The Library Of Gromma
Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilt, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library.
He walked through that vast, tall chamber. He pictured himself and Bernard, when they’d been small, ducking and diving and climbing through the web of containers, pulleys, cogs and gears. Bernard confidently shunting wooden switches and cranking metal levers, swinging from the iron scaffold to reach the highest contraptions in the up, up, up. Zac himself clambering after his older brother, pretending to do the things his brother could.
He looked at the guts of a broken contraption strewn across the floor. Hours and hours he’d spent, and he still had no idea how to put the pieces back together. No idea how to get the memories back.
Mr. Adamson with the bushy beard could fix it. Perhaps he was the only one left who could. Had he really returned, like the villagers had said?
As usual, Zac had been up early to collect water from the meager stream in the valley. He took it into the shed where he and Gromma slept. She was already sitting there on the side of the bed, her hair all up on one side, a deep frown across her wrinkled brow.
“Robert?” she greeted him, squinting. Robert had been Zac’s dad.
“It’s Zac, Gromma,” he said, smiling and patting her hair down.
“Zac, that’s right. And will Rebecca be along soon?” Rebecca had been Zac’s mum. Zac knew Gromma didn’t really think she’d be along soon; it was just that Gromma got cloudy outside of the library. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, she will be here any minute.”
Gromma smiled and her thoughts soon drifted onto something else.
“Don’t forget, Robert,” she said authoritatively, wagging a finger in the air, “I met Rebecca’s father – Joseph Bauman – in a library. He would be proud of what we’ve achieved here. He was… now what was he doing? Tell me, what were we talking about just then?” She rubbed her frail fingertips together anxiously.
“Groppa – Joseph Bauman,” Zac said, which encouraged her to smile and keep talking. Soon she was hopping and skipping onto other topics, and she was never going to stop, so Zac stood her up and helped her wash. Her skin felt like cold wet cloth draped loose across her bones. Lifting her up was one of the few things that got easier day by day, since she grew smaller while he grew bigger. He was now 11 (and three-quarters). Helping her wash and sorting out her toilet troubles was not nice work, but who else was going to do it? Mum had shown him and Bernard how to do it all, only last summer, when she’d been growing weaker. He’d had to do it for her too. He could still hear mum’s voice, telling him not to be scared.
He wanted mum to be proud of him. Was asking Mr. Adamson to help with the library the right way to do that?
She used to tell him she was proud of him all the time. Bernard will be the head engineer and you’ll be the head librarian, he heard her saying in her voice that’d gotten all wheezy. I’ll be the only librarian! he remembered replying, half with humor and half with fear. Her laugh.
Zac lifted Gromma to her I need this thing? If you say so, dear.”
