never hear about. No old stories about her childhood. No verbalized regrets. It’s as if Trish has died and there is no need to keep repeating the fact. I’ll also say this, though: There were times—not every visit, but often enough—when Marianne would lose her train of thought midstory and her stare would grow vacant, whatever she’d been about to say gone. I thought of Trish then, and assumed she was part of whatever it was Marianne hadn’t said.
It made me sad because I remember Trish well as such a bookish and appealing girl. In my early days, when I worked in the children’s room of the library, Marianne brought her often and let her check out ten books, the maximum number allowed per card. They were always returned before their due date, and I could tell by the way Trish fingered their spines that she’d read every one. She was a little odd, like her brother. When she was eight she joined a project I organized making shoe box dioramas of famous places in literature. I left the choice up to the children, and we received some wonderful ones: Pooh’s Corner; Wilbur’s barnyard pen; the Borrowers’ home, with thread-spool tables and matchbox beds. Then Trish showed up with the most elaborate diorama of all, what looked like mounded Play-Doh hills dotted with flowers and a small dollhouse hospital bed in the corner. “It’s Yr,” Marianne whispered after I’d studied it for a while without a guess. “From I Never Promised You a Rose Garden .”
I looked at her, confused. Trish had read a book about the imaginary world of a schizophrenic seventeen-year-old living in a mental institution? I assumed Marianne was joking. She smiled sheepishly. “Sometimes they let her check out from the adult room. I don’t know if it’s a bad idea. I don’t know how much she understands.”
Trish smiled as she slid her diorama onto the table beside Laura Ingalls Wilder’s log cabin home. She seemed delighted with her project, grinning fiercely as she straightened the title card out. I looked back at Marianne, who studied her daughter. I could almost read her hopeful thought— Maybe it’s fine.
I didn’t stay in the children’s room for long after that. Though I never made the request and nothing was ever directly said (to me, anyway), after my third miscarriage it was understood that I’d be better placed elsewhere. After that, I saw Trish at the library only occasionally, and I was usually shy, as I was with all the children, never quite sure if they would remember me. Trish surprised me, though, starting a conversation herself. Once she asked if my hand got tired stamping books. Another time, what the best part of being a librarian was. The question surprised me. Who’d ever heard of a child asking an adult a question about her life? I asked her, “Do you want to be a librarian?”
She beamed. “Not at all,” she whispered. “I want to be a writer.”
I thought about Trish in prison sometimes, when my mind wandered to children I’d known and liked in the past, but I asked Marianne about her only once, enough to know I shouldn’t again. “She’s gone from our lives,” Marianne said. “Cut herself off from us.” It was clear enough that the choice was Trish’s and not her parents’.
Now I look at Trish’s bookshelves filled with ceramic animals and, behind them, her childhood books—some predictable, many not. I recognize a few fantasy titles, some sci-fi, the vampire books that were just coming out when I left.
At one end of the shelf I see Middlemarch by George Eliot. My favorite book in college, and more than five hundred pages long. Was it possible Trish had read this as a teenager? Was she that precocious? I pull it out and then my breath catches at the inscription I find on the first page:
To Trish—
I loved this when I was your age.
Friends Always (I hope),
Geoffrey Steadman
CHAPTER 6
I can still remember the first time I saw Geoffrey at my library: He came in and stood by our
It made me sad because I remember Trish well as such a bookish and appealing girl. In my early days, when I worked in the children’s room of the library, Marianne brought her often and let her check out ten books, the maximum number allowed per card. They were always returned before their due date, and I could tell by the way Trish fingered their spines that she’d read every one. She was a little odd, like her brother. When she was eight she joined a project I organized making shoe box dioramas of famous places in literature. I left the choice up to the children, and we received some wonderful ones: Pooh’s Corner; Wilbur’s barnyard pen; the Borrowers’ home, with thread-spool tables and matchbox beds. Then Trish showed up with the most elaborate diorama of all, what looked like mounded Play-Doh hills dotted with flowers and a small dollhouse hospital bed in the corner. “It’s Yr,” Marianne whispered after I’d studied it for a while without a guess. “From I Never Promised You a Rose Garden .”
I looked at her, confused. Trish had read a book about the imaginary world of a schizophrenic seventeen-year-old living in a mental institution? I assumed Marianne was joking. She smiled sheepishly. “Sometimes they let her check out from the adult room. I don’t know if it’s a bad idea. I don’t know how much she understands.”
Trish smiled as she slid her diorama onto the table beside Laura Ingalls Wilder’s log cabin home. She seemed delighted with her project, grinning fiercely as she straightened the title card out. I looked back at Marianne, who studied her daughter. I could almost read her hopeful thought— Maybe it’s fine.
I didn’t stay in the children’s room for long after that. Though I never made the request and nothing was ever directly said (to me, anyway), after my third miscarriage it was understood that I’d be better placed elsewhere. After that, I saw Trish at the library only occasionally, and I was usually shy, as I was with all the children, never quite sure if they would remember me. Trish surprised me, though, starting a conversation herself. Once she asked if my hand got tired stamping books. Another time, what the best part of being a librarian was. The question surprised me. Who’d ever heard of a child asking an adult a question about her life? I asked her, “Do you want to be a librarian?”
She beamed. “Not at all,” she whispered. “I want to be a writer.”
I thought about Trish in prison sometimes, when my mind wandered to children I’d known and liked in the past, but I asked Marianne about her only once, enough to know I shouldn’t again. “She’s gone from our lives,” Marianne said. “Cut herself off from us.” It was clear enough that the choice was Trish’s and not her parents’.
Now I look at Trish’s bookshelves filled with ceramic animals and, behind them, her childhood books—some predictable, many not. I recognize a few fantasy titles, some sci-fi, the vampire books that were just coming out when I left.
At one end of the shelf I see Middlemarch by George Eliot. My favorite book in college, and more than five hundred pages long. Was it possible Trish had read this as a teenager? Was she that precocious? I pull it out and then my breath catches at the inscription I find on the first page:
To Trish—
I loved this when I was your age.
Friends Always (I hope),
Geoffrey Steadman
CHAPTER 6
I can still remember the first time I saw Geoffrey at my library: He came in and stood by our
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