She said 'Regina?'
Can't tell you how fast a lump materialized out of nowhere in my throat. Thought I could choke on my own spit. A minute before I was perfectly fine. I had to say that, yes, that's us, but that my mother had died in December.
She eventually found me and my husband in the system. But then she said something about shutting down my mom's account, since it had been inactive from about 2012.
I felt like an ass, but I just stood there frozen. I wanted to let the words spill out of 'please, don't cancel the account'. I felt that if she canceled it, it would then be real. How could she not walk in here again? She loved the library so much. She was a Literacy Volunteer. My mom who had the balls to write to William Safire, the great grammarian and challenge something he printed once. Did you know he sent her a handwritten response. I guess she was 'that' kind of lady. One whose library card never expires.
All I could do was nod.
