Page 47 of Charlotte

Then his mouth moved.

“Best mind yourself, Luke,” he said, still looking at Lottie. “Miss Bellamy has books enough to flatten a man.”

Luke grinned. “Yes, sir.”

Peterson tucked Tennyson carefully beneath his arm, picked up the nail box with his left hand, and walked toward the door.

At the threshold, he paused.

“Miss Bellamy.”

“Yes?”

He did not turn all the way back. “The shelf will hold.”

Lottie smiled. “I know.”

He looked over his shoulder then. “You know because I built it?”

“No,” she said. “I know because you cared whether it would.”

For a moment, the whole of him seemed caught there in the doorway. Then he looked down and left.

This time, he carried one of her books with him. The meeting hall remained quiet for three entire seconds, then Mrs. Schulte released a breath. “Well.”

Delly closed the ledger. “That was not nothing.”

Lottie kept her gaze on the open door. Peterson’s footsteps had already faded into the street, but the room felt changed by his having been there. The shelf stood against the wall, plain and sturdy. The first books waited in their places. Tennyson was gone.

Not lost.

Borrowed.

“No,” Lottie said softly. “It was not nothing.”

Delly came to stand beside her. For once, she did not warn, correct, or measure the moment out loud.

After a while, she said, “He did not write his first name.”

“I saw.”

“He keeps it close.”

“Yes.”

“That may be wise.”

Lottie looked at her sister. “Or lonely.”

Delly’s expression folded into concern before she could hide it.

“I am not trying to save him, Odelia,” Lottie said.

“I know you believe that.”

“No.” Lottie turned back to the shelf. The Bible, primer, botany book, Moonstone, Dickens, and Shakespeare stood together in the late afternoon light, a whole future balanced on fresh brackets and stubborn hope. “I am trying to know him.”

Delly was silent. Lottie was at least hoping for an argument. At last, her sister reached over and straightened Shakespeare by a quarter inch. “Then know him carefully.”