously pounding a wooden dog on the worn floor matting. "Yes, I'm Miss Turner," said Libby. 'How may I help you?"
"My brother says you know just about everything, so I got my dad to bring me to town," said the girl. "I'm Alice."
"You're Sam's sister, then?" asked Libby. "I'm pleased to meet you." She got up from her desk, waving Alice to come closer. "Let's talk a little more quietly. It's a good habit in a library because people are often doing quiet work here."
Alice looked at the toddler skeptically and said, "Huh. Anyway, I need to know something. My brother is really good at finding food up on the mountain, but there's got to be better ways to fix it. Everything takes forever, and he just doesn't care!" The last remark was delivered in a strained croak, but Libby could see that Alice was trying to be good.
"Well, things do take longer when you don't have machines. And machines need power."
"But in the olden days, like Paul Revere days, people didn't make flour by pounding stuff with rocks. Even I know that!" protested Alice.
"That's true. Let's start at the beginning. What are you pounding with rocks? I know there isn't any wheat up there." Mr. Gribley had come by to consult the library about his farming woes only last week, and in any case, he wouldn't have had a wheat crop s soon.
"Acorns and things," said Alice. "I mean, they don't taste half bad, but there's got to be some better way of breaking them up than using rocks."
"You may be right. Let's see what the library can tell us," said Libby.
It turned out that Alice actually had a basic knowledge of how to use a card catalog, so Libby simply gave her some keywords to search. Soon they found a book that showed how early European settlers used a water-powered device called a plumping mill to pound acorns to flour. With Libby's help, Alice produced a diagram of the mill, with all the parts labelled.
"This is going to be just great!" said Alice. "Thanks a lot, Miss Turner! You've saved my life!" She bounced to her feet, clearly ready to run right back up the mountain and start engineering her own plumping mill.
Libby smiled. "You're very welcome, Alice."
She watched the child race out of the library, shouting "Dad, Dad!" at the top of her lungs as soon as the door closed behind her.
The library was empty now and as quiet as any librarian could wish. Libby walked slowly back to her seat. Open on the desk was medical journal, with an article about the latest treatments for paraplegia.
She didn't imagine the news would get any better on the re-read.
And One More
A year later, Ray sat next to Libby on the sofa in his apartment and listened as she explained what had happened with Sam's peregrine, Frightful. "That Alice is quite a kid," he said. "But it's a sad story, Libby."
Libby sighed. "It's sad in one way. But something sad was bound to happen, Ray. Sam is still a kid himself; no one is going to let him keep a falcon yet. But he's got a path to follow, now."
Ray leaned his chin on one hand and stared out the window at the red sunset spreading across the sky. "He's making the best of it. Sometimes that's all you can do."
Libby slipped her arm around his waist. "Ray?"
He tilted his head so that it rested against hers. "Libby, you keep asking me. I mean, you never say the actual words, but you do ask. And I guess I'm ready to make the best of it. I mean, I'm not going to get any better, and you keep asking anyway."
"Ray, don't hint. I can't stand it."
"Well, then, I'll lay it on the line. Elizabeth Anne Turner, will you marry me?"
This was not what Libby had dreamed of hearing, and yet it was. "Ray, can you maybe pretend that you really want me to?"
"I do really want you to. I also really want to be a walking, strong, independent husband to you. But I can't do that. And you want to marry me anyway. So … let's make the best of it. Because I do love you, Libby."
She turned to put both arms around him and leaned her head on his shoulder. "I love you, Ray. Of course I'll marry you."
They were quiet together then, as the light faded from wild orange to soft rose and finally dusky blue. Ray finally spoke again, in the dark. "I know you've been reading everything you can get your hands on. That's how I know there's no treatment to get me walking again, not really. Because you would have said something. But do you think that maybe, someday, some other guy who breaks his back will learn to walk again?"
Words failed Libby for the moment. But then, Ray wasn't asking for a miracle for himself. He was looking to the future. Maybe he was right to think of Sam, who had already put away a child's dream of having his Frightful back again and had chosen a new lodestar for his life, even if he couldn't be certain where it would take him.
Maybe you didn't always need to know the answer.
"Ray, remember back in January, when they launched a spacecraft down at Cape Canaveral?" she said. "There are new discoveries every day. I don't have an answer for you, but we can hope."
She felt his mouth move against her hair. "You say you don't have an answer, Miss Turner, but that's enough of an answer for me." And then he kissed her.