Heather Gudenkauf - These Things Hidden

Bookends is dim and quiet. A sudden Sunday afternoon rainstorm has driven away the stifling August heat and all of the customers. As Claire Kelby unpacks a box of books, Joshua pokes his head up from behind the counter, his yellow hair standing on end. She tamps down the desire to lick her fingers and smooth the flyaway strands. His dark brown eyes look expectantly up at her.

“Can I help you, young man?” Claire asks her son in mock seriousness.

“I’m bored,” Joshua answers dismally, and kicks his sneakered foot against the front of the counter.

“You’ve read every single book back there?” Claire asks him, and Joshua glances over his shoulder toward the shelves and shelves of books. Looking back at his mother, he nods and tries to bite back a smile.

“Uh-huh,” Claire says skeptically. “Where’s Truman?”

“Sleeping,” Joshua grouches, drawing his eyebrows together. “Again,” he adds about their six-year-old red-brindled English bulldog.

“I don’t blame him. It’s a rainy day, good napping weather,” Claire responds. “Do you want to help me? I’ve got lots of boxes to open and books to shelve before we close. Or maybe you want to take a nap, too?”

“I’m not tired,” Joshua says stubbornly, though his eyes are heavy. “When’s Dad going to get here?”

“He’ll be here soon,” Claire assures her son, and leans over the counter to place a kiss on his blond head. She looks around the bookstore that has been both a refuge and a yoke. Years ago, the store and its responsibilities had kept her sane. The long hours had kept her mind busy, kept her focused, distracting her from the knowledge that her body, which had served her so well over the years, had ultimately betrayed her. Sometimes this realization struck her suddenly, squeezing so tightly she would have to stop whatever she was doing—helping a customer, unpacking books, answering the phone—and deliberately pry away the fingers of anxiety that clutched at her heart until she could breathe again.

Then, inexplicably, Joshua came to them, as miracles often do, on an ordinary day, well after the acceptance that they would never have a child of their own, biological or otherwise, had settled in. More and more, Bookends seems to snatch away all the time she wants, needs, to be with her son. He’ll be heading off to kindergarten soon and she guards what’s left of her time with him fiercely, even though she knows he’d much rather be playing outside than stay with her in the bookstore.

Claire handled all the business aspects of opening the bookstore nearly twelve years ago. Finding the perfect location on oak-lined Sullivan Street, in the newly revitalized downtown section of Linden Falls, securing the small-business loans, ordering the books and hiring the part-time help. Jonathan, for his part, created the most beautiful bookstore Claire could have ever possibly imagined. The building had originally been a dressmaker’s shop, owned by an independent woman who had moved to Linden Falls with her aging father in the mid-1800s. It was lovely, with an intricate tin ceiling and walnut woodwork that Jonathan had uncovered beneath years of old paint, varnish and grime. Rifling through the second floor and the attic, Claire and Jonathan found musty bolts of cloth and bushel-size jars of buttons made of mussel shells, bone and pewter hidden beneath a table. Claire loved to imagine the dresses designed over that table—a christening gown edged with lace, tiny seed pearls sewn to the silk bodice of a wedding dress, a black mourning dress made of cashmere.

Joshua tries to heave himself up on top of the counter, his shoes scrabbling against the front panel. “I’m bored,” he repeats as he slides to the floor. “When will he be here?” he asks again.

Claire steps from behind the counter, reaches down, lifts Joshua into her arms and sets him next to the cash register. “He will be here in about—” she looks at her watch “—half an hour to pick you up. What do you want to do?”

“Tell me about my Gotcha Day,” he orders. Claire gives him a long, expectant look. “Please,” he adds.

“Okay,” Claire agrees, swinging him into her arms. As is often the case lately, she is struck at how big he’s getting. She can hardly believe that he’s five years old. She presses her nose into his neck and breathes in the comforting scent of the Yardley of London soap he bathed with just that morning. Joshua, in a sudden need for privacy, has started ordering her out of the bathroom when he gets ready for his bath.

“Only Truman and Dad can be in here when I take a bath, because we’re all boys,” he explained.

So Claire, after running the bathwater for him, sits on the floor in the hallway, her back resting against the closed bathroom door, and waits, calling through the door every few minutes, “You okay in there?”

Now she carries Joshua to the plush, comfortable sofa that sits in a corner of the bookstore and they settle in for his favorite story. The story of how Joshua became theirs.

“Before we can talk about Gotcha Day,” Claire says, “we have to talk about the first day we met you.” Joshua snuggles more deeply against her and, as she has every day for the past five years, Claire marvels at his sweetness. “Five years ago, last July, Dad and I were sitting at the kitchen table trying to figure out what we were going to have for dinner when the phone rang.”

“It was Dana,” Joshua murmurs as he fingers the milky-colored pearl hanging from her ear.

“It was Dana,” Claire agrees. “And she said that there was a beautiful little boy waiting for us at the hospital.”

“That was me. That was me waiting at the hospital,” Joshua tells Truman, who decides to hobble over to the pair. “And that birth lady couldn’t take care of me so she left me at the fire station, and the fireman found me just lying there in a basket.”

“Hey, who’s telling this story?” Claire asks, and gently pokes him in the ribs.

“You are.” Joshua wrinkles his upturned nose and tries to look sorry.

“That’s okay, we can tell it together,” Claire assures him.

“And all the firemen didn’t know what to do!” Joshua exclaims. “They just stood there and looked at me and said, ‘It’s a baby!’” Joshua holds his hands out, palms up, a look of animated consternation dancing across his face.

“You were a surprise, that’s for sure.” Claire nods in agreement. “The firemen called the police, the police called Dana, Dana took you to the hospital, and Dana called us.”

“And when you held me in your arms for the first time you cried and cried.” Joshua giggles.

“I did,” Claire concurs. “I cried like a baby. You were the most beautiful little boy and—” At the same time they hear the bookstore door open and Jonathan enters, his work jeans and T-shirt streaked and dusty from his current renovation.

“Hey, guys,” he calls, shaking the rain from his black curls. “What’re you doing?”

“Gotcha Day,” Claire says, by way of explanation.

“Ahh,” Jonathan says, a big grin spreading across his face. “The best day ever.”

“Mom cried,” Joshua says, hiding his mouth from Claire, as if not seeing his lips meant she couldn’t hear him.

“I know,” Jonathan whispers back. “I was there.”

“Hey, Dad cried, too,” Claire protests, looking at her boys with affection. “We took you home and after thirty days the judge said, ‘Joshua is now officially a Kelby.’”

“Who was I before?” Joshua asks a bit worriedly.

“You were a badger with three tails,” Jonathan teases.

“You were a wish that we made every morning when we woke up and a prayer we said before we went to bed each night,” Claire tells him, swallowing back tears the way she always did when she thought about how things could have been very different, if Dana, the social worker, had dialed a phone number that wasn’t theirs.