Read The Book of Illumination for Free Online

cabins at Girl Scout camp.
    A housekeeper, whom Sylvia introduced to me as Mrs. Martin, answered the door swiftly, greeted Sylvia warmly, and offered us banana bread, the nostalgic waft of which nearly brought tears to my eyes. Sylvia declined for us both
(Speak for yourself!
I felt like saying), so Mrs. Martin led us right up a formal staircase to Mr. Winslow’s second-floor study, where we were supposed to wait for Tad, who was on the phone. I longed for more than a glimpse of the first-floor rooms, being categorically in love with all things forlorn—falling-down houses, homely little kids in eyeglasses—but all I had time to notice were sheets covering the furniture, floors in need of refinishing, and large, dark rectangles on the faded wallpaper where paintings had formerly hung.
    The study was partially disassembled, and Sylvia sank down on a hassock as soon as Mrs. Martin closed the door. It
was
sad, and I didn’t even know him. Half of the books were gone from the shelves, and the drawers of the tables waiting to be taken to Skinner, where they were going to be auctioned off with the rest of the furniture the heirs didn’t want, had all been emptied out. Cardboardboxes under the windows were filled with papers, notebooks, and small, old volumes, and an open shoe box (Brooks Brothers) on top of Mr. Winslow’s desk held what I took to be the intimate contents of his top desk drawer: coins, old pens, a key chain, some faded Polaroids curling at the edges.
    I thought of my mother and father in one such photo, sitting in the sand at a beach on Lake Erie. It was taken before they were married, when I imagine that the word
husband
on my mother’s tongue still had the tang of a rare, exotic fruit. I can easily recall the image, the way she’s leaning in under my father’s arm, her head tilted slightly in the softening light, caught in the middle of a word she is speaking to whomever clicked the shutter. Ten years later, she was dead.
    We heard brisk, confident footsteps in the hall and Tad opened the door. He was probably in his late thirties, was uncommonly tall—six four or five—and had the healthy, even glow of a person who eats perfectly at all times, engages in regular, vigorous exercise (atop a polo pony? a windsurfing board? skis?), and drinks sparingly of very fine wine. As opposed to me, who gets her ass to the pool maybe three times a month, eats too little, followed by too much, and drinks whatever’s on sale in the two-for-ten-dollars bin. That Sancerre was a gift.
    Sylvia stood up and introduced us, identifying me as a bookbinder she had hired to help complete “the Winslow Collection.” The phrase brought a flicker of a smile to Tad’s lips.
    “That’s an unusual name,” he said to me.
    “It’s short for Speranza.”
    “Ah.”
    “Which means
hope,”
I blundered on. “In Italian.” I smiled weakly.
    He nodded vaguely. I could tell he wasn’t the least bit interested in either my name or me. He had a stack of books in his arms, and Sylvia hurried to clear off space on a nearby table.
    “Thank you for coming,” he said, laying the volumes down one by one. “These were in the boxes from Father’s office. I doubt they’re valuable, but I thought I’d have you look at them.”
    “Sure.” Sylvia picked up the first book and opened it to the flyleaf. I could see the faded, bubbly swirl of the marbled paper, which, from the looks of it, was probably French, probably mid—eighteenth century. I knew she wouldn’t be able to give Tad any definitive answers without examining the books closely and doing some research, so we’d probably be taking them all back to the Athenaeum with us. If I wanted to have a sneak peek at any more of the house, I had to act quickly.
    “Excuse me,” I said, “but would you mind if I used the ladies’ room?”
    Ladies’ room
. How ridiculous a term was that? It was silly to be embarrassed about asking to use the bathroom—I had potty-trained Henry with