I found the cottage’s back porch to be a lovely little spot for organizing my daily to do list by priority as I waited for the pot of coffee to brew. I’d slept. Like a coma patient. And when my eyelids popped open at 6:15 on the dot, I’d tip-toed across the hall to Waylay’s room and peeked in to make sure my niece was still there.
She was. Tucked between fresh sheets in a white four-poster bed.
I stared down at my list and tapped the end of a blue highlighter against the page. I needed to contact my parents and let them know I was alive and not having some kind of breakdown. But I wasn’t sure how much else to tell them.
Hey, guys, you remember your other daughter? The one who gave you migraines for twenty years before she vanished from our lives? Yeah, well, she has a daughter who has no idea you exist.
They’d disembark from their cruise ship in a hot minute and be on the first plane headed in our direction. Waylay had just been abandoned by her own mother and was now under the roof of an aunt she’d never met.
Introducing grandparents into the mix might not be the best idea this soon out of the gate.
Plus, it was my parents’ first vacation together in ten years. They deserved three weeks of peace and quiet.
The choice was only partially weighted in favor of the fact that I wouldn’t have to come up with a diplomatic way to explain that they had missed out on the first eleven years of their only grandchild’s life. Yet. I didn’t like doing things until I knew the exact right way to do them. So I would wait until I knew Waylay a little better and my parents were back from their anniversary cruise, well-rested and ready for crazy news.
Satisfied, I collected my notebook and highlighters and was just about ready to stand when I heard the distant squeak of a screen door.
Next door, Waylon trotted down the back stairs into the yard, where he promptly lifted his leg on a dead spot he clearly enjoyed using as a toilet. I smiled, and then the muscles of my face froze when another movement caught my eye.
Knox “The Viking” Morgan strolled off the deck in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. He was all man. Muscles, chest hair, tattoos. He stretched one arm lazily overhead and scratched the back of his neck, creating a picture of sleepy testosterone. It took me a full ten seconds of open-mouthed ogling to realize the man, like his dog, was peeing.
My highlighters flying made a rapid-fire racket as they hit the wooden planks beneath me. Time froze as Knox turned in my direction. He was facing me with one hand on his… Nope.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I left my highlighters where they were and fled for the safety of the cottage, all the while congratulating myself for not trying to get a better look at Knox Jr.
“Why’s your face so red? You get sunburnt?”
I let out a shriek and crashed back against the screen door, nearly falling out onto the porch.
Waylay was standing on a chair trying to reach the Pop-Tarts I’d hidden above the fridge.
“You’re so jumpy,” she accused.
Carefully, I closed the door, leaving all thoughts of urinating men in the outside world. “Put the Pop-Tarts down. We’re having eggs for breakfast.”
“Aww. Man.”
I ignored her disdain and placed the house’s only skillet on the stove.
“How do you feel about going to the library today?”
THE KNOCKEMOUT PUBLIC LIBRARY was a sanctuary of cool and quiet in the Virginia summer swelter. It was a light, bright space with white oak shelves and farm-style work tables. Pairs of overstuffed armchairs were clustered by the tall windows.
Just inside the door was a large community bulletin board. Everything from piano lessons to yard sale announcements and charity bike rides dotted the corkboard in evenly spaced increments. Beneath it sat a gray-washed table displaying several genres of books from steamy romance to autobiographies to poetry.
Glossy green plants in blue and yellow pots added life on shelves and sunny, flat surfaces. There was a colorful kids section with bright wallpaper and a rainbow of floor cushions. Quiet instrumental music murmured from hidden speakers. It felt more like a high-end spa than a public library. I approved.
Behind the long, low circulation desk was a woman who caught the eye.
Tan skin. Red lipstick. Long, sleek blonde hair streaked with a warm purpley-pink. The frames of her glasses were blue and a tiny stud winked in her nose.
The only thing that screamed “librarian” about her was the large stack of hardbacks she carried.
“Hey, Way,” she called. “You got a line already upstairs.”
“Thanks, Sloane.”
“You have a line for what?” I asked.
“Nothing,” my niece mumbled.
“Tech support,” the attractive and surprisingly loud librarian announced.
“We get a lot of older folks who don’t have access to their own eleven-year-olds to fix their phones and Kindles and tablets.”
I recalled Liza’s comment at dinner the night before.
Which made me recall Knox and his penis this morning.
Whoops.
“The computers are over there near the coffee bar and the restrooms, Aunt Naomi. I’ll be on the second floor if you need anything.”
“Coffee bar?” I parroted, trying not to think of my nearly naked next-door neighbor.
But my charge was already striding purposefully past the book stacks toward an open staircase in the back.
The librarian tossed me a curious look as she shelved a Stephen King novel. “You’re not Tina,” she said.
“How’d you know?”
“I’ve never seen Tina so much as drop Waylay off here, let alone willingly cross the threshold.”
“Tina’s my sister,” I explained.
“I gathered that from the whole you look almost exactly alike thing. How long have you been in town? I can’t believe there hasn’t been a trail of hot gossip blazed to my doorstep.”
“I got in yesterday.”
“Ah. My day off. I knew I shouldn’t have buried myself in my fourth rewatch of Ted Lasso,” she complained to no one. “Anyway, I’m Sloane.”
She juggled novels in order to hold out a hand.
I shook it tentatively, not wanting to dislodge the twenty pounds of literature she still held. “Naomi.”
“Welcome to Knockemout, Naomi. Your niece is a godsend.”
It was nice hearing good things about the Witt family around here for a change.
“Thank you. We’re, uh, just getting to know each other, but she seems smart and independent.”
Annnnd hopefully not too damaged.
“Wanna see her in action?” Sloane offered.
“I want it even more than a visit to your coffee bar.”
Sloane’s ruby red lips curved. “Follow me.”
I followed Sloane up the open staircase to the second floor, which housed even more book stacks, more seating, more plants, and a few private rooms off to one side.
In the back was another long, low desk under a hanging sign that said Community. Waylay sat on a stool behind the desk, frowning at an electronic device. The device’s owner, an elderly Black man in a crisp button-down and trousers, leaned on the counter.
“That’s Hinkel McCord. He’s 101 years old and reads two books a week.
He keeps messing with the settings on his e-reader,” Sloane explained.
“I swear it’s the damn great-grandkids. Those sticky-fingered little punks see an electronic device and they go after it like kids went after sticks and candy in my day,” Hinkel complained.
“She started coming in here a couple times a week after she and your sister moved here. One afternoon some virus software update was giving the entire system shit, and Waylay got tired of listening to me yell at the computer. She popped behind the desk and voilà.” Sloane wiggled her fingers in the air. “Fixed the whole damn thing in less than five minutes. So I asked her if she minded helping out a few other folks. I pay her in snacks and letting her check out double the number of books everyone else is allowed.
She’s a great kid.”
I suddenly just wanted to sit down and cry. Apparently my face telegraphed just that.
“Uh-oh. You okay?” Sloane asked, looking concerned.
I nodded, willing away the damp from my eyes. “I’m just so happy,” I managed to choke out.
“Oh, boy. How about a nice box of tissues and an espresso?” she suggested, guiding me away from a group of senior citizens settled around a table. “Belinda, I have the latest Kennedy Ryan novel you were asking for.”
A woman with a puff of white hair and a large crucifix nearly buried in her impressive cleavage clapped her hands. “Sloane, you are my favorite human being.”
“That’s what they all say,” she said with a wink.
“Did you say espresso?” I whimpered.
Sloane nodded. “We have really good coffee here,” she promised.
“Will you marry me?”
She grinned, and her nose stud sparkled. “I’m mostly into men these days.
There was that one time in college.”
She guided me into an annex with four computers and a U-shaped counter. There was a sink, dishwasher, and a small refrigerator with a sign that said FREE WATER. Coffee mugs hung from cute hooks.
Sloane headed directly for the coffee maker and got to work. “You look like at least a double,” she observed.
“I wouldn’t say no to a triple.”
“I knew I liked you. Have a seat.”
I planted myself at one of the computers and tried to compose myself.
“I’ve never seen a library like this,” I said, desperate to make small talk that wouldn’t render me an emotional lump of feelings.
Sloane flashed a smile at me. “That’s what I like to hear. When I was a kid, the local library was my sanctuary. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that it still wasn’t accessible to everyone. So I went to school for library science and public administration, and here we are.”
She set a cup in front of me and returned to the machine. “It’s all about community. We’ve got free classes on everything from sex education and budgeting to meditation and meal-prepping. We don’t have a huge homeless population here, but we’ve got locker rooms and a small laundry facility in the basement. I’m working on free after-school programs to help families who can’t swing the cost of daycare. And of course there’s the books.”
Her face went soft and dreamy.
“Wow.” I picked up my coffee, sipped, then said wow again.
A soft chime sounded over the music.
“That’s the Bat Signal. Gotta go,” she said. “Enjoy your coffee, and good luck with your feelings.”
NAOMI WITT CHECKING ACCOUNT BALANCE: Overdrawn.
Suspected fraud.
DEAR MOM & Dad,
I’m alive, safe, and completely sane. I swear. I’m so sorry I left like that. I know it was uncharacteristic. Things just weren’t working out with Warner and…I’ll explain some other time when you’re not sailing off to paradise.
In the meantime, have a wonderful time and I forbid you from worrying about me. I stopped in a charming little town in Virginia and am enjoying the volume the humidity gives my hair.
Soak up some sun and send me proof of life pictures every day.
Love,
Naomi
P.S. I almost forgot. There was a teensy accident with my phone and unfortunately it didn’t survive. Email is the best way to communicate for now! Love you lots! Don’t worry about me!
DEAR STEF,
I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me! We need to talk soon. But not on my phone since I ran over it at a rest stop in Pennsylvania.
Funny story. You’d think me running out on the wedding was the big news. (You looked great, by the way.) But the bigger whammy is my sister called me out of the blue, robbed me, and left me with a niece I didn’t know existed.
Her name is Waylay. She’s an eleven-year-old tech genius and underneath the bored facade might be a girly girl. I need reassurances that I’m not adding to her trauma.
I’m trying to be the cool yet responsible aunt in this place called Knockemout, where the men are unreasonably attractive and the coffee is excellent.
I’ll be in touch as soon as I get my bearings. There was an incident with my car and my checking account. Oh and my laptop.
I’m still sorry. Please don’t hate me.
Kisses,
N
TINA,
This is the last email address I have for you. Where the hell are you?
How could you leave Waylay? Where’s my freaking car? Get your ass back here. Are you in trouble?
Naomi
KINSHIP GUARDIAN TO DO LIST:
Complete guardianship application, plus background check Participate in three face-to-face interviews with applicant Provide three character references (experience with children and caretaking)
Home study
