05/29/2026
Early Turning
"How's business?" he asks.
(I don't say, A man died.) "Big collection," I tell him.
"Oh? What kind?"
(I don't say, The whole curiosity of a man.)
"Looks like an Anglophile," I say, "a history buff."
Hank starts: "Anything about—"
"Yes," I say, "But mostly Gothic through Baroque."
"Shame," he says, "if there's anything Byzantine or earlier—"
"I've got your email." (I don't say, Someday I will empty your shelves, and I'll find the receipts and your bookmarks, and please stop using sugar packets.)
He browses on.
Hank, it's been twenty years. All this time, I've seen what you wanted to know, what you sold, what you brought up in conversation. And I know what your wife thinks about your books.
She will call me, and I will bring boxes. Every hour or so, she will ask "How's it going?" and I won't say, I've unpicked the '80s, when I guess you lived up in Madison. "May I get you some water?" she'll ask, and, too embarrassed to see the bathroom, I will say "No, thanks," and think about why you hid Mickey Spillane paperbacks behind a fancy set.
Linda will nod. She won't tell me she's sorry for arguing against putting that shelf in the living room, for not knowing why "PaideIa" bristles with notes while Janson and Mâle are bare, for not wanting to know what I'm boxing.
The day will wane, the car will fill, and I'll write her a check, and we won't say how small the amount seems for how much joy you found in your browsing.
"Well," Hank says, "nothing new today."
"You take care," I tell him. The door lets in a long ray of late light, and I lock it behind him, because it's 6:12.
Hank, the thing is, this man in these books was younger than you are. I'm turning his pages, deciding which spines are creased past repair, and tonight, when I leave, I'll turn back to the row of plain boxes, and he will no longer be in them.
Jean won't think to tell me when the service is.
I'll walk home, and that will be my memorial: the moon orange though it is just now summer, one tree's trunk mottled, the leaves too soon yellow, and in my hand one volume by which I will remember him.
My house is crammed with books.
