Page 10 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

“And what hour have we reached at this precise moment in time?” he continued. Since they hadn’t yet made it to unpacking any of the clocks, she recognized this for the rhetorical question it was.

“Past oh-six-hundred hours,” she said. She plopped onto a red vinyl chair at the kitchen table and reached for the carafe of coffee before remembering how her father felt about young women drinking caffeine.

“Stimulants aren’t ladylike,” he always said.

“I’ll make us a fresh pot when he leaves, Catherine,” her mother always countered. “Just be patient. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Catherine dropped her hand and allowed it to fall in her lap. Despite being late to the breakfast table, she was dressed in a yellow fitted sundress with a full skirt, her mousy-brown hair flared in a neat bob. Her mother was similarly dressed and coiffed, thanks in large part to the salon they’d both visited in Dallas before getting dragged to this rural outpost. From their Dazzling Coral lipstick to their low-heeled pumps, they were identical. The one exception was that her mother looked about as tired as Catherine felt, with heavy bags under her eyes and a tightness around her mouth that no amount of Pond’s Cold Cream could erase.

Not that Major Gene Martin would have noticed. Military precision was the only thing that mattered to him. As long as the cottons were pressed and the shoes polished, he was satisfied. The body inside the uniform was merely a means of transportation.

“I’m glad to see you up and ready to tackle the day,” her dad said. Since he followed it up by nodding at the grapefruit sitting in front of her, Catherine took it to mean she was being forgiven for her tardiness. “Are you heading into town to take a look around?”

“Am I ever,” she replied as she started sprinkling heaps of sugar over the top of her grapefruit. She couldn’t stand the dratted things,but her mom swore by their slimming effects. Fortunately, Catherine had learned that with enough sugar, anything was palatable. “I noticed the local library when we drove in last night. You know that cute little brick building across from the post office? I’m surprised they have such a nice one. I hope they have the new Shirley Jackson, but I’m not holding my breath. I doubt they even know who she is this far away from civilization.”

“We’re stationed in northern Washington, not the Antipodes,” her dad reminded her. “It’s much livelier than you think. My squadron alone has over a hundred and forty men.”

She recognized this as the reprimand it was. “Yes, sir.”

“It’s a highly coveted position and a great opportunity for our whole family.”

“Of course, sir.”

“I’ll take you on a tour of the base as soon as you and your mother are settled in. You’ll like that.”

Catherine grimaced, but it was easy enough to pretend her breakfast was the cause. “That sounds fun. Thanks.”

Truth be told, a tour of the 760th Radar Base sounded about as fun as stabbing herself in the eye with her serrated grapefruit spoon, but she wasn’t about to say so. Radar scanning and cryptography were all well and fine for people like her father, who thrived in an environment where seeking out enemy planes and missiles on U.S. territory was a tense, important business, but she’d never been one for technology.

Give her a good book, some lively company, and—oh, please, just one—cup of coffee, and she was content.

Her poor father. He’d always wanted a son to follow in his footsteps. One who was taller than he was, strapping in ways that he’d never be, and interested in things like vacuum tubes and SAGE systems. Instead, all he’d gotten was Catherine: short and slight, interested only in the newest Shirley Jackson, the taste of her morning grapefruit forever bitteron her tongue.

Her father finished up his breakfast and pushed back from the table. “I’d better get going. It’s a half-hour drive out to the base. I wouldn’t want to be late on my first day.”

He leaned forward and dropped a kiss first on her mother’s cheek and then on Catherine’s. Underneath this affectionate farewell, she could feel him practically vibrating with excitement. Even a post as small and isolated as this one was fun for him, what with the new systems to organize and people to order around. It was less fun for Catherine and her mother.

Her mother, because she was the one who had to do all the unpacking, and Catherine, because she once again found herself back at the start.

How am I supposed to build a life for myself if I’m constantly being shuffled from one town to the next? How do I make friends when I’m always the person who’s just passing through?

Fortunately for Catherine, half of that answer was easy. Towns would come and go, and so would the people in her life, but there was always a friend inside the pages of a book.

To the library she would go.

Catherine felt a little guilty for abandoning her mother to the work of settling in, but not so guilty that she was willing to forgo a morning’s exploration. Especially since she hadn’t been kidding about spotting the library on the way in. It was located just off Main Street in an area that included the sheriff’s office, the post office, and some other bland government building that she felt sure her father would later explain to her in painful detail.

“Your bike is on the side of the house,” her mom said as she tied anapron around her midsection and set about tackling the boxes labeledKITCHEN. “I made sure we pulled that out straightaway.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind my leaving?” Catherine asked, one foot already out the door.

Her mom laughed. It was a bright, tinkling laugh, and the best thing about her. Even her dad, with all his stern rigidity, was unable to resist it.

“If I said yes, what would you do?” her mom asked.

“I’d grab you an Agatha Christie,” Catherine promised. Like her, her mother preferred her reading to be grim, bloody, and as full of murder as possible—the only difference being that her mother had the wisdom to pretend otherwise. Catherine’s besetting sin—of which, if you were to ask her father, she contained multitudes—was that she’d never been very good at either wisdom or pretending.

Which was why, with a grin and a backwards glance, she added, “TwoAgatha Christies if you’ll be a doll and let me stay out past lunch.”