The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2022

66 The Meadow One day I’m going to get carpal tunnel from the monotony that is shelving customers’ holds. Most of my coworkers go out of their way to avoid it, but I don’t mind the task. It’s better than having to interact with the public. Plus I like to turn it into a game. For example: based on their book preferences, which customers would likely sleep together? (The Lowland and On Beauty—literary types tend to stick together). Or which customers would be able to survive the zombie apocalypse? (A Dance with Dragons and Middlemarch—anyone able to commit to such long books could throw down with a zombie or two). Sometimes I try to string together the book titles sitting side by side: The Husband’s Secret City of Bones; If I Stay Wild; Unravel Me, Bossypants; And The Mountains Echoed the Secret History. Once a local writer hosted a library program where she helped people write six-word memoirs. It seemed a little reductive at first but then I started thinking up one for my sister and found it surprisingly easy: Unstable woman-child adventures at others’ expense. It started with little things when we were kids. A pair of silver hoop earrings at the mall. Teacups from our aunt’s good China. Then a cat from a shelter, a neighbor’s laptop, a stop sign. Sometimes we found the things she took; other times she hid them so well they were never seen again. About six months ago, Brigid went to a dealership to test drive a car, which she then stole. For weeks, both my parents and the police scoured the city for her. Normally I stay out of her mess, but then I saw her driving downtown in a car I’d never seen. Without thinking, I did a U-turn and followed her to a dingy apartment complex near the university. The car turned out to be another one entirely, not the one she took from the dealer, which still has yet to turn up. When I called my mother, she lamented, “I hate to say it, but I think your sister belongs in jail right now.” I should have known her tough love wouldn’t stick, though.

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