The Library Book

My grandmother grew up in a working-class Irish Catholic neighborhood in New York City. Generations before TV and internet, she spent her free time reading, often smuggling books under her blankets to read by the street lights that streamed through her window. One night, when she was discovered still awake after bedtime, her mother flung the book she was reading into the alley outside their apartment. My young grandmother watched in horror as her book disappear into the darkness, along with the money she would owe to the library for its replacement if if couldn’t be recovered.

The next day, my grandmother seized her first opportunity to scurry into the alley and search for her lost library book. While she sorted through trash and alley debris, she heard an elderly friend of her mother’s calling to her from her open window, several stories above. The woman engaged her in casual conversation about how her mother was doing and why in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph she was digging around in the trash like a dog. My young grandmother answered politely, but distractedly, never looking up to meet the woman’s gaze.

When she finally discovered the lost library book, she was so relieved and elated, she barely paused to say goodbye before sprinting away with her treasure. It wasn’t until she was halfway up the second flight of stairs on the way back to her family’s apartment, happily wiping the dirt from the cover of her book, that she paused...and remembered the last time she’d seen her mother’s elderly friend… in silent repose in a casket of finely polished wood…

She held tight to her book and continued up the stairs like something shot out of a cannon, too afraid to turn back and discover what had called to her from that empty window where the elderly woman no longer lived.