The treasurer passed out her latest report. “Under the circumstances, we can’t come close to meeting our operating budget for the next year. We have until year’s end to close our doors and transfer all assets to the main library branch in the county.”
Maureen saw her own despair reflected in their faces. “What’s going to happen to this place?”
“Most of the collection and assets will be distributed among other library branches. The property is likely to be sold to a developer. Thanks to a building preservation ordinance, the space will be used rather than torn down.”
“Used for what?” Maureen asked. She pictured the venerable old place, converted to a craft shop or B & B. Not that she had anything against craft shops or B & Bs, but this was a library.
“You’re giving up, then,” she said. “Just like that.”
“Not just like that,” Mr. Shannon said, his voice thin with weariness. “We’ve left no stone unturned. You know we’ve been working nonstop.”
“I do know, I’m sorry. But…it’s the library,” she said in her broken whisper. She gestured around the room, its walls hung with old photographs depicting the library’s history. The arched doorway framed a view of the main room. In the half light slanting through the windows, the neat stacks and polished oak tables gleamed.
“And that’s the problem,” Mr. Shannon said, donning his overcoat and flat driving cap. “It doesn’t matter to enough people. Most people I’ve talked to don’t see letting one library go as a total disaster. It just means a few more people will have to drive an extra twenty miles to get books, or wait for the Bookmobile to show up. Hardly the greatest of catastrophes in times like these.”
Maureen felt a chill, knowing he was right. “Yes, this is just one library, but our situation is being replicated everywhere. They just barely managed to save the library in Salinas—John Steinbeck’s hometown. Philadelphia lost eleven branches last year. An entire county in Oregon shut down their system. It’s all part of a slow erosion. When will it stop?”
“The city council had to fund public safety,” Mr. Shannon pointed out. “Do they monitor misdemeanor sex offenders or pay the library’s light bill? There’s really no choice.”
“I understand,” she said. “I’m…trying to, anyway.”
“Thanks for meeting with us,” he said. “I wanted to tell you in person as soon as we heard the bad news.”
She stood up, walked with him to the door. “I appreciate it.” Everyone else followed, silent and somber. Maureen felt shell-shocked, like an accident victim. She’d always pictured herself spending her entire career here, serving the institution she loved. Now, she realized, in a few weeks she’d be out of a job.
Mrs. Goodnow, the board secretary, said, “We’re planning a potluck for the closing ceremony at the end of the year.”
Maureen tried not to sway on her feet. “Yes, all right,” she managed to say. She shut the double doors to the meeting room behind her.
Mr. Shannon paused at the exit, draping a muffler around his shoulders. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll be a few minutes more. I need to check my e-mail and rearrange a few things on my schedule.”
“Take care, Ms. Davenport.”
“You, too, Mr. Shannon.”
He hesitated a moment longer. “You don’t look well.”
She felt a nauseating wave of grief. “This library is part of the fabric of the town. We can’t just close.” She thought about the children who came for story hour. The seniors who came for book clubs and computer classes. The adult literacy program. Then she pictured its doors being closed and locked forever. And something inside her curled up and died.
“Can I get you something before I go?” Mr. Shannon offered. “A glass of water or—”
“A miracle,” she said, forcing a smile. “A miracle would be good right about now.”
In the empty quiet of the library, Maureen didn’t check her mail. She didn’t even go near her desk. Instead, she went to the stacks, walking slowly between the tall oaken shelves, running her hands across the spines of the books. She’d always considered the library a sacred place, a place of ideas and art, a safe place to let dreams take flight.
A library—this library in particular—had always filled her with reverence. It was a cathedral for the most diverse elements of mankind, where all of humanity could find its place. She’d practically grown up here in this historic Greek revival building, with its marble halls and leaded windows, the polished mahogany railings and casements. In the center of the building was a sky-lit atrium, featuring a winding staircase leading to the children’s room. When she was very small, climbing the staircase had felt like a special rite of passage, like ascending to heaven.
It was fitting that Maureen would one day become a steward of the institution. Oh, there had been a couple of years in college when she’d been bitten by the theater arts bug, dreaming instead of a future on stage, as if such a thing could actually happen to a girl like her.
A disastrous adventure abroad had cured her of that notion. Even now, years later, the memory of her semester in Paris made her shudder. The life lesson had been slammed home with the force of a tidal wave. She’d learned quickly that she was made for a quieter, more mindful life. Working at the library offered her exactly that. She could be here doing work that mattered, that made her feel vital and alive…and safe.
Yet soon, this place would cease to exist. The county system might assign her to the bookmobile, she thought with a shudder. The one time she’d served in the bookmobile, as an intern, she’d gotten carsick. She could probably find a position in another town, or at the college in New Paltz, but working in this particular place was so much more than a job to her. And it was about to be taken away.
She couldn’t imagine her life without this library. What would she do every day? Where would she go? Who would she be? She refused to imagine it. But that was just denial, wasn’t it? It was time to face the cold, hard facts. By year’s end, the library would be closed. She had to quit hoping for a miracle.
As she put on her things and prepared to leave, her gaze slipped once again over the dimly lit stacks. The wisdom of the ages lived there, philosophers and scientists, poets and playwrights and novelists, the best minds of humanity. Shouldn’t the answers lie in one of these books?
Wandering between the rows of shelves, she went through a ritual she’d been enacting since she was a girl. Whenever she had a problem or question turning over and over in her mind, she would close her eyes and select a random book from the shelf. With eyes still closed, she would let it fall open, and without peeking put her finger on a passage. Then she’d open her eyes and read the book’s advice. It was just a game, yet it was uncanny how much she’d learned simply by opening her mind and opening a book.
She couldn’t imagine what advice might possibly save her from her current troubles, but force of habit ran strong. She shut her eyes and skimmed her fingertip along the spines of the books, stopping between heartbeats. She quickly extracted a volume from the shelf. She heard another fall to the floor, a corner of the book hitting her foot.
“Ow!”
