Fred Thomas stood, flabbergasted. “For books?”
“Been out of school awhile?”
Fifty-eight years old and never having gone in the first place, Thomas said, “Something like that.”
Rosy picked through the stack, mostly anthologies. “You can save money buying second-hand. If your profs specified titles in their syllabus, public-domain material is free online.”
“Thanks, but money isn’t an object. Just sticker shock, I suppose.” Thomas hoisted his bag of books and headed into the late-summer sunshine. Sitting on a bench, he lifted each book out and rested it on his lap. As he placed the final book, things suddenly felt real.
“You’re actually doing this,” he said, then glanced up to see if anyone heard him. If they had, they were ignoring him or were so used to people talking on Bluetooth headsets that old men talking to themselves no longer merited recognition.
Sheila, his wife of thirty years, had passed a year before. When he began selling the business he’d spent a lifetime building, his son had intervened, fearing suicide. He wasn’t wrong. A psychiatrist recommended finding something he’d always wanted to do, but had never had time for.
Although he knew he was smart, like the Scarecrow in Wizard of Oz, he lacked certification. A diploma wouldn’t change who he was, but for four years it would give him a reason to live.
Not a bad exchange for a $250 lapful of books.
No comments:
Post a Comment