Page 60 of Charlotte

After a moment, he looked away. “You’ll want clean paper.”

“I have some.”

“And weight.”

“Books are useful for that.”

His mouth almost surrendered a smile. “They would be.”

The little girl bounced on her toes. “Can we press this one?”

“If Miss Bellamy allows it,” Peterson said.

Lottie’s heart gave an unexpected squeeze at the ease with which he had made the library hers in front of others.

“I allow it,” she said.

The next ten minutes became a lesson.

Peterson did not take charge. He stood beside the table and offered what he knew only when asked, as if knowledge was something to lend, not something to rule a room. He explained camas, salal, foxglove, and the wild roses that grew near the road where the trees opened to sun.

“Foxglove is pretty,” he said, tapping the engraving lightly with his left forefinger. “Not for tea.”

Mrs. Beck paused with a cookie halfway to her mouth. “Who is making tea from foxglove?”

“Foolish people,” Peterson said.

Mrs. Hanford nodded. “Then we shall add a rule.”

“No eating the library flowers?” Cornelia suggested.

“That seems broadly wise,” Lottie said.

The little girl laughed. Peterson’s mouth moved in response, quick and unguarded. Lottie saw the smile begin before he caught it. She liked that smile more than she had any right to like something so small.

They pressed the camas between two sheets of paper, then slid it into an old account book Cornelia had donated for scrap. Peterson used his left hand for most of the work. When the flower shifted, his right hand came forward to steady the page. Lottie kept her gaze on the flower and gave him the dignity of ordinary silence.

His fingers were scarred and stiff, the two shortened ones resting awkwardly against the paper. He held the page down just long enough for Lottie to smooth the stem into place. For one breath, her gloved hand worked beside his injured one, close enough that she could see the pale pull of old frostbite across his knuckles.

She wanted to say something kind.

Instead, she said, “If we press it crooked, Mrs. Hanford will create a rule about botanical posture.”

Peterson’s thumb shifted on the page. “That would be a hard rule to enforce,” he said.

“Not for Mrs. Hanford.”

“No. I suppose not.”

The flower lay flat at last.

Lottie closed the account book and placed Shakespeare on top of it.

Peterson looked at the stack. “That’s a heavy press.”

“Mr. Shakespeare enjoys feeling important.”

“He does strike me that way.”