Words in Deep Blue

by Cath Crowley

It’s a section of books that aren’t for sale. Customers can read the books, but they can’t take them home. The idea is that they can circle words or phrases on the pages of their favorite books. They can write notes in the margins. They can leave letters for other people who’ve read the same books.

“Is the plan to get up sometime soon?” she asks, and I tell her no, that is not the plan. I explain the plan to her, which is basically to wait, horizontally, for life to improve.

Secondhand books are full of mysteries, which is why I like them.

Customers are allowed to write in the books in the Letter Library. They can circle words that they love, highlight lines. They can leave notes in the margins, thoughts about the meaning of things. We’ve had to get multiple copies of books by people like Tom Stoppard and John Green because Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Fault in Our Stars are crammed with notes from readers.

“Life starts again,”

I like to think of love as being slightly more forgiving than time.”

“If we all gave up on the things we love when it gets hard, it’d be a terrible world.”

I pull the blanket around my shoulders, and the customer looking in the classics section gives me a sympathetic look. I give him one back because, as much as I love books, if you’re in the classics section first thing in the morning, then there’s something not entirely right with your life either.

It reminds me of how he told me once that the thing he loved about fiction was that there were rarely yes-or-no answers when it came to characters. The world is complex, he told me. Humans are too.

Doesn’t love fall somewhere in the big scheme of things? Isn’t it the biggest scheme?

“People’s love is always about themselves, though, isn’t it?” I

I wonder if the future sends us hints to get us ready, so that the grief doesn’t kill us when it comes.

But I don’t believe that the future gives us signs. I think that we look back and read the past with the present in our eyes. I think that’s what you’re doing. Maybe you need to look forward, and start reading the future.

We lose things, but sometimes they come back. Life doesn’t always happen in the order you want.

We are the books we read and the things we love.