Promises of Home

11

Ice water in your face is a sobering slap.

I’d had two friends die by violence-and I’d tried wrapping myself in denial like it was one of my grandmother’s quilts, a cocoon against the sharp pain of loss. I’d stumbled along, hardly like myself, numbed and slack-jawed, ruminating at a snail’s pace.

Now my eyes were wide and clear and fueled by hot anger. I wanted to catch whoever was destroying my friends and strike at them with viciousness. I felt restless and shivery as I paced the hospital hall.

The Monday-morning hours found Sister, Mark, and me sitting in a large, crowded waiting room at Mirabeau Memorial. Clo had volunteered to stay with Mama and Candace had gone to open the cafe. It was now eight in the morning and we hadn’t been told anything by Franklin Bedloe, the acting police chief, except that Junebug’d been shot twice, was out of surgery, and was still unconscious. Junebug’s mother, Barbara Moncrief, a big-boned woman with a heart to match, was in with her son. Well over a dozen of the Moncrief clan and their friends were crammed into the chairs, talking quietly, mindlessly turning pages of back issues of People while we waited. The rest of the Mirabeau police force seemed to be patrolling the hospital, their faces set in sorrow and anger, and I wanted to scream at them; Why aren’t you out catching the asshole that did this? But I didn’t.

I am always amazed by the strength of women. I don’t think I ever appreciated it until Mama got sick and her vitality ebbed away in cruel fashion. Sister has that same vigor. I watched her cast her face in iron as she waited for Barbara Moncrief to come back so she could go in and see her man. She held my hand, her fingers twitching occasionally as we sat. We didn’t talk. I’d tried to comfort her with reassuring words, but she turned monosyllabic on me, and I retreated. After a while she got up and paced fiercely, as though the excess energy in her would explode if not given release.

Davis and Ed had appeared after I’d called them, their voices still creaky with sleep. Both looked exhausted and pained. I felt the same way; as though I’d been pummeled in the stomach for the past three days. Except I felt ready to punch back. They sat in the far corner of the lounge. I couldn’t decide if they were avoiding me or they were trying to give us privacy. Davis was impeccable in his lawyer’s suit, as though nothing of consequence had happened and it would be another day pushing wills and real-estate closures around his desktop. Unshaven Ed looked rumpled in wrinkled khakis and a Patty Loveless tour T-shirt. He looked like a confused child tumbled out of bed. I felt nearly sick looking at Ed. Of us all, he reminded me most of those long-ago boys. Every now and then his eyes met mine, asking the unanswerable question as to why our friend lay struggling for life.

I tried to talk to Franklin Bedloe, the acting police chief, but he brushed me off to return to the crime scene. 2 DOWN had been the message at Trey’s murder scene. Had another profane scorecard been left as Junebug lay on the bloodied porch? I desperately wanted to know. But Franklin didn’t have time for me, and I didn’t try to detain him. He had a killer to catch, and I had a friend to stand watch over.

A heavy-eyed Peggy Godkin stumbled into the room, lugging a satchel. Peggy is the editor of The Mirabeau Mirror and possibly the only workaholic in town. She’s certainly the only achiever in the large Godkin clan that permeates every part of Bonaparte County. Most of the Godkins shuffle by on a day-to-day existence; Peggy got the recessive Puritan work-ethic gene, put herself through college, started as a cub reporter for the Mirror, and had moved up to editor in record time. She was now in her fifties, a handsome woman with dark hair marred by a thick, lacy-white streak that ran back from her forehead. Peggy nearly always played a witch at the high-school Halloween haunted house. It was definitely casting against type.

She saw us and waved. I gestured back feebly. Sister stopped wearing out the carpet and moved toward Peggy.

“Arlene, Jordan. I’m so sorry. How is he? Where’s Barbara?”

Sister shook her head. “He’s out of surgery. The bullet grazed his skull. Barbara’s with him now.”

Peggy gave Sister a fierce hug. Sister hugged back.

“What exactly happened?” Peggy asked.

I told her what little we knew; apparently Junebug had been working very late at his office, had come home, and while putting the key in his lock, was shot. Franklin Bedloe hypothesized-based on the trajectory of the wounds, he said, and I shuddered-that the gunman crouched waiting in the bushes on the far side of Junebug’s porch. One bullet creased his skull; the other one tore into his big frame, narrowly missing his heart. A neighbor, awakened by the shots, phoned the police. Franklin had called Barbara Moncrief and then our house.

Peggy shook her head. “My Lord. Two murders in as many days, and now an attempt on Junebug’s life. What the sweet hell is going on in town?”

I stood. “I don’t know. Peggy, let’s go down to the cafeteria and get some coffee. Sister, Mark, y’all want anything?”

They said no. Peggy gathered her purse close to her and walked along with me. When we got to the end of the hall, I glanced back; Mark’s face was buried in his hands and Sister was watching me intently.

The cafeteria was sparsely populated. I got two steaming cups of coffee and sat across the Formica table from where Peggy had parked herself.

She sipped at her brew. “I’m so sorry about Trey, Jordan. I didn’t know what to say to Arlene and Mark. My policy is stay silent till you’re sure what’s going to come out your mouth.”

“We’re all trying to deal with it.”

She closed her eyes, smoothing out the laughter lines around them. “And poor Clevey. I still can’t believe he’s dead. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to really talk to you at Truda’s house. I got cornered by his aunts.” She hesitated for a moment then plunged ahead: “I saw the argument between Trey and Arlene. I might’ve been tempted to whack him one myself. But I’m sorry Trey’s dead.”

I sipped at my coffee and considered how to proceed. “Peggy, I wanted to ask you about Clevey. I’ll be blunt. Be blunt back. Could he have been researching something for the paper that might’ve gotten him killed?”

Shock registered on her face. “My God, Jordan. What a suggestion!”

“What do you think?”

She saw my seriousness. “No. He was working on his usual assignments-the city council, the book-review section. And he was researching a feature on domestic violence.”

I thought of the hidden files on Rennie Clifton and her tragically short life. “No other special assignments?”

Peggy gave a tired sigh. “Clevey? Honey, it was all I could do to get him to finish his regular work. It sounds terrible to say now, and I’d never want his mama to know, but I wasn’t far off from firing Clevey.”

“May I ask what was wrong?”

“I don’t think I should say.”

“Peggy, I knew Clevey his whole life. I won’t repeat it. And what you say won’t hurt him now.”

Peggy stared down into her coffee. “His work had become substandard. He was missing deadlines more and more. We’re a small paper, Jordan, and everyone’s got to pull their weight. I don’t have the resources to keep a layabout on the payroll. Clevey was irresponsible.” She shook her head and ran her hand along the pale streak in her hair. “I didn’t understand his attitude. He was so enthusiastic about journalism for so long, and he was talented. Was. ”

“When did this downhill slide start?”

She shrugged. “Last summer. My patience was at an end.”

“I want to ask you some questions, but off the record,” I said.

Peggy leaned forward. “What a change. I’m usually the one conducting the interview. I’ll answer your questions if you’ll answer mine.”

“Deal. Did you ever hear Clevey mention a girl named Rennie Clifton?”

Her brow furrowed. “Sounds familiar, but I can’t place the name.”

“And you never heard him mention anything about Trey?”

“No, never. That for sure I would have remembered, after the awful way Trey left your family.”

I leaned back. “Damn.”

“Who’s Rennie Clifton?” Peggy asked.

It was no point in telling her to forget it; I’d rather have Peggy Godkin on my side than snooping on her own and plastering a story across the front page. I told her about the long-ago hurricane and the girl who died. Peggy propped her face in her hands.

“I remember that now. Hurricane Althea. Clevey wrote the twentieth-anniversary special report we did last August.”

“Weren’t you writing for the Mirror when Althea hit?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “Unfortunately that was the week I took a vacation and visited my college roommate in Dallas. Biggest story to hit Mirabeau in years and I missed it.”

“Did you ever hear anything unusual regarding the hurricane? Or Rennie Clifton’s death?”

She closed her eyes in concentration, her reporter’s mind flipping through the enormous Rolodex of facts that resided in her brain. “No, sorry. Nearly everyone was busy picking up the pieces, thanking God they were alive.”

“Rennie wasn’t,” I said. “Clevey had developed a new interest in the case. I thought maybe he was writing a story about her.”

She shook her head. “He wrote the retrospective on Hurricane Althea. And he wrote a brief piece on the Clifton girl.”

“I wonder why he got interested again in that case.”

Peggy shrugged. “Newsfolk love to write about themselves. Maybe he wanted to revisit the great trauma of his childhood.”

“Speaking of trauma, did you know that he was seeing a psychotherapist? A man named Steven Teague.”

“Lord, no, I didn’t know he was getting counseling.” She tapped her nail against her lip, a meditative gesture I’d seen her use while covering library board meetings. “Steven Teague. I know that name.”

I frowned. “He just moved here recently. Very urbane, polished-looking fellow. He said-” I stopped for a moment, feeling I was breaking a rule by discussing what I’d overheard. If it got back to Junebug or Steven, I’d be in serious trouble. But Clevey was dead and his murderer walked free. “Steven says that Clevey was troubled. That he’d done serious wrong and was trying to find ways to rectify it.”

“What kind of wrong?”

“He won’t elaborate. But he does say that Clevey was determined to do better for himself.”

“Clevey’s work didn’t reflect that,” Peggy said. “God’s gonna slap me for speaking ill of the dead.” She sighed. “Clevey must’ve been performing his good deeds elsewhere. You said this therapist is named Steven Teague?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, he probably took out an ad and that’s how I know his name. I wonder if he’d give me a group therapy rate for my family. Now for my questions, like you agreed. Are you sticking your nose into police business again?”

“Yes. And it’s my own business now. It has been since Trey died in front of me and Mark.”

Peggy leaned back. “You know, Jordan, some people criticize private citizens who take it on themselves to investigate crimes. I’m one of them. I only answered your questions because you’re an old friend of Clevey’s.”

“Most private citizens don’t have three friends shot in as many days.” I kept my voice low. “I don’t care if people in Mirabeau think I’m a magnet for trouble. I didn’t ask to find a body in the library last spring or nearly get blown up last summer. But I will no longer stand idly by while my friends are picked off like targets in a shooting gallery.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would. Maybe that’s why I like you, you sorry fool.” Peggy finished her coffee and patted my hand. “I better see if I can get one of Junebug’s doctors to talk to me, then head on over to the police station. And see if I can just say a hello to Barbara.” She gathered her satchel close to her. “Terrible business, isn’t it, Jordan?”

Peggy accompanied me back to the waiting room, which was only a little less crowded than before. Davis had left; Ed sat with Mark and with Steven Teague. Sister wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“Hello, Jordan,” Steven Teague said in his refined tone. He was well groomed and dapper in gray corduroys and a charcoal tweed jacket. “Your sister’s in with Chief Moncrief, so I offered to stay with Mark.”

“I don’t need nobody staying with me,” Mark announced crossly. He looked exhausted and I wondered what kind of gruesome toll the past couple of days was exacting.

I introduced Peggy to Steven, hoping she wouldn’t start a grilling session of her own. She simply said she was glad to make his acquaintance and shook his hand.

Franklin Bedloe came out of the men’s room down the hall and, excusing herself, Peggy headed toward him.

I turned back to my nephew. “Mark, let me take you home. There’s no point in you waiting here. You’re dead on your feet. We’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”

“No, Uncle Jordy,” he said with firmness, not petulance. “I want to stay. If I’m tired, I’ll take a nap. I’m not leaving till we hear about Junebug.”

I sat, too weary to argue with him. Steven Teague, however, was another story.

“How’d you know we were down here, Steven?” I asked.

He smiled tightly. “Your sister called me. She was concerned about how your family would handle this latest difficulty. I offered to come down and see if I could be of assistance.” He glanced at Mark, whose lips were pressed together in tension. “Mark doesn’t want to chat right now, though.”

“I appreciate your concern for Mark.”

“Mark’s been through a horrible ordeal.” Steven ruffled his patient’s hair.

Mark stood suddenly. “I want a doughnut. Or a muffin. Uncle Jordy, will you come down to the cafeteria with me?”

I lumbered to my feet, my body crying out for sleep. Time alone with Mark sounded good. For some reason, the tailored sureness of Steven Teague irritated the hell out of me. Especially since he’d refused to answer all of Junebug’s questions-and now Junebug might be the killer’s latest victim.

Mark ambled along beside me, quietly, until we got to the cafeteria. I offered to buy him breakfast; he got a glass of orange juice and an enormous muffin, studded with blueberries. He kept glancing toward the cafeteria entrance as he ate.

I watched him munch down the muffin and drain the glass of orange juice. “You’re handling all this well, Mark.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “I guess. I’m worried about Mom.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did she love Dad or not?”

I’d expected a discussion about Junebug. Trey was still tender territory. “That’s a hard question.” I rubbed my chin. “It’s probably safe to say that she loved him-the him that she married-but she didn’t love what he did. She didn’t love the man that left her and left you.”

He was silent, and emboldened by exhaustion, I went on: “Your father was a very good man in many ways. He was my closest friend growing up. But he left you, and your mother, and the rest of us, without a word or a reason. That’s cowardly, Mark, and I never understood it because I didn’t think your father was a coward.”

He looked up at me with ink-dark eyes, bloodshot with fatigue. For the first time in a long while I looked at Mark’s face. He stood on the verge of manhood now, the peachy sheen of whiskers starting along the jawline, his Adam’s apple becoming more prominent in his thin throat, his voice vaulting through fee gymnastics of change, and the first light in his eyes that perhaps he knew a vast and frightening world lay waiting.

He tore off a chunk of muffin and rolled it into a doughy ball between his fingers. “I think I know who killed Dad,” he said.

I found my voice after a brief search. “Excuse me? Who?”

“Well, Scott told me he overheard something his mama and her uncle Dwight were saying. She’d been talking about how she hadn’t wanted to come back to live in Mirabeau.”

“Well, I would think not, what with all of Trey’s family here and-”

“Listen again, Uncle Jordy. She said come back to Mirabeau. She’d been here before.”

“Her uncle’s from here, Mark,” I explained patiently. “I’m sure she visited here before.”

“Yeah, she did,” Mark said. “She said that she didn’t want to be here because of Ed Dickensheets.”

“Ed? Good Lord, what does he have to do with it? And why didn’t you say something before?”

Mark shuffled his feet under the table, avoiding my stare. “Me and Scott don’t got no proof, and Ed’s a friend of yours and a friend of Mom’s. I don’t think he could kill anybody. But Scott sure thinks he did.”

I breathed deep. “Did Scott say what had gone on between his mom and Ed?”

Mark shook his head. “But I bet he was her boyfriend. She looks like she might have been pretty once.”

I tried to jog down memory lane. I’d thought Nola Kinnard’s face was familiar for the most fleeting of instants when she’d introduced herself in the library. “I sure don’t remember Ed dating a girl named Nola.”

“Maybe it was when you were at Rice. Did he go off to school?”

“He stayed here and took some courses over at Bavary Junior College,” I said slowly. “Then he went to St. Edward’s over in Austin, but he got thrown out. He partied too much and his grades bottomed out. So he came back and started working at KBAV.” I looked at Mark again, the earnestness in his face. This was clutching at shadows.

“Mark, this is ridiculous. I’ve known Ed Dickensheets my whole life and he wouldn’t ever kill a soul, much less your father. Besides, Ed wouldn’t have a motive.” Right, I told myself. Happily married to a bossy Elvis impersonator and her Colonel Parker mother. Wanda and Ivalou were a potent combination to set a man straying to an old girlfriend. Why hadn’t Ed mentioned to me that he knew Nola Kinnard?

Mark’s jaw set. “All’s I’m saying is what Scott said. He thinks Ed killed Dad.” He shook his dark head. “Scott hasn’t thought it out, though. I mean, if he thinks Ed killed Dad to be with Nola, it hasn’t occurred to him that Nola could have killed Dad to be with Ed.”

I did not get to see Junebug. The doctors didn’t want many visitors, and I wasn’t about to try to usurp Barbara Moncrief or my sister. I left a message for Sister that I was headed home and left.

I took Mark home, turned him over to Clo, and ordered him to bed for some badly needed sleep. Tomorrow was his father’s funeral, and he’d need his strength. I sorely ached for a nap myself, but I knew rest would be elusive.

Stopping by the Sit-a-Spell, I ate with Candace. The breakfast bachelor-and-widower crowd was sparse; she’d get much more business at lunch. Smudges darkened the skin beneath her pretty eyes. She didn’t mention my breakdown last night and I was grateful. She’d already eaten and she sipped coffee while I wolfed down a cheese omelette, hash browns, grits, and toast smeared with plum preserves.

I slurped coffee and made a face. “Good Lord. Flavored coffee? I don’t think Mirabeau’s quite ready for that.”

“It’s hazelnut and they’ll develop a taste for it.” I could see Candace was still on her diversify-the-cuisine crusade. If Sister didn’t get back to work at the cafe soon, it’d be the Sit-a-Spell Sushi Bar (or bait shop, depending on your opinion of raw fish as an entree).

“Candace, you are not going to get a fellow in a fishing cap to quaff down hazelnut coffee.”

“Oh, really? What’s that on your head, ace?”

I removed my Mirabeau Bees baseball cap with a smile. We were bantering like it was a normal morning. I tried to remind myself it was only seventy-two hours since I’d sat in this same booth, watching Wanda do her Elvis impersonation in the street while poor Ed hung their pitiable sign. It seemed a decade ago.

Candace surprised me with a kiss on my forehead and I updated her on Junebug’s condition. She frowned. “The shootings are all anyone in the cafe’s been talking about.”

“Speaking of gossip…” Quietly, I told her of Mark’s suspicions of Ed Dickensheets.

“Oh, that’s crazy,” she said. “Ed’s devoted to that wife of his. I don’t see what he sees in Wanda, but if he’s willing to keep that witch Ivalou as a mother-in-law, it must be love. And even if Ed killed Trey, why would he kill Clevey? Maybe we’re dealing with two killers.”

I shook my head. “That occurred to me, but then how do you explain what Scott overheard-the heated discussion between Clevey and Trey? There was something going on between those two, and now they’re both dead. You can’t dismiss what Scott heard and the message written in Trey’s blood.”

“So how do you explain Junebug’s shooting?”

“He’s been investigating Clevey’s death while Franklin Bedloe investigates Trey’s death. Maybe Junebug got too close-found some information the killer didn’t want him to have. The killer decided to eliminate him.”

Candace ran a hand through her thick mane of hair. “Now what?”

“Franklin’ll find out who the hell’s behind this and lock him up forever. Junebug’ll get better. We’ll bury Clevey and Trey and try to get on with our lives.” I poured milk in my too fancy coffee and watched the white cloudy swirl. “And then maybe you and I can take a nice, long trip far away from all this. I’m worn-out and I want to be alone with you.”

Her smile was tender and sly. “Get me alone and you will be worn-out, that’s a promise. Maybe the Bahamas?”

“Out of my wallet’s league. What about Galveston?”

“We’ll talk. I could foot a trip to the Bahamas.”

Candace had money aplenty from her family, but I didn’t want her doling out cash for us. Foolish male pride, I suppose, but no one ever accused me of lacking that particular virtue. “We’ll talk,” I said, smiling at her. Galveston wasn’t at all bad. I’d just convince her of that.

I got to the library and savored the quiet of a Monday morning. Since we’re open Saturdays, we’re closed Mondays. I like when it’s just the books and me. I headed for the back issues of The Mirabeau Mirror. We haven’t gone to microfilm yet (although I have repeatedly begged the city council for the money), and so the chronicle of life in Mirabeau still exists in paper form. I decided to start my search in August, two decades back.

The Mirror comes out once a week, but I remembered they’d done a special edition in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Althea. I started with that yellowing issue. Three dead in Corpus Christi, one dead in Victoria, two dead in Mirabeau, one dead in La Grange: all due to twisters or flash flooding, those merciless twin bridesmaids of hurricanes. Althea had cut a brutal swath up from the defenseless Gulf coast through the river lands between Houston and Austin.

There was a main article on the aftermath of the killer storm, then separate articles on each of the Mirabeau dead. The first casualty had been an elderly man on the outskirts of town, killed when his ramshackle trailer disintegrated in a smaller twister’s path. The second article was longer, possibly because the death was more tragic. Rennie Clifton was only sixteen.

A school picture of her smiled out from the newsprint, her hair straightened and dark, her smile wide and appealing, her eyes beautiful and compelling and intelligent I had never seen Rennie alive, so the picture was the only fragment of her days I could compare against the empty shell we’d found in the woods. The county coroner ruled she’d been killed by a blow to the head, probably from flying debris propelled at God’s own speed by the violent winds. The article outlined how she had been found in the woods near the Foradory farm. A somber picture of us six boys was below the text, since we’d found the body. We all look like we’ve had the stuffing scared out of us, except Trey, who always maintained a cool demeanor anywhere near a camera. Clevey ranked a quote on how frightened he’d been. “You see scary things out in a storm like that, but we never dreamed we’d find a body.”

I kept reading the story. Rennie had been a student at Mirabeau High, where she participated in 4-H and the student yearbook. Her teachers described her as quiet, intense about the subjects she was interested in, a girl with a future. She worked part-time at the Mirabeau Florist and was described as a good worker by her employer, Ivalou Purcell-

My eyes froze on the last two words. Ivalou Purcell, who I have mentioned I don’t care much for, was Ed’s mother-in-law. She’s bossy, nosy, man-hungry, and just generally unpleasant. I remembered the avid interest she’d shown during Sister’s fight with Trey at the Shivers house. I’d never had any idea that Rennie Clifton worked for Ivalou Purcell.

I scanned the rest of the article. Rennie was survived by her mother, Thomasina Clifton, who cleaned houses. Her father, Ernest Clifton, had been killed in Vietnam. The final sentence mentioned services at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Aldrus Street.

Her funeral. A sharp memory made me wince. My mother had insisted that we go. I’d felt like an interloper, a blond-headed, green-eyed boy amidst all those dark faces. The church smelled of flowers and sweat. The fury of Althea had scraped the sky clean, and the day they buried Rennie was cloudless and clear. I remembered Mrs. Clifton as a large woman who bore her sorrow in silence. I remembered my mother making me hand a flower to Mrs. Clifton and her nearly crushing me in a kind embrace. Another woman, apparently one of Rennie’s grandmothers, had wailed lamentations like a woman possessed. I didn’t try to give her a flower.

I leaned back, rubbing my chin. How-and why-had that girl’s death come back to haunt us?

What if I was entirely off track? What if Rennie’s death had nothing to do with the carnage visited on our lives? I closed my eyes, casting back into my memories for someone who might have a terrible grudge against our group of friends. I sat in silence. Had we been unthinkingly cruel to some kid that harbored the deepest of grudges? Had we done some innocent act to nurture hatred in a hidden heart? No rogue or villain presented themselves for inspection. Our lives had been delightfully dull, free of ill-wishers. Best, I thought, to concentrate on the strongest possibility than to idly search for nonsensical explanations.

I began sorting through papers from the weeks previous and subsequent to Rennie’s death. Mirabeau was just as boring then as it is now. I perused articles on the city council’s eternal squabbles, the drowning of a skier on Lake Bonaparte, a picture of Hart Quadlander with a prize-winning horse, and the visit of a jowly congressman to give a speech.

I was reading a paper dated three weeks after Rennie’s death when I turned a page and a twenty-years-younger version of Steven Teague stared back at me, his lips splayed into the same half smile he’d given me and Eula Mae and Mark when we spoke to him. There was a short article underneath: FREE CLINIC CLOSES Dr. Edward Barent and Steven Teague announce the closing of the Mirabeau Free Clinic on Mayne Street, effective September 31. Dr. Barent, a general practitioner, said that federal cutbacks are forcing the clinic’s closure. The Mirabeau Free Clinic opened barely two months ago, funded primarily through private donations and government grants. Dr. Barent refused to comment on any further reason why the clinic could not remain in budget. Mr. Teague, a psychotherapist with a social-work background, was unavailable for comment.

The rest of the article went on about how rural areas suffered the most in federal cutbacks, but that since indigent services were already available at Mirabeau Memorial, residents should not expect much curtailment of free care, I didn’t care much about curtailment of free services at the moment. I was just remembering when I’d met Steven Teague at Clevey’s mom’s house and he’d said he’d just moved to Mirabeau. Not that he’d lived and worked here before, but new to town. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to mention that he’d worked for a failed enterprise-or perhaps he had something to hide. He’d been living here when Rennie died. He’d come back and we had two murders.

I started folding the paper when I heard a loud tapping at the window and I nearly jumped out of my skin. (Having three friends shot since Friday morning will do that to you.) I was suddenly conscious of how very alone I was in the library.