“Mommy’s home!” said Valentina, running to her mother.
Sadie looked around, seeing the room as Lonnie and LuAnn did: the closet, empty of a slew of clothes, the open jewelry box, and, in the middle of it, herself, wearing LuAnn’s blazer and pearls.
Lonnie and LuAnn exchanged a look; then Lonnie glanced irritably at the closet. “Where are LuAnn’s clothes? What are you guys all doing in here?”
“I’m so sorry,” volunteered Sadie. “I was going through Mom’s things because I needed a classy outfit, but they were all from forty years ago, and somehow we ended up in here.”
Valentina rushed to explain, picking up on her dad’s distress. “Mommy’s clothes are in Grandma’s room ’cause we started off in there. Doesn’t Aunt Sadie look nice?”
LuAnn smiled, but there was a weariness in her eyes. Then again, she’d been traveling the past few days and was probably looking forward to a long soak in the tub. “She sure does. And it’s fine. You guys can rifle through my closet anytime.”
“Come on, Valentina, let’s put everything back,” offered Robin. Valentina sprang up, and LuAnn followed them out of the room.
Sadie took off the blazer and hung it back up, straightening the collar as she did so. She looped the scarf around the hanger and placed the jewelry back in the jewelry box. Lonnie had taken LuAnn’s carry-on from her and began unpacking it. The simple act of kindness on his wife’s behalf made Sadie’s heart melt.
“Sorry about all this, Lonnie. I meant to just go through Mom’s stuff.”
“Is there anything you want to keep of hers? I meant to ask you the other day.”
“Are you kidding? That goes against everything she stands for. Remember how she tossed out Dad’s clothes a week after he died?”
Pearl had done so the day after she’d caught Sadie weeping on the floor of his closet, enveloped in his favorite leather jacket. Pearl had gotten rid of the clothes not to punish Sadie, she knew, but to take away any conduit to sadness. She’d only wanted her children to be happy, which left no room for grief.
“I do. Remember what she baked the day after Dad’s funeral?” said Lonnie.
The image of a towering cake sitting on the kitchen counter came back to Sadie in a flash. “Of course. It was like a crazy seven-layer chocolate cake that normally you’d make for a birthday party or something.”
Lonnie started to laugh. “Double chocolate. I ate three pieces and then threw up. Haven’t touched one since.”
“She always said she liked to bake because it was scientific, that if you added the right ingredients at the right time, in the right order, you’d never go wrong.” She sighed. “I miss her.”
Lonnie’s shoulders slumped.
“You okay, big brother?”
“Yeah. I miss her, too. And it was a long day at work.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. “Same here.”
This made him laugh.
“Don’t laugh, librarians can have bad days. Maybe not that someone died during your shift, but still.”
“So someone talked too loudly?” He was grinning again; she liked it when he teased her.
“Actually, someone stole another rare book from the Berg Collection.”
He stored LuAnn’s carry-on in the closet and sat beside Sadie on the bed. “Another? How?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“They’ve hired this security consultant, so hopefully he’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Between the two of you, I have no doubt you will. How did the newsletters you found go over with the director?”
After everything that had happened the past week, the fact that Lonnie had remembered the small details of Sadie’s work life made her want to cry. “He’s interested, but he wants something more.”
“And he still doesn’t know you’re related to Laura Lyons?”
“To a suspected book thief? No. And I don’t plan on telling him. I’ve been rereading the few interviews Laura Lyons gave, and she blatantly refuses to talk about her time in New York. Something happened. I want to find out what, just as I want to find my missing books.”
LuAnn returned with an armful of her own clothes, having sent Robin and Valentina off to the park. Sadie explained what she needed the outfit for, and made sure to mention the detective’s involvement, to make it more official.
LuAnn nodded. “Of course. That blazer suits you, by the way. Literally.” She laughed at her own joke, which made Sadie laugh, too. “Lonnie, will you go and make us some tea?”
After he left, Sadie and LuAnn began rehanging everything back in the closet.
“How’s Valentina doing?” asked Sadie. “With my mom’s death, and all.”
“I’ve been away the past couple of days, but when I’ve called her around bedtime, she’s weepier than usual, asking questions about where Grandma went, wanting to talk about the morning when we realized she was gone. It was a shock, but she’s doing okay.” LuAnn paused, a faraway look on her face. “I remember when I was a little kid, my parents told us that they’d have to put our dog to sleep. Max was a big old hound, arthritic and slobbery, but had the sweetest disposition. They took him to the vet and came back and were upset, and I couldn’t really figure out why.”
“You thought they meant Max was just sleeping?”
“Exactly. But even after it had been explained, the loss didn’t resonate with me the way it did with them. I’d never seen my father cry before that. Of course, looking back now, I can see that the dog was part of their early life together, he represented so much. And since I’d never had a loss, I didn’t realize what it entailed.”
Sadie understood exactly what LuAnn meant. “After the first experience of the death of someone you love, each later one is exponentially more painful, because you know how hard it will be to recover from the loss.”
“Yes. I was trying to explain this to Lonnie last weekend, but he didn’t get it. I knew you would.”
Not for the first time, Sadie was grateful that Valentina had a mother like LuAnn, one who was willing to do the deep emotional dive, to examine what lay beneath the surface. Pearl had always refused. Yet she’d always been capable, tough, a survivor. But of what?
“How are you doing?” LuAnn asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“I’m fine. But I’m worried about what’s going on at the library, with the missing books.”