still the same person who might get uninvited to a sleepover?
It was enough to shift my whole conception of myself.
But that wasn’t something I talked about—ever, if I could help it. It was just something I carried around like a little ice cube of fear in my chest.
And so Alice attacked the symptoms over the cause. “Maybe you should start dating someone.”
“Dating someone?” I asked.
“You know. Preventatively.”
“Who?” I demanded. “Raymond the security guard?”
“What about that guy in IT with the earlobe rings?”
“Earlobe rings are a deal-breaker for me.”
“What about that guy Bruce who does tutoring?”
“He’s married to the girl who runs the coffee shop on Post Office Street.”
“Didn’t the new fifth-grade science teacher just get divorced?”
“Oh, my God, Alice!” I shrieked. “He’s, like, forty!”
Alice didn’t endorse the hysterics. “You’ll be forty someday.”
“In twelve years.”
“The point is,” Alice went on, “if you could just fall in love with somebody—anybody—real quick, then your heart would be too happy to care about any of this.”
“I’m no expert on love,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s how it works.”
It was preposterous. I hadn’t dated anyone since the seizures came back. Partly, yes, because the pickings on the island were slim. But also, I liked stability. More than that, I needed stability. Especially now. Stasis. Routine. Even if it were possible to “fall in love with somebody real quick,” this particular moment of emotional chaos would be the worst possible time to choose. Plus—and I had never admitted this to anyone, maybe not even to myself—I’d already given up.
Because there was a persistent, unanswered question at the center of my life. One that had come back into my head when the seizures returned. One I didn’t even fully realize I kept asking. One I wasn’t sure I even wanted to answer.
Who could love me now?
I’d never even thought it in words, much less said it out loud.
And I wasn’t going to start today.
four
I did not have a seizure that night—or the next night, or the next.
Sometimes they threaten but never come.
But they sure can sharpen your focus. In the wake of it, I just tried to settle, and adjust, and not have a seizure.
So much easier said than done. Especially when you start stressing about the fact that you aren’t managing to de-stress.
The truth was, I had more to do than it was possible to get done. I hadn’t worked in the library all summer. Not since Max died, for sure—but even before that, when I’d been so happily planning his party, thinking I’d get to my cataloguing later. Then, after the funeral, I’d fussed over Babette: organizing the service, doing her laundry, baking her blueberry muffins that she never ate, watering her garden, and stacking the unread condolence cards in alphabetical order.
Summer was my time to get organized: to catch up and to plan ahead. But this summer, I hadn’t done either. And now summer was almost over.
So: No more messing around. It was time to handle it all—the shock, the grief, the dread, the anticipation, the anxiety—the old-fashioned way: like a workaholic.
Convenient. Because I really did have a ton of work.
It takes long hours and late nights to gear up for the start of a school year, even in a normal year—cataloging all our new books, stamping them (I’m a title-page and edge-of-the-pages stamper), bar-coding them, wrapping the jackets in plastic covers, and getting them all on the shelves. Plus: decorating, organizing, lesson planning, Marie Kondo-ing my cabinets, checking in on teachers’ upcoming lesson plans, and stocking books to tie in with study units and book reports. It’s a lot of planning, but it’s also a lot of physical work, and it can only go so fast.
I’m always astonished at the number of people who think I just “hang out” in the library all day. Not to mention the number who think all I do is read. Plus, of course, the kids—who literally think I live there.
Like, they think it’s my actual home.
I do read—constantly—but not during the workday. During the workday, I’m helping kids find the books they need and then teaching them self-checkout. I’m teaching classes on how to find books, and how to be good library citizens, and why stories are important. I’m reading books to every grade level, even the big kids. I’m training volunteers to help restock the shelves, and poring over catalogs to find new books for the library, and weeding old books from the stacks. Plus: lunch duty, faculty meetings, author visits, planning classes, and