What the Librarian Did Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rachel gasped and he broke away, raking both hands through his hair. “What! Did you get it?”
    She stared at him, unable to speak. Tall like his father, with his fairer hair. His eyes—shock jolted through her—were the same color as hers, but the shape was Steve’s. “It’s okay,” she croaked, pretending to flick something away. “It was a moth.”
    “A moth.” Shaking his head, Mark picked up his guitar case. “Jeez, the way you were going on I thought it had to be a paper wasp at least.”
    No, don’t leave . “You’ve heard of bookworms, haven’t you? Lethal to libraries.” Rachel memorized his features. “The term also applies to certain moth larvae. From the family oecophoridae .” Outwardly she smiled and talked; inwardly she splintered into tiny little pieces. “Of the order…now what was it?” My son, my baby. You grew up . “Starts with L. ”
    Mark shifted from one foot to the other.
    “Lepidoptera,” she said brightly. “Of the order Lepidoptera.” The tiny bundle treasured in her memory, gone forever. But her son—her grown son—was here, and the reality of him shredded her with love and pain and need.
    “Wow,” he said politely, stepping back from the counter. “That’s really interesting.”
    “Wait!”
    “Yeah?” He was impatient to get away from the crazy woman, and how could she blame him? With all her heart she wanted to say, I’m your mother.
    But she couldn’t.
    Two years earlier, she’d written a letter to the adoptive parents through the agency. If he ever wants to meet his birth mother, please give him my details .
    Their reply was devastating. In keeping with your wishes at the time, we’ve never told our son he was adopted. We’re very sorry at the pain this must cause you, but you must understand to do so now would be detrimental to our own relationship with him.
    “Have a good day,” she rasped.
     
    T HE WOMAN WAS A WEIRDO . No doubt about it. Mark stopped outside and shifted his guitar to his other shoulder so he could tuck the book into his backpack.
    He didn’t have a class for another hour and he stood uncertain, glancing across the narrow, tree-lined street bisecting the university. Buildings in this part of campus were angular and geometric, to Mark’s eyes, hard and unfriendly shapes for the university’s social heart, holding the student union, the theater and the student commons. It was lunchtime and he was hungry, but the overflowing cafeteria was too raucous. Too…intimidating. He’d wait until later, when it cleared out somewhat before grabbing something to eat.
    Coming from a small community where everyone knew everybody, he’d thought finding his birth mother would be relatively easy.
    But the university employed hundreds, and trying toaccess lists only led to awkward questions. He certainly couldn’t tell the truth.
    And he missed home. He missed his parents, which he kinda despised himself for because he hadn’t been all that nice to them before he’d left.
    He still couldn’t believe they weren’t really his. That all the things he’d built his identity on—inheriting Dad’s musical ability and Mom’s aptitude for math—were a lie.
    He wasn’t from the clan of Whites whose roots in the area went back four generations. His multitude of cousins weren’t his cousins and his grandparents weren’t his grandparents.
    A group of students swept down the footpath, laughing and horsing around, nudging him aside like he was invisible. His classes were made up of eighty to a hundred strangers in huge auditoriums…. In a week he’d never sat next to the same person twice.
    And so many of them seemed to know each other. How had they made friends so quickly? What was wrong with him that he couldn’t?
    He’d thought staying with his air hostess cousin in her city apartment would be cool, but Suz was away two weeks out of four. And when she was home, her boyfriend was nearly always over, so Mark tended to hang out in his room. The