for clarifying.”
Martin’s tense smile faded. He shifted from one foot to the other and looked out at the road. “We were hoping this wasn’t going to happen again. We haven’t got the end-of-June check yet.”
“That’s all right.”
“Not really.” He glanced her way. “It’s just the build-up of expenses. You and Aunt Julia shouldn’t get the short end of the stick, but if we don’t pay for feed they won’t give us any more—”
“It really is all right.”
“We might be moving a few heifers in the next week or two. Can you wait till then?”
“Of course, Martin. On one condition—”
He perked up at the mention of a condition. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
“No more hair jokes.”
“Aw, Em…”
“I know it’s tough, but that’s the deal.”
He gave her a quick kiss on the head, which under the circumstances she thought probably qualified as a hair joke, and went to his truck with a wave over his shoulder. The engine revved and with a spray of gravel he roared away.
A WAIT OF A WEEK OR TWO wasn’t worth mentioning to her mother, not today, when she was just starting to settle down about the book from Egypt.
Emily hurried through lunch, then showered and braided her wet hair the way Susannah did, making sure every piece was well secured. Her Einstein look? Martin made it sound like a regular thing.
She came out of the bathroom feeling refreshed and polished, ready for company, and found her mother balanced on tiptoe on a chair, stretching to wash the highest bookshelf. Well away from potential drops of water, stacks of books blocked the path to the kitchen.
When she was safely on the floor Emily said, “I thought you’d be diving right into your library books. Did you forget Matthew’s coming?”
The cloth dipped vigorously in and out of a bucket of water.
“Mom—”
“I didn’t forget.” Julia climbed back up on the chair.
Emily tilted her head to see which books were piled on the floor. Prehistory and ancient history. Under a book about cave paintings were a few about the origins of the universe. Those moved back and forth regularly, from the very first spots on the shelf to a much later shelf devoted to modern science. Julia wanted her collection to run seamlessly from the beginning of all things to the present moment in time. The fact that the present moment kept changing complicated her plans. What Emily found endearing was that right near the end, included with all the books in the world that her mother thought were important, were the children’s books Liz had written and illustrated.
A bit of a mess didn’t matter. Emily wanted to help Matthew with his research, not impress him with her spotless house. It would be easier to remember that if he didn’t have such an air of spotlessness himself.
“Here he is.” She felt a lift when she saw his car, another when he stepped out of it.
Hamish got to him before she did and circled him warily. Matthew wore khakis again and another button-up shirt, a more casual cotton blend, as if he was noticing how people dressed in Three Creeks. Maybe by the time he left he’d be wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
“Another hot day,” he said.
“And in spite of it, my mother’s climbing up and down scrubbing book shelves.”
“Will it disturb her if we look around?”
“If you imagine a boundary around the books on the floor and don’t cross it, we’ll be fine.” They walked to the kitchen door. “Our house was built a generation later than the Rutherford place. I’m not sure how a tour will help.”
“I thought I’d soak up atmosphere.”
“You mean the overall creaky floor, crooked walls, cobwebs in the corners kind of atmosphere?”
He smiled. “If that’s what you’ve got, that’s what I want.”
Emily began in the living room, pointing out the characteristic lumber used at the turn of the twentieth century, three-inch strips of tongue-and-groove British Columbia fir, applied vertically up to a chair rail and then horizontally. Julia continued to clean, ignoring them.
“My great-great-grandfather gave parcels of land to his children when they married, so there’s the original place, where my grandmother lives now, and a number of houses built for his children, like this one. My cousin Tom and his wife Pam built their own place.” She smiled. “Pam didn’t want to soak up anybody else’s atmosphere.”
“The houses have changed hands by inheritance?”
“Sometimes. My grandfather bought this place for my parents from his sister—”
She stopped. Matthew had stepped over Julia’s barricade of books and was examining the shelves. After one startled glance, Julia stared at the book she was holding as if she had discovered mold on its cover.
He tapped the backboard. “That’s not the original wall, is it? It’s not tongue-and-groove like the rest of the room.”
It was the one thing Emily had asked—that he respect her mother’s territory. “My dad built it out a few inches. He didn’t think the books should rest against an exterior wall.”
“Temperature differences, condensation?”
“You never know.”
“He did a nice job.” Matthew ran his hand along one of the shelves, feeling the tight joins where boards met boards, apparently unaware of the disapproval around him. “Beautiful work.”
Stiffly, Julia said, “My husband liked carpentry.”
“I can tell. Did he put the shelves up in stages as your library grew?”
“All at once.”
“He had an idea you’d want a whole room full, did he? The wood’s dried out. He must have done this a long time ago.”
“In the fall of 1980. After harvest.”
“It’s a big job for one person to take care of a library of this size.”
“You can’t let the books get dusty,” Julia said. She still frowned at the one she was holding, but she had relaxed. “You have to give them air. You have to think of an organization that makes sense, so you can find what you want.”
She began telling Matthew about Sinuhe, everything she had learned at the library that morning. That it came from Egypt’s Middle Kingdom—1940 to 1640 BC—and that Sinuhe was the name of a clerk or scribe who worked in a palace. He ran away during a time of conflict and spent his life in exile until his king pardoned him. It was pieced together from papyrus fragments and carvings
