Should Have Known Better

I looked over at Sharika, but she was still looking down the hallway.

I turned to see Mrs. Harris heading toward us. Her head high. Her arm holding a book. She walked past our puzzled eyes and to the help desk.

“I’ll be checking this out,” she said with a forced air of sophistication.

Sharika and I went back to the desk, leaving the cart in the middle of the floor.

I took the book—The Great Gatsby—from her and held out my hand for her card without a word.

Mrs. Harris went looking in her purse, tossing things around and talking to herself.

Sharika, who was now right over my shoulder, looked at me.

A tear fell into Mrs. Harris’s purse.

“Can’t ever find anything in here,” she said, her sophisticated voice broken. “Can’t find nothing.”

“No one’s waiting in line,” I pointed out. “You can have more time—”

“I don’t need more time. I’ve had enough time!”

Sharika and I looked at each other again.

“I’ve given time and I’ve had time and I can’t do this anymore.”

She shut the purse suddenly, with no card in her hand and just looked up toward the ceiling.

“Everything OK?” I asked.

Sharika handed her a tissue from her desk.

She wiped her tears.

“I am not sleeping with that man,” she said tightly.

“OK . . .” Sharika said. “Well, what are you doing with him?”

I nudged her in the ribs.

“What?” Sharika asked. “She brought it up.”

“But it’s not our place to—”

“I’ve been married fifty-three years,” Mrs. Harris said as if we hadn’t said anything and she wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. “Left my mother’s house when I was twenty-two years old to be with Eldridge David Harris, a boy from my high school who was in Germany shooting guns and wanted to take me around the world. I was a new woman. Had nice shoes and long fingernails.” She looked down at her wrinkled hands and I saw that her wedding ring was on her right hand. “And I was ready to see the whole world. And I knew he could show me.” She paused. “The farthest we made it was Augusta. Right into his mother’s house. I hated it. I started to hate him and that house. It wasn’t what I wanted. Where was my world? Where were his promises? I felt like he’d tricked me with all of his big talk. Instead of the world, he gave me three babies and a broom. I wanted to leave so many nights. But I stayed. I made a life with him, because that’s what I said I was going to do. I guess I’m too old to see the world now.”

I slid the book down onto the counter.

“But that man”—she pointed to the closed doors Mr. Lawrence had just slammed—“he reminds me of that woman. How she smelled. How she walked. How she could tell a joke. Keep all eyes on her. With all of his faults, he does that for me. He brings me . . . joy.” She looked into my eyes and shook her head. “But I can’t put him through this anymore. I can’t continue to lie to him or lie to myself. I’m too old to love again like that. Fifty-three years? I can’t leave my husband. If I walk away, it’s like I’m leaving my life”—she paused—“for him.”

She slid the book back toward me.

“You girls are young—”

“Girls?” Sharika stopped her.

“Yes, girls,” Mrs. Harris said again. “You’re young. You still have a whole life to live. If there’s something you want, you go out and get it. You see the world and don’t wait for nobody to show it to you. You can do it. Don’t let that be a mystery you discover when it’s too late.”

She picked up her purse and placed it gracefully on her forearm before pursing her lips to find some part of the composure she’d always had. She nodded to us and began walking to the door.