It was the end of September but still felt like summer. Moths batted at the old-fashioned wrought-iron lampposts on the street corners. A trio of accordion players in striped shirts and suspenders entertained a sparse audience on the town green. Kids out with their parents crowded the patio tables at the ice-cream parlor. If you ignored the cars, it might’ve been 1929. The walk to the library was the first time I had not felt ugly with grief in weeks. It felt like I’d been paroled.

I climbed the white marble steps into the dramatic atrium of the library, beneath a copper dome eighty feet overhead. My steps echoed. I couldn’t remember when I’d last been in the place and regretted that it’d been so long. It had the soaring, tranquil grandeur of a cathedral, but, better than incense, it smelled like books.

I approached the great rosewood desk, looking for the slot to drop my book into, but there wasn’t one. Instead a sign on the desk read ALL RETURNS MUST BE SCANNED IN. There was a black laser scanner next to it with a pistol grip, just like you’d see at the supermarket checkout. I approached, thinking I would pretend to scan it and run—but the old lady behind the desk held out one quavering hand, gesturing for me to wait. Her other hand clutched a phone to her ear. She tapped one finger against the scanner and then drew her nail across her neck in a throat-cutting gesture. Broken. I thought maybe when she was free, I’d ask about renewing my library card—and wait for an opportunity to drop my mother’s late return behind the desk when no one was watching. I didn’t want to discuss her late fees and wanted even less to discuss her death.

I cooled my black Converse All-Stars next to a display showcasing local authors. The offerings included a crudely illustrated picture book about a rabid-looking koala, titled I Can’t Eat That, and the self-published memoir of a woman who claimed she’d been abducted by aliens and taught the language of dolphins, leading, ultimately, to her legal struggle to marry a porpoise. I wish I were making that up. The centerpiece, of course, were the Brad Dolan novels, Kingsward’s favorite son. I had met him once—he came to speak to my eighth-grade class. I had adored his old-fashioned mustache and bushy eyebrows and the rumble of his voice, and that he wore a plaid overcoat with a cape. I’d also been a little frightened of him—he stared out upon the classroom with eyes that never seemed to blink, studying us a bit like a general surveying a map of enemy territory.