She sat there and rummaged through the wreckage. A bookshelf. Her fingers traced long-forgotten titles and lingered on the brightly colored covers. They ached to flip back those covers and underline the childish words for her eyes. Her hand rested on the last book. It was a skinny one; actually it wasn’t even a real book. It had a cardboard cover with the shaky illustrations made by a child’s inexperienced hands. The stick people appeared to be a family. Two parents and two children. The one labeled ‘me’ was the oldest child, who held a small girl encircled in her arms labeled ‘little sister Georgia’. She flipped back the cover and this time allowed her eyes to follow her fingertips. The writing was hard to read. The crayon used to write with had rubbed off over the years, but the story was clear enough, only taking up 4 pages. The little girl went to each bedroom kissing the occupants good night. Then on the last page the girl was tucked into her own bed and a think bubble took up half the page.

“I love them so much!”

A tear glistened down the woman’s face and she set the book beside her. She began to replace the books back on the shelf and as she began to put the homemade book back a loud voice yelled,

“Hello?”

The woman flinched and the book dropped from her fingers.

“Who’s there? I got a bat!”

A young female stepped into the room and looked around. She lowered her bat slowly when she realized no one was there. She sighed and tried to calm her razzled nerves. Her gaze turned grim when she began to straighten up the room. She was slightly OCD, especially about this room. It was as she knelt by the bookshelf to swipe at imaginary dust specks that she noticed a little book on the floor. It lay open to the very last page with the little girl tucked into bed and the think bubble.

Georgia sat back on her heels and looked down at that little girl and silently began to cry. Her older sister died when she was only seven, 2 weeks after she had made that book. Georgia had helped her make it.

“I love them so much!”