The Bookshop at Water's End by Patti Callahan Henry

Author:Patti Callahan Henry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

Fletch’s jam-band music played during the ride out to Mr. Seaton’s house, where we left the deliveries in a cooler on the front porch, and then we were on to Loretta’s house again. I peeked behind me to see that George’s smile never once left his little round red face. He bobbed his head to the music and opened his mouth to the wind of the open-air ride. He spread his hands out like he was flying and laughed at nothing and everything.

In Loretta’s driveway I unbuckled his six thousand buckles and he bounded out and ran for the garden. “Wait,” I hollered.

George looked over his shoulder and laughed as if I’d told him to fly or do any other impossible task. He reached the sunflower garden before I could catch up to him. His small body disappeared into the tall stalks. I reached the edge of the flowerbed and crouched to spy his little bare legs. “George,” I said. “This isn’t our house. You can’t just run into her flowers.”

“Oh, yes, he absolutely can.” Loretta’s voice came from behind me and I turned around.

“Hi, Ms. Loretta.” A hot, blushing embarrassment filled my face. There I was, I barely knew her, and the unruly child ran into something she’d worked so hard to make nice.

George popped out of the garden and held his hands to the sky, to the flowers’ tops. “They are so big.”

“I thought it would be fun to take him for a ride in the Jeep and then run on the empty beach. I didn’t mean for him to bother you,” I said to Loretta and took George’s hand in mine.

Loretta bent her knees and placed her hands, wrinkled and freckled, on them. Her hair was loose and it caught in the wind, silver and tousled. “Are you George?” she asked.

“Yes, I am,” he said and stared at her with squinted eyes and intense focus.

She stood and smiled at me. “I heard you hollering at him. I thought something bad was going on out here, but it’s actually something wonderful.”

“I’m sorry if we disturbed you.” Apologies poured out of me, another and another.

“Oh, darling,” she said, sounding just like Mimi. “There is no reason for apologies. What great fun this is.” She took a few steps closer to the garden and George shook free of my hand and followed her.

Loretta reached the edge of the sunflowers and wrapped her hand around a thick bright green stalk, then bent and twisted until it broke free. The flower’s stem, two feet tall, dangled with ripped green fibers, and Loretta handed it to George.

His tiny hands wound their way around the stalk and he held it close. “This is mine?”

“Yes, it is,” Loretta said. “All yours. Sunflowers are rumored to bring you good luck, and their little faces”—Loretta touched the dark inside of the flower—“always follow the sun.”

“Well, because they look like the sun,” George said. He brought it closer to his face and rubbed the yellow petals across his cheek.

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