Page 87 of Child of Mine

“Oh, Henry. It’s not the dark ages. What’s important is making that little girl happy. Which is why I am buying out the entire children’s section.”

“What if their new place can’t fit all those books?”

“Are you going to deprive your daughter of books, Henry?”

“No, ma’am.”

By the time we pull up to my apartment, it’s after nine o’clock. My mother never even calls anyone after nine, so I know she won’t want to intrude on the Yorks.

After I haul her very heavy suitcase up the stairs and let her into my place, she accepts an enthusiastic greeting from Ribsy and then makes a few tutting noises about the state of my bachelor apartment. I dutifully offer her tea or coffee, but she declines, saying that she wants to get settled and go to bed.

“I want to see them first thing tomorrow. You can drop me at the bookstore on your way to work, and I’ll help out with whatever they need.”

* * *

The next fewdays are a blur of work and doing my best to head my mom off at the pass whenever she gets a new idea, but thankfully she and Doris are getting along and Lilah is slowly warming up to her.

I do admit that I’ve enjoyed my mom’s cooking. The five of us even had a remarkably relaxed family dinner last night. After my mom complained to Doris that my kitchen was appallingly ill-equipped, Doris offered up her own kitchen, and my mom put together an excellent supper of pork chops, waldorf salad, greens, and her skillet cornbread.

Thursday night, Bella has a performance, so I go straight to the store after work and find the grandmas packing up books. My mom’s impulse to buy the entire section was sweet, but Bella put her foot down—luckily before anyone floated the idea to Lilah directly. Now, Lilah’s in the midst of deciding which books to keep and which to let go.

She’s not happy about it.

I half-crouch on a kid-sized chair next to her. “How’s it going, buddy?”

She slumps even further down in her own chair. “Not very good.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

When I was a kid, instead of solving a problem for me, my dad gave me the tools to solve it myself. Just as I’m wondering what might help Lilah get through this, a memory pops into my mind: Bella leading the Boomerangs in a brainstorming session.

I scan the rapidly emptying store. “Hey, do you guys have a blackboard in here? Or maybe some big sheets of paper?”

Lilah’s brow furrows. “Do you want to draw?”

“Not exactly.”

“Um, Grandma has a bulletin board in her office.”

“I need something we can write on.”

She sighs. “I don’t know.”

Seeing her this way is breaking my heart, so I jump to my feet. “I’ll be right back.” Thinking that maybe we could use a broken-down box, I head to the storage area at the back of the store, where I find a stack of old event posters and a mug full of markers. Stopping to ask Doris if I can use both, she waves me on. “I need to clean out that room anyway.”

Back in the children’s section, I clear a space on the floor, turn over the poster, and write “IDEAS” at the top in purple. Holding out the mug of markers to Lilah, I ask, “What color do you want?”

“What for?” she asks.

“I was thinking we could brainstorm ideas for what to do with these books and maybe what you can do instead of reading stories to kids here.”

“Brainstorm?”

“Yeah, your mom calls it a ‘yes session.’ She did it at work. I think you just say ‘yes’ to every idea, write it down, and then read over what you wrote. There’s usually a good one in there somewhere. So, where are other places that people read books?”

She shrugs.

“Come on, sweetheart. I know this is sad, but—”

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