She smiles and puts them by the door as she finishes packing the rest of his young adult collection into boxes. “Is this a sell or a keep box, by the way?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I answer. She nods. She continues putting books into boxes until she is too exasperated. “Jesus Christ, how many young adult books can one person read?” she says.
I laugh. “He read them a lot. I mean, like one a week sometimes. And he refused to get them from the library. Which was annoying because I work at the library, but he insisted upon going to the bookstore and buying them. I’d bring them home and he’d just let them sit and collect dust until I returned them.”
She laughs. “That’s my fault,” she says. “When he was a kid, my one luxury was buying books. I never wanted to go to the library.”
“What?” Sacrilege!
She laughs again, embarrassed. “You’re gonna be mad.”
“I am?”
“I hate the way they smell, library books.”
“You are killing me, Susan. Killing me.” I grab my chest and feign a heart attack. The way library books smell is the best smell in the world, other than the smell of the pillow I have trapped in a plastic bag.
“I know! I know! When Ben was a kid, he’d want to go to the library because they had board games and those chairs with the . . . what are they called? The chairs where they are like this big, soft ball . . . Oh, damn it, what is the word?”
“Beanbag chairs?”
“Yes! He used to love sitting in beanbag chairs, and I would make him go to the bookstore with me instead so I could buy books that didn’t smell musty. Totally my fault. I’m sorry.”
“You are forgiven,” I say, although I’m still hung up on the fact that she doesn’t like the smell of library books.
MAY
I got home and Ben was still in bed. He’d been staring at the ceiling for the past hour and a half. It took me forever to get to the rental place in that huge truck, and then I picked up his car that he left there and headed home, only to remember he wanted dinner. I picked up McDonald’s and made my way home.
“You okay?” I called out to him as I got into the apartment.
“Yeah, but I still can’t move that well,” he said.
“Well, you’ll be happy to know I almost crashed about four times in the damn truck going up Laurel Canyon. Why do they let normal people drive those things?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say you’re normal,” he said. “But I understand your point.”
I put the bag of McDonald’s on the bed and helped him to get to a sitting position.
“I really think I should call the doctor,” I said.
“I will be fine,” he told me and started to eat. I followed suit, and when I was done, my fingers covered in salt, my mouth coated in grease, I took a big sip of my large soda. I lay back, finally resting after the long day. Ben turned on the television and said he wanted to watch something. Then it all got fuzzy and I fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning to an empty bed.
“Ben?” I called out. He answered from the living room. I walked out there and found that a whole section of boxes had been unloaded.
“How are you feeling? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “As long as I stay upright and don’t twist, I feel fine.”
“I really think you should see a doctor. That doesn’t sound good.”
“Quit nagging me, wife,” he said and smiled. “Can I remove some of your dumb books? I want a place to put all of these,” he said. He gestured awkwardly to stacks and stacks of paperback books.
“Maybe we should just buy a new bookshelf,” I said.
“Or maybe you should donate some of these lame classics to the library. Do we really need two copies of Anna Karenina?”
“Hey! It’s two different translations!” I said. “You can’t just come in here and throw my stuff out because you need room, you jerk!”