The Purpose of Words and Stories

By Peter Bowden
She read to him when the house had settled into its quiet, the echo of a day’s commotion softening into the hush of evening. Her voice, steady and warm, carried the rise and fall of stories about knights and wild things, about boys who flew and ships that never returned. The little lamp beside them cast its amber glow, pooling like syrup on the pages as she turned them, the worn spine creaking with each chapter, the air around them rich with the musty perfume of paper and print. He leaned into her side, head resting against the crisp cotton of her sundress, the fabric still carrying the cool, clean bite of fresh air and sunlit laundry, mingled with the faintest hint of summer blooms..

They walked the narrow aisles of the library together, the shelves towering like old trees, their branches bending low with the weight of words. Her hand held his, small fingers lost in the warm grasp of a mother who knew the value of words, the way they could fill a mind with wonder or soothe a child’s fears in the dark. She encouraged him to choose books beyond his years, knowing the possibilities words and stories could unlock. The librarians knew her by name, a kind woman with a soft smile and gentle eyes, the American-born daughter of Polish immigrants, carving her own path while planting deep roots in the rich soil of her children’s lives.

Years later, long after her voice had faded into the quiet of memory, he would stand in the dim light of the same library, his hand brushing the spines of the books they had read together. The echoes of her whispered stories still lingered, the words worn into the bones of the place, into the grain of the oak shelves, into the very breath of the air he inhaled. He smiled, knowing that she had given him not just the gift of language, but a sense of belonging, a grounding in the stories of his family and the boundless worlds they had explored together.

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