Charlie smoothed her fingers over the cover, her eyes sad. "It's beautiful. Thank you, Reese."
"You're welcome, Tadpole."
I wanted to ask her why she'd been avoiding me, why she hadn't said a word to me since Friday night, but I didn't get the chance before the alarm on her phone signaled it was time to walk back to her classroom.
We cleaned up the table, wrapping ourselves back in our scarves and coats for the walk, and Charlie talked the whole time about when she first read Tolstoy as we crossed campus. She told me she knew exactly where she'd put it in her library, and she loved it even more for the bumps and bruises.
"Books aren't meant to be in perfect shape," she said when we reached her room. "They're meant to be read, to be inhaled like oxygen." Her fingers ran over the spine again, and she smiled. "This book has been breathed. It's been loved."
That smile alone confirmed it was the best three grand I ever spent.
Charlie
I used to love my library.
That's what I kept thinking as I slipped inside the beautiful room later that night, dark now that the sun had set, but still cast in a warm glow from my favorite reading lamp. I hugged the copy of Anna Karenina Reese had given me to my chest, walking over to a shelf on the far-left wall that held my classics. I eyed the spines, deciding where Tolstoy's new home would be, and I wanted to love being in that room again.
But I just didn't.
We'd had so many rooms in the house when Cameron and I first moved in. It was just the two of us. I remembered him carrying me like a new bride through each and every room when the house was still empty. He'd set me down, my bare feet on the polished wood as he excitedly showed me where everything would go.
We'd have our master bedroom, of course, and an office for him. We were both really into fitness at the time, so we saved one of the five bedrooms for workout equipment. There was the guest bedroom, and then there was the room closest to ours, with large bay windows and a beautiful view of the sunset at night.
It became my library.
It used to be one of my favorite places in the house. I'd come up after a morning of gardening and relax in the little reading nook Cameron had built me under the window. I'd re-read old favorites and discover new ones, too. One bookshelf grew to two, which quickly multiplied into four, and before I knew it, every wall was lined with books.
I thought there was nothing I could want more in the world.
And then, I got pregnant.
My stomach dropped at the memory, and I placed the brown cloth-covered book between my well-kept editions of Wuthering Heights and The Scarlet Letter. My eyes flicked to the closet in the corner, right near the window I used to sit under, and then back to the worn spine. It didn't feel right, that it was so beat up and yet it sat next to two practically brand new books. So, I pulled it out again, running my fingers over the gold lettering as I surveyed other options.
Cameron and I weren't trying to get pregnant when it happened, but we weren't trying not to, either. We were just young and happy and in love. And in the blink of an eye, we were parents-to-be.
The morning sickness and my ultra-tender breasts were my first clues, but I'd kept quiet until two little lines on a store-bought pregnancy test confirmed my suspicion. That night, I'd cooked dinner for Cameron, and served the results on our good china right next to dessert. I still remembered everything about the way he looked the moment it hit him - the pinch of his brows, his mouth falling open, and finally, his wide eyes finding mine as tears filled them to the brim.
He fell to his knees and hugged me to him, pressing his ear to my stomach, and we both laughed.
Then, we wept.
It wasn't too long after that night that the doctor confirmed what the test had said, and then when we went to find out what the sex was, we discovered we weren't just having one baby, but two. Twins.
Both boys.
The euphoria that existed in our home after that day was inexplainable. We'd packed up all my books and moved them into his study, transforming the room closest to ours into a nursery most would dream of. There were two high-end cribs, ones Cameron had shopped around for months for to find the best of the best, and a rocking chair in the corner with a plush rug at the feet. We had a diaper changing station, a dresser for clothes and blankets, a high-tech stereo system with baby monitor controls, and more unnecessary baby gadgets than we needed.
///
Cameron wanted everything to be perfect for our boys. It was like he'd finally heard his calling, like he was born with the sole purpose of being my husband, and eventually, being their dad.
I read every single baby book I could get my puffy little hands on. They taught me how to eat properly when I was pregnant, and how to breathe during the birth. There were guidelines for how to nurse, when to expect first smiles and laughs and words, and what ages to start teaching colors and numbers. I discovered the science of childbirth, the signs of postpartum depression, and the small indicators that would alert me when our babies were sick or in need.
Those books taught me everything.
Except how to live my life when the babies we were so ready for never came home.
I sniffed, tucking my new book on the far-right edge of the shelf I stood in front of, right next to Great Expectations. That was one I'd read time and time again, and its spine had the same loving wear and tear as my new addition. I stepped back to admire them together, but my eyes drifted back to the closet over time, back to the place that hid thousands of dollars in baby furniture that we no longer needed.
Cameron had rebuilt my library a few months after the day we came home empty-handed. He was always so caring like that, showing me he loved me through his actions. He wanted to bring back some of the happiness I'd lost by rebuilding the place that was once my pride and joy. But my library wasn't the same, not after I'd seen how that room had the potential to be so much more than a home for my books.
My library wasn't the same. But then again, neither we were.
After one last longing look at the closet, I decided Anna Karenina was right where she belonged. I straightened the spines on my science fiction shelf and let my fingers linger there, remembering when it had once been a rocking chair that stood in its place. Then, I clicked off the reading lamp, stepped out of the darkness into the glow from the hall light, and shut the door behind me.
Charlie
"So," I said to Cameron over dinner that Friday night. We were at our small dining table, the one not reserved for entertaining guests. "I was thinking."
His eyes were on the steak I'd cooked for him as he sliced off another bite. I waited for him to look up at me, but when he didn't, I continued.
"It's Friday night, and it's been so long since we've gone on a date. A real date, like we used to."
He popped the next bite of steak into his mouth, hand reaching for his water, ready to wash it down.
"I heard on the radio that there's a wine festival going on in the city this weekend. You can buy tickets for the whole thing or just for certain events, and tonight, there's a special tasting event featuring a bunch of the local wineries. I was thinking … maybe we could go. You know, get all dressed up and wine drunk, come home and run a hot bath together? Doesn't that sound nice?"
I was asking my husband on a date, but you would think I was telling him I was leaving him for the way I had to swallow past the knot in my throat. I'd barely touched my meal, too nervous to eat much before asking him. Now that the question was out in the open, all I could do was take a sip of my water as I waited.
He looked so handsome that night, his strong jaw lined with a hint of stubble, his eyes a bit crinkled at the edges. He'd grown older in the years we'd been together, and it only made me want him more, getting to watch time change him, the same way it'd changed me.
We were aging together, and that was a beautiful thing to me.
"It does," he said after a moment, and I sat up straighter, my eyes wide with hope. "It really does, Charlie. But we have that huge merger call on Monday."
The hope inside me deflated like a pin-pricked balloon. "It's Friday."
"I understand that, but we'll all be working the entire weekend to prepare. I've got a list of things I still have to wrap up before I can even sleep tonight, and I'll likely be in the study most of the weekend." He shook his head, sticking a few green beans with his fork. "I just can't take the night off, and I can't be hungover tomorrow, either."
"We can go easy," I tried. "You can drive, and I'll get tipsy and tear your clothes off later."
"I'm sorry, I can't tonight. This is a really important call."
I pursed my lips, tongue poking into my cheek to try to stop me from reacting the way I wanted to. But it was no use. I dropped my fork to my plate, bringing my napkin to my mouth before letting it fall, too. "Is Natalia on this call?"