"Well, my husband was in World War Two and my son was in Vietnam, and they both said it was quieter over there than here with me," she says with a sly little smile. Her hair is steely white and one can feel the resolve that lies beneath it.
The air in the library was almost completely still, the stultifying not-calm that falls in a space where the apathetic air conditioner vents have lost hope. It oppressed our minds, paring conversation down to trivialities couched in quaint Pennsylvania expressions and a sporadic redundant "mhm."
Staying alert was a struggle, but not for her, the icy-haired lady, who moves around the desk, ponderous but inexorable. Small children arrive at the counter with armfuls of picture books they can barely lift onto the scarred wooden surface, their mothers lingering indulgently behind, and she turns her sharp gaze on them.
"We all set then?" Her suddenly kindly tone is incongruous with the strength of her presence, and the eyes of the children standing before her are round and filled with awe.
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