The Green Man by Michael Bedard Read Free Book Online

roots down in one place – this place.
    “One day I was out walking, wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life, and I found myself on this street. I looked up, saw that sign, and – well, now you’re going to think I’m a bit mad – it spoke to me somehow. I stood at the window awhile … and then I went in and looked around, and I discovered two of the little books I had loosed upon the wind sitting on the shelf in the poetry section. I plucked up the courage to introduce myself to the owner, and he recognized my name. I can’t tell you what a wonderful feeling that was!
    “I fell in love with the place. Pretty soon I was dropping by almost every day and got to know the owner quite well. He was a poet himself, a grand old creature from another era. He believed in poetry strongly enough that he shed his kindly influence on all who came near.
    “It was a quiet shop even then. So he was glad for the company, and I was eager to learn everything I could about the business. I knew I had found my home.
    “Well, things went on like that for a couple of years, and then, one day, he let it slip that he was thinking of retiring and was going to have to put the place up for sale. He asked if I might be interested. I jumped at the opportunity. I had already been working for some time in the shop by then and had learned quite a bit about the business. When I look back on it now, I see that he’d had his eye on me as his successor and had beenquietly teaching me what I’d need to know for some time.
    “Unfortunately, I hadn’t any money to speak of.
That
hasn’t changed. I tried to get a bank loan, but they turned me down flat. Poets, it seems, are poor credit risks.
    “Your father had already moved out West by then. I talked to him on the phone and told him about the offer to buy the shop. He asked the name of the place, and, when I told him, he asked me if it was in the west end – a corner shop with a carved sign. When I said yes, without so much as a pause he offered to loan me the money for the down payment.
    “He said he thought it was my destiny to have this shop. Now ‘destiny’ is a mighty big word, and it struck me as a strange thing for him to say. But I guess he was right. It
has
been my destiny. Over the years, this shop and I have come to fit together like hand and glove. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And I owe it all to your dear father. So that’s the story. Except –” She poured herself a cup of tea.
    “What?”
    “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
    “No, I won’t.”
    “I saw him today.”
    “Who?”
    “Your father. I was opening the shop after lunch, and I saw him standing outside.”
    “That’s impossible. Dad’s in Italy.”
    “All the same, I saw him. Not as he is now, but as he was as a boy.”
    O felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
    “He was standing outside the shop, looking at me through the window. When I walked toward him, he turned away. And by the time I got outside, he’d gone.” She picked up her tea and wandered off into the living room.
    “You must be mistaken,” said O, feeling a sense of unreality wash over her.
    “No, it was him, all right. I’d know that boy anywhere.” She set her tea on the edge of the book-cluttered coffee table and sat down.
    “What was he wearing?” O heard herself ask.
    “Well, you know, that was very odd. It looked like a pajama top.”
    “Long sleeves, with blue cuffs and collar,” O heard herself say.
    Her aunt stared at her. “That’s right. How do you know?”
    “After you went down to the shop, I was out on the deck going through one of the boxes from my room. I noticed a boy sitting on the wall at the end of the dead-end street, looking back at me. That’s what he was wearing. There was something familiar about him. But it can’t have been Dad. It was just someone who looked like he did back then.”
    “I suppose,” said Aunt Emily, sipping her tea, letting the silence wash over