A place to begin

The next morning Mara placed a small box beside the returns desk. She wrote a sign in the library’s thickest black marker.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE SOMEONE TO REMEMBER?

By lunchtime there were three pieces of paper inside. By closing, twenty-one.

Someone wrote the name of a dog. Someone described the smell of their grandfather’s kitchen. A child drew a rocket and wrote, in fierce green capitals, THAT I AM TRYING.

Ivo stood at the desk for a long time before folding his page.

Mara did not read it. That seemed important.

Over the following week the box filled twice. People began staying to talk. The woman in the yellow coat returned with a second photograph, this one of the finished boat. She offered to make copies.

Upstairs, the blank book grew heavier.

Mara visited the blue room each evening. Elin mended pages and asked about the people downstairs. Sometimes she already knew their names. Sometimes she smiled and said nothing.

On Friday, Mara found her sitting beside the window with her coat on.

“I think you have the idea now,” Elin said.

“Where are you going?”

“Somewhere with a garden. I’ve been meaning to finish a book of my own.”

Mara wanted to ask how a person could leave a room outside time, or where a woman who had worked here for so long might find a garden. Instead she asked whether Elin would come back.

“Of course. I have a library card.”

The gray book was still on the shelf. Mara opened it after Elin had gone. The picture showed the library in the rain. In every window, a light was burning.

At eleven forty-two Mara switched off the reading lamps downstairs. She checked the locks. She put the smallest key on a ribbon around her neck.

Beside the returns desk was a final piece of paper, folded into a square. She recognized Ivo’s careful handwriting on the outside.

For the person who opens next.

Mara left it where it was.

There would be time in the morning. There would be a chair, and a desk, and somebody ready to listen.

Above the east doors, the last light stayed on.