Page 16 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

“I’ll call the school first thing in the morning and see what I can do to get him reinstated. He won’t tell me anything about what happened. Just that he hit another boy and the school has a zero-tolerance policy for violence.” Even though I didn’t think Theo was listening, I lowered my voice to a near-whisper. “Poor Noodle. No wonder why he ran into the woods like a bat out of hell. He once accidentally pushed Theo on the swing so hard that he fell off and almost broke his nose. Remember that?”

Pepper nodded. “Didn’t Noodle refuse to come from under the porch for like three days?”

“We had to slip tuna-fish sandwiches underneath just to keep him going. He felt so terrible that he sobbed every time he even looked at Theo’s black eye.” It was so many years ago now that I could even laugh about it. “Meanwhile Theo begged him to do it again so he could get a matching shiner on the other side.”

We sat back then, the two of us thinking through my options and systematically discarding each one. Staying with Babs was out of the question for obvious reasons. I couldn’t leave Noodle here alone, and taking him to work with me was equally impossible. And there was simply no way I could afford to call in sick for the next few weeks. Not only would Gunderson take it as a personal affront for me to reject his wife’s offer and then stay home, but I didn’t have any paid sick leave left.

“What about your grandma?” I asked. “Ididsteal her all those Harlequins, so she kind of owes me…”

“No can do, I’m afraid. She’s in Spokane for the next week. She’s seeing that specialist again.”

“Not—” I began, but Pepper shook her head in warning.

“It’s just a routine follow-up. Nothing major.”

“But—” I began again. This time, Pepper’s warning was more like a threat.

“Don’t, Chloe. She’d be pissed at me for even mentioning it. Forget I said anything.”

I added that hot brick of frustration to the wall I was currently building inside my gut. Lonnie’s struggles with thyroid cancer were no secret, but the one thing the Pakootas family had been adamant about from the start was that I wasn’t allowed to contribute to their situation in any way. I couldn’t offer a drive to see the specialist in Spokane. I couldn’t make a dish to feed the many guests who paid visits. I couldn’t even bring a bouquet of flowers unless they were wild and I just happened to pick them on a regular walk through town.

Those kids keep you busy enough as it is, Lonnie would say.

You can’t afford anything more, Pepper would add.

They were both right, of course, but that didn’t make me feel any better about it. These days, my friendship with Pepper was almost entirely one-sided. I took and took and took—and until the kids graduated from high school and could stand on their own two feet, taking was all I’d be able to do.

The pair of us fell silent once again.

“I could always use my vacation days,” Pepper began, but I cut her off with a sharp shake of my head.

“Absolutely not. Noodle’s my responsibility, not yours.”

I fell silent again, this time allowing my mind to wander to the emergency phone number I carried in my wallet, nine digits scrawledon a scrap of paper that I hadn’t yet gotten up the nerve to tell my brothers and sister I’d found in the interlibrary loan system. I hadn’t tested the number, so I couldn’t say forsurethat the woman on the other end belonged to our mom, but according to the records, that particular Ravenna Sampson had checked out William Goldman’sThe Princess Brideno fewer than seven times from various libraries across the state.

That had been, hands down, my mom’s favorite book. Back when it had just been the two of us, when she’d promised me that we could tackle the whole world as long as we did it together, she used to read it aloud to me. I’d loved the swashbuckling sarcasm of it, the layers upon layers of storytelling that my seven-year-old brain hadn’t been able to unravel.

It still sat in the box of her things wedged under my bed. I liked to think that she left the book here on purpose, that she’d wanted to remind me that “Life isn’t fair, it’s just fairer than death, that’s all,” but I think she probably just overlooked it when she’d packed. She’d taken her clothes and the family emergency fund from the cookie jar, a single photo of the five of us on picnic at Crystal Falls, and that was all.

A whole life—four whole human beings—left in the dust.

I’d sworn to myself that nothing short of the direst of circumstances would compel me to call her. Although these circumstances were grim, the literalist inside me refused to call themdire.

“If all else fails, I can cash the check from Jasper and hire a private nurse,” I said with what I hoped was a casual shrug. “It’s not how I wanted to spend that money, but I might not have any other choice.”

“Ooh, speaking of.” Pepper’s eyes lit up as she turned to me, one leg tucked underneath her. “That’s your good news. You don’t have to pack up the kids and find a new place to live. Jasperisn’ta killer. I poured through every news story between 1950 and 1961—all the years the radar base was open. Not one of them mentions a dead girl, an accusation of murder, or even Jasper Holmes at all. Gunderson is full of hot air, as usual.”

Contrary to expectation, I didn’t appreciate the reassurance. The moment my search for Jasper’s sordid history ended, the moment I’d have to focus on the present:mine.

“Technically, that doesn’t prove anything except he didn’t get caught,” I said hopefully.

Pepper grinned and dug around in her pocket. She pulled out a printed page and handed it to me. “True, but I also foundthis. I thought you might want to have it.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I unfolded the page, but it wasn’t a grainy printout of a black-and-white photo from the fifties. Two rows of men stood in front of a pile of felled trees, all of them virtually indistinguishable from one another. In addition to wearing the same rough clothes, they all bore the robust, hungry look of those who regularly performed manual labor. A huge two-man saw was propped up next to them, its metal teeth gleaming in the bright patch of forest sunshine where they stood.

“These look like a bunch of old-timey loggers,” I said.

She tapped one of the men standing off to one side. “That’s because they are a bunch of old-timey loggers,” she said. “But check out that strapping specimen on the end. Look familiar?”