When I was finished, I looked around at Mom and Dad’s bedroom—and at Mom, resting relatively peacefully, but with that rasping breath that means there isn’t much time left. She was surrounded by books—a wall of bookshelves, books on her night table, a book beside her. Here were Stegner and Highsmith, Mann and Larsson, Banks and Barbery, Strout and Némirovsky, the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible. The spines were of all colors, and there were paperbacks and hardcovers, and books that had lost their dust jackets and ones that never had them. They were Mom’s companions and teachers. They had
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