Free Listening to Dust by Brandon Shire Page A

“I’ve still got all his books,” she said to no one. “And all those questions... he wanted to know so much.” Her face fell a little, perhaps as her memory drifted back behind the stark reality of his death; at the innocence that was wasted for the sake of propriety and the god these heathen people claimed to worship.  
    She took a deep breath and looked directly at Stephen. “I’d like you to take his books with you. Give them new life. I won’t be around much longer and they’ll just go in the dump once I’m dead.”  
    “Oh Miss Emily, you ain’t going nowhere anytime soon,” Robbie interjected.  
    She looked over at him and lifted her hand to cup his cheek. Stephen could see all the weathered years on the back of her hand as she held it there, and didn’t doubt her words. “I’ll be around long enough, Robbie, but I’m getting old and I’m more than weary. It’s just about time for me to see my Daddy again. You understand?”  
    Robbie glanced down at his plate, looking slightly disturbed at the idea. “Yes, ma’am.”  
    “Things will be all set up for you,” she told him. “It’s already been arranged.”  
    “What things?” Robbie asked.  
    “Never mind, Robbie. When the time’s right I’ll explain it a little more, okay? Now’s just not the time.”  
    He nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”  
    “Good boy,” she said as she patted his cheek and turned back to Stephen. “Could you do that for me?” she asked him. “With the books? I’ll pay the expense of shipping them.”  
    Stephen choked a little, his answer lost somewhere in his chest. “I...I guess I could. How many are there?” he asked her.  
    “Twenty years’ worth,” she said. “I used to buy him one every week, sometimes two.”  
    “That’s a lot of books,” Stephen answered, a little more than shocked at the thought of all those books, likely a small library’s worth. What would he do with them? They certainly wouldn’t fit in his little cottage in Aix, and he’d given up the flat in London. “Wouldn’t you want to donate them to the local library, or something?” he asked her.  
    “No. I wouldn’t,” she told him immediately. “They’d never appreciate them here and they don’t have the room for them. I’d like you to take them and if you don’t have room for them yourself, maybe you can find a home for them and donate them in Dustin’s name. There are still books in there he hasn’t read, books I bought when he was overseas, with you. It’s not all children’s titles.”  
    He nodded cautiously, unsure if he wanted to commit himself to it. “I’ll see what I can do.”  
    She nodded her head in return and took a sip of her iced tea. “He was such a beautiful boy, Stephen, so full of spirit and energy and passion,” she said absently, staring at the glass as she put it down in front of her. “Every time he came back to me he was hung up in all the labels hammered into him rather than in the beauty of what he could be. He had so much to offer.”  
    She looked up and straight into Stephen’s eyes. “Every time he came back to me wounded like that, except when he came back from you.” Her eyes misted over. She fished a laced handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.  
    “I...” Stephen tried as pinwheels rolled around in his gut, but he was caught speechless once again.  
    “You changed him,” Miss Emily said. “You opened him up to what I could only show him in books. When he left I was afraid the service would only harden his heart, but you showed him what it was actually for. There aren’t many people that can do that to a person such as he was.”  
    Stephen closed his eyes for a moment as a barrier against her words. “Miss Emily, I didn’t give him anything. He already had all that. If anything, he gave to me. ”  
    “There’s having and there’s owning, young man. And what you just said only reaffirms what I’m telling