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And then, when I collapse, breathless, he pulls me onto his chest and we lie in the sand, staring up at the stars until they fade from the sky and the pink blush of sunrise steals over us.
I wake up alone.
26
The bookshop ison the road to Carouge. The shop is all glossy antiqued wood and arched windows that let in ribbons of golden light. Dust motes float like dandelion seeds in the musty, paper-scented air, and breathing in, you’re automatically assured this is a place where books are sold.
Old books. New books. Rare books. Used books.
All the books.
When Mila and I push through the tinkling glass door, a quiet hush envelops us. She stops in the entry, her eyes wide and darting wildly across the antique wooden bookshelves holding a veritable forest of stories.
At the sound of a book page turning, the whisper of paper over paper, Mila grips my hand and whispers, “Mummy, do you think they have poems here?”
I smile down at her, avoiding the curious gaze of a fat gray cat perched on the cushioned window seat near the entry.
“I think they have hundreds of poems.” I point to a sign over a shelf near the back of the cozy shop, the word “Poetry” written in decorative calligraphy. “Go and see.”
With that bit of permission, Mila releases my hand and half-skips, half-walks to the back, darting around comfy wingback chairs, baskets full of books, and overstuffed shelves.
Mila has an assignment for her summer art camp. She must find a poem she loves and bring it to camp tomorrow. She’ll make a visual-art representation of the poem using watercolors or pastels or clay, or whatever she desires. But first she must find a poem.
We could search online, but sometimes feeling the smooth crease of a book under your hand, tracing the cool paper and following the smudges of ink as the words fall down a page—that is what you need to fall in love with a poem.
So here we are.
At the back of the shop, Mila stands on her tiptoes and pulls a hardcover book from the shelf. The large book dwarfs her as she clutches it in her hands, and then, looking around, she drops to the thick rug and opens the pages.
I smile, wave to the bookseller behind the counter—a short man with a tuft of feathery gray hair and a kind smile—and meander toward Mila. The bookshop is nearly empty. There are three other customers browsing shelves, and, of course, the fat gray cat.
The cozy shop has a soft, dreamy feel— the sort of place where you can easily imagine the pages of books are windows to other worlds. It reminds me of Amy. I think she would love it here.
I picture her piling books into her arms until her load is so high it reaches to her nose. She’d hurry from shelf to shelf and drag all the books down—classics, philosophy, poetry.
The image of Amy here, sharing a line of poetry with Mila, Sean chasing the cat through the rows, is so vivid that I have to blink to clear it away. Before I know it I’ll be imagining McCormick here too—no, Aaron. He’s Aaron now. If I don’t stop I’ll picture him taking Amy’s load of books with his laughing smile so that she can collect another dozen to read.
Aaron isn’t here though. Amy isn’t here. Not Sean either.
They stay in my dreams.
Maybe it should worry me that I’m bringing them into my life, creating watches based on afternoons with Aaron, thinking of Amy’s delight at a bookshop, but I push the thought aside.
Mila glances up from the book as I kneel down next to her.
“I like this one,” she says, pointing to the illustrated poem on the page. It’s an ink drawing of a little black-haired boy in a sun hat holding a bucket by the sea. “It reminds me of when we go the beach. I’ll do a painting of the lake with me and you and Uncle Daniel.”
I read the poem. It’s a rhyming verse about a little boy at the seaside, digging holes for the sea to fill up.
“I like it.”
Mila nods, her red hair curling around her face. She’s in a bright pink dress and her cheeks are red from our stroll down the sun-soaked sidewalks.
“Well done, you. Who’s the poet?”
Mila flips the book closed, displaying the cover. My chest squeezes at the gold-scripted name. Robert Louis Stevenson. The book is “A Child’s Garden of Verses.”
“May I see it?” I ask, and Mila nods and hands me the cool, glossy-paged book.
