For a little while, memory being unreliable and also, apparently, easily distracted, I almost forget all about River. But not really.
Two
Mab will not come with me because she does not want to see River. Or, to be more accurate, she wants to not see River.
Mama will not come with me because when I ask her if she wants to she says, “Over my dead body.” Which means no.
Mirabel will not come with me, but she turns away and will not say why, but it does not matter because it means I am out of people and have to go alone.
Nathan Templeton’s first campaign action was he brought me two binders containing Harburon Analytical’s extremely exacting, extremely thorough, extremely reassuring test results to lend from the library in case anyone wanted to borrow them. I said this was nice and responsible of him, but Mama and Mab and Mirabel all said that, to be more accurate, it was manipulative and disingenuous, so I shelved the binders behind the toilet, but no one came needing or even asking to borrow them anyway.
Next Nathan Templeton made his very own frisbees that read “Harburon Analytical Gives Belsum A+,” and he left these for anyone to take for free at cash registers and checkout lines and Frank’s Norma’s Bar and even, Pastor Jeff reports, at church. Mama said a stupid plastic toy in exchange for their lives not to mention justice not to mention self-respect is not a trade Bourners will make, but they are fun (the frisbees, not the Bourners) and come in many colors including yellow as well as green (so you could play in the rain since they are also waterproof) so Mama might be wrong.
Then Nathan Templeton printed posters and flyers with highlights from the test results and pictures of himself and put them up all over town. Mama defaced them, which should mean she removed his face but does not. But it was still funny.
Now, the night before the election, Nathan Templeton is having an open house, which means a party you can go to late and still not be rude. There are cookies and coffee and champagne and a slide show, and the slide show runs on a loop—in case you come politely late—and is all about the extremely exacting, extremely thorough, extremely reassuring test results.
I do not go just because I am invited. Everyone is invited.
I do not go for the cookies, even though he flew them in specially, because everyone knows cookies made by your mother are better than cookies bought from a store, even if that store is in Boston.
I do not go for the slide show because I read one of the binders he dropped off at the library (I did not have to read them both because they were exactly the same) so I know what the slide show shows.
I go to see Apple Templeton.
I ride my bicycle to my library all alone, even though I never ride anywhere all alone, even though it is very cold out, even though it is not my library anymore, and this time when I go in my eyes remember the last time they were here instead of all the times they were here before that. It looks less like a library now and more like a home because the Templetons have unpacked since the last time I was here but also because, now that my eyes know the history, they can see the home it was in the first place. And also the third place. The second place, when it was my library, turned out to be the short one. So my eyes feel very sad. The fancy kitchen in the Children’s section is full of the fancy cookies and other fancy treats, like tiny quiches that smell nice and are yellow, but I do not eat them anyway. There are a lot of people hanging around eating the snacks and watching the slide show and shaking hands with Nathan Templeton whose pants have become his expensive ones again and whose shirt and hair have both been ironed smooth. And in the corner, looking like how I sometimes want to be in the corner where it is quiet and safe and no one will touch you, is Apple Templeton.
No one is talking to her which is good because it means I can talk to her.
“Hello Apple Templeton,” I say politely.
“Monday Mitchell.” She makes a little smile which might mean happy to see me or might mean almost anything else. I cannot tell. “Glad you could make it.”
“You are?” I ask.
She looks surprised and like she does not know what to say but decides on “Sure.”
“Is it because of what I have brought you?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” She smiles more now. She might be happy someone brought her something. Or she might be laughing at me. “What have you brought me?”
I take the Elm/Hickory Grove folder out of my backpack and hand it to her. She looks at it, and her face gets yellow, but not in a good way, and I can tell that she can tell from the label what I could not, which is what is in the folder.
“I was looking for this,” she says, but she is not looking at me when she says it and might not even be talking to me.
“I know,” I say because I do.
“You do?” She looks up at me so my eyes look away. “How?”
“Omar told us you were looking through his files but did not find what you were looking for.” This is not a lie. Omar did tell a whole bar full of people including my mother and my sister that Apple Templeton was looking through his files and did not find what she was looking for. But it is sort of a lie in that it is not the whole truth or even the part of the truth that led us to this folder. That truth is hard to understand though, even for me, and might get my mother or sister in trouble, which I know would not be fair, so I do not tell her that part.
Her eyes looking for my eyes have tears in them. “Why are you giving these to me?”
“Because it is not accurate to say they are yours, but they are closer to yours than anyone else’s.”
She nods, and she hugs the folder, and she says, “That is very, very kind of you, Monday.”
So I say, “You are welcome,” which is polite, and then I turn around to leave, but then she asks me another question.
“Did you read them?”
“Yes,” I answer. “Many, many times.”
She nods and seems like she will not say anything else and then she says, “Are they bad?”
And I am surprised so I look at her to see what she means so she looks away because her eyes do not want to look at my eyes any more than my eyes want to look at hers. I do not know what to say so I do not say anything.
“My father didn’t know what was going to happen.” Her voice is very quiet.
“Lie,” I say.
Tears fall out of her eyes so she rolls them up to the painted-over ceiling of the Children’s section like it is still covered in rainbows and clouds. “He didn’t know it was going to be that bad,” she says. Then she adds, “This bad.” Then she adds, “What happened after my father sold the land wasn’t his fault. Our family wasn’t even here anymore.”
“Then why do you want the letters?” I wonder.
She nods like I have asked her a yes-or-no question to which the answer is yes. “People might not understand if they read them. They might not believe that what happened had nothing to do with my family.”
“Truth,” I say for they might not. As an example, I do not.
“Dad was just doing his job. Buying and selling land. That’s what he did. He didn’t know the chemical was poisonous or that it would get in the water or what would happen if it did.”
“He said effluvia,” I tell her. “He said he did not trust Duke Templeton. He said he was glad his family would be far away from Bourne when the plant opened.”