The Reading List

by Sara Nisha Adams

Once a year had passed, and Mukesh Patel’s Time of Eternal Quiet had begun, that silent, lonely stage of grief, where everyone but you had moved on,

Mukesh wished now that he’d asked her what they were about, what she loved about them, why she’d felt the need to read the same ones again and again. He wished that he’d read them with her.

It’s like, I don’t know, no one’s trying to be someone they’re not in a library.’

Sometimes, books just take us away for a little while, and return us to our place with a new perspective.

It was strange how, once childhood left, your parents became simply human, with fears and worries just like your own.