Chapter 8 - Dispatches From a Slow Collapse
Renee texted me on a Tuesday afternoon.
Renee Callahan was the head librarian at the Hollis Bend Public Library and the one person in that town who had never set foot at a Radford cookout. She wasn't in their orbit. She'd stamped my book returns for three years and eventually started slipping me novels she thought I'd like.
*Wesley came into the library today,* she wrote. *Asked if I knew where you were. He looks rough. Hasn't shaved. Hasn't slept, from the looks of it.*
I stared at it a while before I typed back. *What did you tell him?*
*That I didn't know. Because I don't. Not officially.*
Then a longer message. *The shop website went down last week. Nobody has the hosting login. Wesley's been calling the internet company trying to restore it and they keep telling him they need the account holder's email, which is yours.*
I didn't answer that one.
A minute later: *The August cookout happened. Or tried to. Gloria did everything herself. Burned the chicken. The macaroni salad tasted like somebody read the recipe once and quit halfway through. Twelve people came. Uncle Ray said the meat was dry.*
I read it twice. I waited to feel satisfaction, or maybe guilt. What I felt was quieter than both. A tired recognition, like watching someone trip over the same crack in the sidewalk I'd been stepping around for three years.
*Also,* Renee added, *Gloria's telling the church you had some kind of breakdown and left because of "issues."*
*Let her,* I typed.
May you like
One more came. *Wesley moved back in with Gloria. Couldn't keep up the house alone. Mortgage.*
I closed the app and went back to work.
