Perfect Reader by Maggie Pouncey

remembering where she was. The librarian flashed her a look she didn’t notice.
    Madeleine was approaching and Flora stood and they held out their arms in unison and then the excruciation of each going for a different cheek and the resulting mid-embrace adjustment.
    Flora pulled back. “So nice to see you, Madeleine.”
    “Flora Dempsey,” Madeleine said again, the freckles on her nose scrunching, her green eyes darting back and forth as they’d always done when she was absorbed in thought. The constancy of facial expressions—it was reassuring.
    “How are you? How are all of you?” Flora asked.
    “We’re all all right. I’ve been thinking of you, Flora. Since I heard about your dad. I’ve been trying to find a way to get in touch, but I could only find your mother’s address—I actually sent her a note, hoping she’d pass it on. I didn’t know you were back in town.”
    “I didn’t know I’d be here, either. I haven’t been back long. That was sweet of you—to write.”
    “What a blow this must be. I know your relationship with him wasn’t always easy, but a man like your father—even when he’s not your father—takes up a lot of space, doesn’t he? His is a large absence, I’d imagine.”
    Flora clutched her fingers with her other fingers and looked around, as if sizing up the extent of his absence. How to respond, and what to? This was why she was on the lam from the aggressive condolers. Anything apart from the comforting clichés seemed to Flora almost horrible. “Yes,” she made herself say. “What’s Georgia up to these days?”
    “In Mongolia interviewing nomads. It sounds like a punch line every time I say it, but you know Georgia. She’s an anthropologist, finishing her Ph.D. She lives in a yurt. She could do without all the mutton stew, and the various digestive challenges, but other than that, she’s completely at home. I thought Ray and I were pretty intrepid, pretty low-maintenance, but she’s taken it to a new level.” Madeleine spoke with a distant admiration, as if describing a public figure, and not her own child. “You know Georgia,” she said again. “How she throws herself into things.”
    “Yes,” Flora said, apparently the highlight of her conversational repertoire. And she felt she knew Georgia. But of course she didn’t anymore. “I can picture her doing that,” she added. “Not that I have an accurate picture—or any real picture—of what Mongolia looks like.”
    “Are you picturing sheep? Because if so, I think you’re on the right track.”
    “Okay,” Flora said. “I think I see it.”
    They both smiled, and their smiles lingered till it seemed they’d run out of things to say.
    “I was just using the computer,” Flora said, though Madeleine had seen her sitting there not five minutes before.
    “I’m teaching a Freud seminar. It’s the first time I’ve taught it, and of course every conceivable thing has gone wrong with the readings.” Madeleine glanced back at the librarian. Then she leaned in conspiratorially. “That woman is torturing me,” she whispered. “Ray says I killed her cat in a former life.”
    Flora wished they could sit. The thought of what she’d done to Madeleine in a former life was stifling in its presence. “How is Ray?” she asked.
    “Good, good. He’d love to see you, Flora. It really is amazing to see you after all these years. You look good. I’m sure you’re not—how could you be? But you look it.”
    “Well.” Flora, shy-struck and miserable, gestured again to the computer. “It’s really good to see you, too.”
    “Maybe you’d come over sometime for dinner? Ray would love it. We both would. I want to hear all about your life.”
    “Oh, no, really? I’d love to come, but only if you promise we won’t have to talk about that.”
    Madeleine pinched Flora’s shoulder. “Hang in there, kiddo.”
    “Okay,” Flora said, tears she hoped were invisible pushing their way up.
    “I’ll be in