I headed downstairs to Henry’s study, which I’d saved for last. Walls of books rose from the floor to the old tin ceiling, and there was a ladder on wheels for climbing up to the topmost shelves. I inhaled the musty, leathery, old-papery scent and a shiver passed over me. If I had any idea of heaven, it was this: shelves and shelves of books, ten times as many as were upstairs, each with stories or pictures more exciting and beautiful than the next, and two overstuffed chairs big enough for me to sleep in.
In every place Mama and I had landed, I’d made the town library my true home. Summers and weekends were the best times, because I could spend the whole day there in heated or air-conditioned quiet. During the school year, I took care not to show up before three in the afternoon, so nobody would know I played hooky. But after three, I could stay till closing time, usually eight or nine o’clock. No matter how sick Mama got or what low-life she took up with, no matter what worried my mind, books made me feel better.
In Henry’s library, I counted ten shelves from floor to ceiling on each long wall, one bookcase on each side of the three tall windows on the sunrise side, and two more on either side of the double doors to the hall. I tested his big leather chair, leaning way back, then twirling and twirling until I was dizzy. Dust motes danced on the sunrays that shone slantwise across the room. I whirled in the warm light and breathed the book-scented air.
The shelves held titles I knew: Treasure Island, Robin Hood, Rascal, The Animal Family. I touched the familiar spines but lingered a longer time on books I’d never seen before, taking out one with pictures about a Japanese boy who drew cats. Inside the front cover it said: Henry Royster, age 8. I slipped the small book into my waistband and felt a sudden sinking in my stomach as Ray’s creepy, naysaying voice started up in my head. “Who you kidding, little girl? You ain’t nothing. You ain’t never going to be nobody. Gimme a dollar,” he’d sneer every time he caught me reading or writing in my notebook. Then he’d laugh and laugh. Suddenly I felt like a street kid looking in a candy-store window, watching other kids with mamas and daddies buying them whatever they liked. “Give it up, darling,” Ray snickered between my ears. “Ain’t none of this ever gonna be yours.”
I shook off the feeling and looked at the things on Henry’s desk: a laptop computer, the screen dark; two open magazines about doctoring; piles and more piles of papers and files; a heap of opened and unopened mail; more sketchpads with doodles all over them, drawing pencils, and pencil shavings. On one corner and about to avalanche was a foot-tall stack of magazines with names like Sculpture, Artforum, and ARTnews.
On top of the pile was the latest issue of Art International magazine with a cover picture of a younger, scowling Henry and the headline WHERE’S ROYSTER? The Disappearing American Master. I was reaching for it when I spied a large checkbook lying open in the middle of the desk. The last entry jolted me like an electric shock: Rose Hill Hospital, $5,450. Rose Hill was the hospital where they rushed Mama in the ambulance, the place where she died.
“I knocked, but nobody answered,” said a voice from the doorway.
I jumped, and the magazines and my empty coffee mug fell to the floor, the mug shattering. A silver-haired man with milk-chocolate skin as wrinkly as a walnut shell peered around the open door. He had a wide, friendly face and wore overalls with all manner of tools spilling out of the pockets.
“I’m Fred, Fred Montgomery. You must be Zoë.”
“You scared the spit out of me,” I said.
“Teach you to go nosing.” He shot me a sly look and nodded at the papers on Henry’s desk.
“Just investigating my new circumstances. You gonna tell?”
Fred looked insulted. “Heck no. Relief to know somebody around here’s nosier than I am.”
I waited, not sure what to say. He seemed nice enough, but so had every one of Mama’s friends at first, even Ray.
“My wife, Bessie, and I live a mile or so on,” he said. “Walking distance for those with young legs.”
“Henry said you help him.”
“That’s right.”
“Like a handyman?”
“Handyman. Cook. Bottle-washer. Assistant lifter, hauler, welder, and grinder. Henry calls me his right hand, but that’s too high-sounding for me. Had your breakfast?”
I nodded.
“Want more of what was in that cup?” he asked, glancing at the pieces on the floor.
“I guess.”
“Juice? Milk?”
“Coffee.”
He smiled, shook his head. “Well, you pick up the pieces while I fire up a fresh pot.”
By the time I was done, Fred had the coffee brewing and two mugs waiting on the counter. “I’m real sorry about your mama,” he said as I came in the kitchen. “Your daddy, too. Sorry for the whole mess.”
“Thanks,” I told him, looking away, not wanting to talk about it.
He leaned back on the counter and turned to look out the window. “I hear we have a trespasser.”
“Trespasser?”
“A fifty-dollar trespasser.”
“The cat!” I pulled a chair over to the sink, climbed up, and squinted out the window at the front yard, but Fred’s candy-apple-red pickup truck blocked my view. I whistled.
“That’s my office,” he said proudly. “Like it?”
“I can drive,” I said, cutting my eyes his way.
“So I hear.” He poured the coffee and handed me a cup, then watched as I took it to the table and added my eight sugars and some milk. “You were saying? About the cat.”
“I haven’t actually seen him, so Henry doesn’t
