Okay. Got it. I mentally added to my to-do list: Find Clay a secret cubby where he can keep his Garfields.
I glanced up at the wall clock.
Then Tina Buckley said this: “You may have noticed that Clay is … not an athletic child.”
I waited to see where she was heading.
“My husband was a Division One athlete, so you can imagine how disappointed he is about that.”
No, actually. I couldn’t imagine anyone on earth being disappointed in Clay.
“If Clay can’t be an athlete,” Tina went on, “then his academics will have to be extra strong.”
“Aren’t they already?” I asked.
“Kent doesn’t want to take any chances.”
I wanted to stop her right there and beg her not to crush her child’s love of learning—but I could feel she was building to a question, so I waited.
“So I was wondering,” Tina went on, the muscles in her face tight, like she was deeply uncomfortable, “if I might be able to volunteer in the library. So I can be near him. And check in on him. And help him make better choices.”
The easy answer to that was not just no, but hell, no.
The last thing a kid with parents like that needed was his mom hovering over him in here, judging him and shaming him about totally normal kid stuff. This library was supposed to be a safe place where kids could follow their own reading compasses—without grown-ups watching, micromanaging, and judging them.
Seriously. Show me a kid who hates to read, and I’ll show you a kid who got shamed about it, one way or another.
I was here to protect kids from that kind of crazy. But, I just couldn’t bring myself to say no to her in that moment. She must have really wanted it bad to make the ask in the first place. I was the last person on earth she’d want to turn to.
Of course, she was the last person on earth I’d want in my library.
She couldn’t stand me, that much was always clear. And any hope I’d had that we would’ve closed ranks around Babette after Max died and find ways to stitch back together that empty hole he’d left in each of our lives was long gone. But it was also clear that for some reason—maybe one I didn’t even understand yet—Tina really, really wanted me to say yes.
So I said yes. Of course.
For Max and Babette—and Clay, if not for Tina herself.
“Of course you can,” I said, offering her a smile that was more like a twitch. “You can sign up for shifts on the website.”
There was a good chance that I was going to let her into the library and she’d find some way to burn the place down. Metaphorically. Or maybe even literally. I wouldn’t put it entirely past her.
But there was also a chance that our sunny little library would do for her what it always did for me: make her feel better. Be that little source of joy she so clearly needed. And that might have some kind of butterfly effect on the people around her. And for their sakes—especially since I was one of them—I just felt like I had to take it.
Even though, remember: this woman had kicked me out of Max’s funeral.
She looked down, like she’d suddenly remembered it, too.
“Thank you,” she said.
I had no idea how this would play out. But here’s what I knew for sure:
I wouldn’t be giving Clay a secret cabinet of Garfields at school, after all.
I’d be giving him a super-secret cabinet of Garfields.
* * *
Then, in late April, on the Friday of the near-the-end-of-year faculty party, Duncan closed the cafeteria for the day and sponsored a lunch picnic in the courtyard for the kids.
Mrs. Kline had taped big signs on the cafeteria doors that said, CLOSED FOR DECORATING.
It seemed like a lot of decorating.
But when I showed up at the party that night, I figured out why.
Duncan had brought back the butterfly mural.
Before I noticed the room strung with bulb lights and lanterns, and the round tables covered in festive cloths and candles, the first thing I saw—the only thing I saw, for a while there—was the butterflies. They were even more beautiful than I remembered.
I stared up at them for a while before I looked around for Duncan.
He was across the room, chatting with Mrs. Kline, but as soon as I spotted him, he seemed to feel my eyes on him. He looked over and watched me