A Short Walk to the Bookshop

by Aleksandra Drake

  “I’ve got a room at the hotel just across the street,” Mom said. “But if you want, I can stay here with you tonight.”

  “I think I’ll survive the night,” I said with a smile. “Diedrich, you go home too. I know you haven’t slept.” As grateful as I was for everyone’s concern, I relished the thought of being alone for a while, to sit in the silence as the light faded.

  “Are you sure?” His voice was so gentle and soft as he touched my hand.

  I nodded again. “Thank you.”

  In the morning, Mom got to meet Stephen and Richard. They showed up together at around noon, Richard bursting energetically into the quiet room where I was sitting with Diedrich and mom. Stephen was sedate behind Richard.

  “Don’t worry about it, Sparrow,” Richard said. “You look really cool. Like you’ve been in a rumble.”

  “A rumble? Like The Outsiders?” I laughed.

  “Yeah! Very cool. Very tough.”

  The guys didn’t seem to know what to do or say to me. Richard played it off, cracking jokes and brightening the room, but there was an uneasiness about even him. I knew it was because of how I looked. After sleeping for so long I felt pretty good though, all things considered. I appreciated the normalcy that Richard brought, and the quiet support of Stephen and Diedrich.

  “Did the nurse mention when you’ll be discharged?” Mom asked.

  “Today. This afternoon, she said. I don’t think I can go home though.”

  “No. No.” Diedrich shook his head. “Paula has offered for you to stay at hers while we figure out what needs to be done at the house. Or you can come back to my place.” He said it with a sidelong glance at my mom, like he was suddenly embarrassed. I watched mom notice his glance and she stifled a chuckle.

  “Personally, I’d like to finally see this bookshop,” she said.

  “Yeah, I think I wanna go back to the apartment, if that’s really okay.”

  Diedrich said it was.

  “Am I gonna get crutches, or what?”

  The hospital had felt like a halfway house between dream and reality. As I signed discharge papers and hobbled down the hallway attempting to get used to using crutches, a wave of anxiety rushed over me at the thought of returning to the real world.

  “It’s icy out there,” Diedrich warned.

  “Oh yeah? Are you going to carry me?” I meant it kind of as a joke, but Diedrich took me at my word. Mom and I laughed when he scooped me up, bridal style, crutches akimbo, and carried me to his car. It was weird sitting in the front seat with my mom in the back with Athena. The crutches were shoved awkwardly across the center console, but we managed to get everyone in Diedrich’s little car and before long I was back in the warmth and familiarity of Chapter One Bookstore.

  Mom wandered around the aisles, making approving sounds as Diedrich settled me on the couch.

  “How do you take your coffee, Ms. Anderson?”

  Mom laughed. “You can call me Jeanette. And I take it like Sparrow. Well, technically speaking, she takes it like me.”

  “Yeah, Mom won’t even keep creamers in the house. I never had that gradual introduction to coffee, where you start off taking it with loads of cream and sugar and eventually let your cheapness override your fear of bitterness and start taking it black.” So far we had avoided talking about anything serious. We didn’t mention fire damage or nightmares. Talking about coffee was all anyone could seem to manage.

  “I miss having coffee with you in the morning,” Mom said, emerging from the poetry section with two books in hand and coming to sit next to me on the couch. I scooted next to her and she wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

  “Me too.”

  Diedrich quietly struggled to carry over three mugs of coffee all at once, setting them on the coffee table and pulling over one of the chairs from the table for himself.

  “I wish I could stay longer,” Mom continued. “I tried to get more time off but if I’m not back by Monday...anyway, I’m relieved that you’ve got all these people here taking care of you.”

  “Speaking of, Paula sends her love from work and says she wants to have us all over at her place for dinner tonight,” Diedrich said.

  The comfortingly vapid small talk continued for a while. Mom and Diedrich did most of the talking. My nose hurt the most, out of all my injuries, but the split lip was the most annoying. I felt like there was a lot that I wanted to say, if it didn’t hurt to move my mouth.

  When Officer Laura came into the shop, her hands on her belt, Diedrich stood up and mom took my hand.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Laura began. “I tried to call, but--”

  “He smashed my phone.”

  “Right. Anyway, I figured I would find you here. Hello Mrs. Anderson.” She nodded at mom. “Well, I’ve been sent to inform you that Adrien died in the hospital early this morning.”

  The world went quiet and I didn’t say anything, but mom squeezed my hand tighter.

  “Because of me?” I said after a quiet pause.

  “The injury to his head was substantial, but it was the burns that killed him, he was unconscious in the hallway for a while until the fire was reported and controlled. In my unofficial opinion, I think he knew that he was in for it and just decided not to try to get better.”

  I looked at Diedrich, then at mom. Suddenly afraid, I asked, “Am...I in trouble?”

  Laura let her hands drop from her belt and she seemed to shrink, smiling softly for the first time. “No, honey. You’re not in trouble. I think we’re all just sorry you had to do all that on your own.”

  Mom got up and hugged Laura, in typical mom fashion. Laura smiled and hugged her back, but she looked a little awkward. Before she left, she patted my shoulder, then squeezed my upper arm. “We’ll be in touch, alright? You take it easy.”

  I nodded. When she left, mom and Diedrich both sat on either side of me. I rested my head on Diedrich’s shoulder and didn’t say anything. I’d just been thinking that there was a lot I wanted to say, if not for my split lip, but now it felt like all the words had been blown out of my head. I felt light and insubstantial, letting mom and Diedrich do the talking for me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jeanette stayed with them for the weekend, and Diedrich learned quickly how similar mother and daughter were. It was fascinating, seeing the way they both crossed their wrists in their lap when they talked or the particular way they smiled when they were trying not to smile. Jeanette served as a buffer between Diedrich and Sparrow while she was in town, keeping conversations light and non-stressful for Sparrow. He appreciated that, because he didn’t think he would know how to do it on his own.

  When Jeanette left to return to the hotel in the evenings, Diedrich would carry Sparrow up the stairs and lay her in bed. Sparrow would crack a joke about installing one of those “old folks elevators” on the stairs, and Diedrich would laugh and promise that he didn’t mind carrying her.

  On the first night he laid her on his bed and made sure she was warm and comfortable. When he went to leave the room she reached out.

  “Will you lay by me? I don’t like it when you sleep on the couch.” And just like that they were together again, as if he had never kicked her out of his house to fend for herself. The thought made him sick to his stomach now, and he tried to apologize again.

  “Let’s not talk about that now,” she had said, resting her cheek against his shoulder.

  On Sunday morning, Jeanette returned to Texas, but not before many promises and plans were made for her to return for Christmas.

  Diedrich would have preferred to keep Sparrow at his home indefinitely. The thought of returning to that house, seeing the damage, made his skin crawl. But after a week had passed since bringing her home from the hospital, she told him that she wanted to go back to the house.

  “I want to see how bad the damage is and start making plans to get it fixed,” she said, stirring a touch of milk into her coffee. She’d always taken it black before.

  �
�I’d rather you not see it until I’ve had a chance to go over it with the guys and get it cleaned up at least a little bit. I’m worried that it will be upsetting to you.”

  “What, like blood stains?”

  Diedrich shrugged. That was exactly what he had been thinking but he found it difficult to say it so bluntly.

  “I mean, I was there when it happened. It’s not like it’ll be surprising. And it’s still my house. Can we go today?” She was still stirring her coffee, slowly, the spoon scraping gently along the edges of the ceramic mug. She didn’t look up at him, which made it seem like she didn’t expect him to say yes.

  “You don’t have to ask for my permission to do anything,” he said. “But if it’s my support you’re looking for, I’ll go anywhere you go. You know that.”

  Finally Sparrow tore her eyes away from her mug and, meeting his, she reached across the dining table and slid her fingers through his. “I’ve already forgiven you. You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

  Diedrich’s heart clenched in his chest.

  After the coffee was finished and shoes and coats were put on, they went down together, past the closed sign on the storefront. Sparrow had objected, telling him that he didn’t have to take time off to take care of her, but he had insisted. He spent as much time as possible with her.

  “You really should open up the shop tomorrow. Customers are going to think you’re going out of business.”

  Diedrich shrugged. “I haven’t had a vacation in years. I think I’m entitled to some time.”

  “This can’t be your vacation! Can we plan one though? Something fun? I wanna go to Seattle.”

  He took her hand and helped her into the car, sliding her crutches into the back seat. “It seems like you’ve already made plans.”

  She nodded. “I’ve been thinking about lots of things I want to do. I’m excited to be better. Once I get this cast off I can go back to work, then I’ll start saving for Seattle. Having something fun to look forward to will help, I think.”

  Except for the broken front window, the house looked normal from the outside. Police had taped up a plastic film to cover the broken windows and the wind made the film bulge out and suck in, making it look like the house itself was breathing. Sparrow hesitated at the front door, but before he could tell her that there was no need for her to go in, she had opened the door and was stepping inside.

  It was cold, just as cold as it was outside, because the heat had been turned off. Diedrich watched her breath form clouds in the air as she walked into the living room.

  “Can I show you what Athena did?”

  She led him down the dark, cold hallway. She didn’t look at the kitchen, but Diedrich did. Everything around the stove was blackened, cabinets charred to a crisp and piles of broken plates and cups were piled on the crumbling counter from when they’d fallen out of the bottom of the burning cabinets. That whole corner of the house was like a black hole. Neither of them looked at the stains on the carpet.

  “He came in through the back door,” Sparrow began. “The first thing he made me do was lock Athena in here.”

  The dog in question was standing back a few paces from Diedrich and Sparrow, apparently less than eager to return to the place of her captivity.

  “She went wild. I don’t think she stopped barking the entire time. Look what she did to the door.” Sparrow swung the door open to show Diedrich the other side. Claw marks covered the bottom half of the old solid door. Some were so deep that she had almost clawed her way clear through to the other side.

  “After I put her away he took me back to the kitchen and smashed my phone.” Gently she took his hand and led him back, and Diedrich was silent as she quietly led him through everything that had happened, step by step. He wanted to tell her to stop, that she didn’t have to relive it, but there was a fire in her eyes and as the story went on, her voice grew stronger and her grip on his hand more sure.

  His heart was racing the entire time. She told the story simply, without embellishment or dramatic effect. The whole ordeal of pretending to sleep while he paced around. The kiss. The fire. The baseball bat. He saw it all, and he shook with fury that he hadn’t sensed Adrien behind the door when he had been on the porch. He should have seen it in Sparrow’s face. He should have insisted on coming inside. There were so many things he should have done.

  “And then this woman picked us up from the side of the road. I told her to take me to the bookstore.”

  Diedrich laughed, a dry, painful laugh.

  “I didn’t find out until your mother called me. She was called as soon as you arrived in the hospital, and she found the store phone number online. You were fast asleep by the time I got there, though. Not unconscious or anything, just sleeping. The nurse told me that almost as soon as you were laid in a bed you curled on your side and fell asleep. You were asking for me, though.”

  “Diedrich, what are we going to do about this house?” She said quietly, leaning on her back leg and casting a tired, appraising look about the kitchen.

  “We’re going to rebuild it.” He came closer to her, close enough to slide his arm around her back and pull her close. “You and me. And Richard, and Stephen, and Paula, and Heather, and your mom when she visits next month. I don’t know all that much about renovation, but I’ve got books about it, and Stephen finished his basement a couple years ago, he knows people. We’ll pool our knowledge and our strength and we’ll clean this up.”

  Diedrich placed his hand on her shoulder and they went back outside. Athena was happy to be out, bolting in front of them and running around the front yard.

  “She’s not one to complain, but she really doesn’t care for your apartment.”

  “It’s a small apartment even for one person, let alone two plus a high energy dog,” he agreed.

  “It’s not much to look at at the moment, but, you know, I happen to have a whole house all to myself,” Sparrow began adroitly. “There’s plenty of room for one more, even if he comes with a library.”

  Diedrich swallowed.

  “I know you’ve made yourself a comfortable little nest up there and all, but maybe some leg room would be good for you. And some distance from the store. Your friends aren’t just customers anymore, they’ll even come all the way out here to visit, you know. And anyway, I like having you around. Our relationship started off in kind of a weird place, but I feel so hopeful these days. Things are only going to get better from here, and wouldn’t it be nice if we got better together?” Athena bounded up to Sparrow with a stick she’d found and Sparrow held onto Diedrich’s arm for balance as she crouched down to pick it up and throw it towards the mailbox.

  “Say something.”

  Diedrich cleared his throat. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the guilt of not protecting you like I should have.”

  “I think I was done with being protected anyway. If you’d protected me better I’d still be in hiding.”

  The heavy clouds that settled in low over the trees began to drop snowflakes, the slow, heavy kind that float on unseen breezes and land with almost-audible plops on the wet wood of the front steps. Diedrich turned, looking down at Sparrow’s yellowing black eye.

  “I love you, Sparrow.”

  She grinned. “I know. I love you too. Is that a yes? I’ll let you pick paint colors for the bedroom if you come live with me.”

  Diedrich chuckled, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against him and kissing the top of her head. “You paint your house any way you want. I just want to live there.”

  Sparrow laughed, leaning on her good leg and rising onto tiptoes to kiss him. For the first time, there was no hesitation, no worry that he was doing the wrong thing, and he kissed her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I expected to have a hangover, but I was surprisingly alright when I woke up on January 1st to a fresh blanket of powdery snow piling up in the window box. I remembered Diedrich tenderly taking a champagne glass out of my hands and refilling it wi
th water the night before. I might have given him a bit of crap about curbing my drinking in the moment, but now that it was morning and I was refreshed and headache-free, I could kiss him for it.

  So I did.

  He stirred slightly when I bent down to kiss his sleeping brow, but I didn’t wake him up. Getting out of bed, I slid my feet into the slippers I was still getting used to wearing inside. I’d never lived in a house that didn’t have carpet before. After tearing up the stained carpet in the hallway we had been pleasantly surprised to find pretty alright hardwood underneath. Nothing spectacular, but pretty in a rustic kind of way. So we ripped it all up, sanded it and finished it, and now I was the kind of girl who wore slippers. I snuck out of the bedroom, past the new door. The bedroom door had obviously needed to be replaced, and since the new one wasn’t going to match the rest of the interior doors anyway, I went ahead and leaned into the mismatch by painting it bright orange. I went to make a big pot of coffee. I was hangover-free, but Diedrich’s state was yet to be determined and he’d want coffee either way.

  The kitchen was unrecognizable. Diedrich and I painted the new cabinets. Sunny yellow with whimsical flowers painted in the corners by me for no other reason than that I could. It was my kitchen, after all. He’d never once questioned my manic need for bright colors in the house. The clean smell of paint and the therapeutic motion of covering surfaces with colors had been necessary. And now I had a house that was bright and unmistakably mine. It was never finished, there would always be things I’d want to change, furniture I wanted to move, or curtains I wanted to sew. I loved it.

  There was one mug that hadn’t been broken. It had escaped the collapsing cabinet disaster because I used it so often, and it was already sitting in the sink when the fire started. A green mug with a chip in the rim that my lips knew like a treasured memory. While the coffee brewed, I wrapped my coat around my pajamas and called Athena and once I had my coffee, we went out to the back porch. She bolted out into the yard, running towards the tree line and back again a couple times before settling down. I watched her, inhaling deeply the hot steam of my coffee mixed with the frozen scent of cedar.