Then, out of nowhere and to no one in particular, she says, “Do you guys remember when the stained glass was put in the library window?”
“What, all the people reading books?” says Zach.
“Yeah.”
“Hasn’t that always been there?”
“No, no, remember it used to be a house?” says Tom.
“What kind of house?”
“For rich people.”
“Obviously.”
“Remember when there used to be money in Bourne?”
“No.”
They’re a chorus of memory, talking too fast for me to keep track from the corner of who’s saying what, overlapping and talking on top of one another, remembering together, misremembering together, correcting, hole plugging, tall-tale-ing. It’s not often these guys get to remember Bourne before. It’s not often they get to revel in recollection: of their childhoods, growing up, being teenagers then young adults, full of promise and in love and having children of their own, their whole lives in front of them, hope and dreams and all that. It’s another cruelty you never think of, almost incidental it’s so far down the list, but the bad memories paper over the good until the good ones are gone or so buried they’re forgotten. Today’s Bourne is less upsetting if you don’t remember the idyllic Bourne that used to be. I imagine once you’re an adult your childhood seems remote no matter where you live, but when your life and that of everyone you know blows apart, everything before isn’t remote. It’s gone.
“Remember when the library was just a room in the church basement?” says Tom.
“There was also the one at Bourne High”—Hobart laughs—“if fifty-year-old encyclopedias met your research needs.”
“Donating a library is serious philanthropy,” Frank says. “I mean, I love you guys, but I’m still not donating my home to you. ’Course mine wouldn’t hold a library.” Frank lives in a storage room above the bar. I live in a house which is nowhere near big enough, though it is, in fact, a library, but I take his meaning.
“Point is, it was a home,” Nora says. “A family residence. So they must have put the stained glass in sometime later.”
“How do you figure?” Hobart says.
“Because a family home doesn’t have a wall of stained glass on the front. And even if it did, it wouldn’t be of people reading.”
“Is that what they’re doing?”
“What do you think they’re doing? They’re all holding books.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t realize they were reading them.”
“What else do you do with books?”
“I dunno. Even the mountain lion has one.”
“Mountain lion?”
“Man, that’s a dog.”
“It’s not a dog.”
“It’s a dog.”
“Fine, it’s a dog. Mountain lion, dog, either way, it can’t read.”
They’re so happy reminiscing. They’re so happy debating something that couldn’t matter less. They feel forgiven maybe, or their sins at least forgotten. Their chatter makes a soft hum, and I might be falling asleep when the door opens and Omar comes in.
Nora takes him in, takes a deep breath. “Omar. You’ll be able to answer this question.”
For a beat, a look of pure gratitude sweeps his face—something changed when he told her he signed on to the lawsuit, and it’s stayed changed—then he wrestles his expression back to blasé, everyday; he’s just a guy in his hometown bar, shooting the shit with the bartender.
She pours him a beer. “Do you remember when they put the stained-glass window in the library?”
He thinks about it. “Was it right when they converted it or later?”
“None of us can remember.”
“Me neither.” He’s trying to think but having trouble concentrating because he’s so happy she’s talking kindly to him. “Must have been expensive.”
“Must have been,” Frank agrees.
“So I bet it was part of the original agreement.”
“What original agreement?” Nora asks.
“I don’t know the details—it was before my time—but I think the machinations were pretty complex. A lot of money changed hands, and I can’t imagine it was all on the up-and-up.”
“You think someone was bribed with a stained-glass mountain lion?” This is beyond Hobart’s imagining.
“It’s a dog!”