I looked at the destroyed copy of Goodnight Moon. Held together by tape and hope and fifty-two years of desperate prayers.
“I’m going to keep it,” I said. “Right here on my desk. To remind me why I became a librarian.”
“My mama would’ve liked you,” he said.
Then he walked out into the night.
That was three months ago.
Thomas comes in every Tuesday now. He’s working his way through the children’s section. Says he wants to read all the books his mama never got to read to him.
His cancer is progressing. He’s thinner each week. Weaker. But he still rides his motorcycle to the library. Still washes his hands before touching the books. Still treats each one like it’s sacred.
Last week, he brought his wife. A kind-looking woman named Marie who held his hand while he showed her around the library.
“This is where I got my second chance,” he told her. “This is where I finally let go of fifty years of shame.”
She hugged me. Whispered “thank you” in my ear.
“Stories save lives,” he told them. “I’m living proof.”
Yesterday, Thomas brought me something. A handwritten letter in an envelope.
“Don’t read it until after I’m gone,” he said. “Promise me.”
I promised.
He’s in hospice now. Marie calls me every few days with updates. The doctors say it won’t be long.
But every night, she reads to him. Goodnight Moon. The new copy I gave him. She says he falls asleep with a smile on his face.
The old copy still sits on my desk. I look at it every day. A reminder that books are more than paper and ink. They’re lifelines. They’re prayers. They’re the voices of the people we’ve lost, preserved forever in pages.
He returned it fifty-two years later to make peace with his past.
And in doing so, he reminded me why I’ve spent twenty-three years in this library.
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