Chapter 32

My gasp may have sucked in all the remaining air from the neighborhood. Several seconds passed before I noticed that the old man was waiting for me to shake his hand, introduce myself, or close my mouth. I couldn’t manage to do any of those things.

“Joshua Silver? Dr. Joshua Silver? That’s you?”

He nodded. “Joshua Greenwood Silver. And you’re Greta, as I recall.”

That bumped me out of the zone, and I took his offered hand. “Greta Roxanne Elliott.” 

“A pleasure to meet you officially, Miss Elliott.”

He took a step back, but I didn’t let go of his hand, and my mouth ran off without my brain. “You’re my hero. You’re the notorious civil-rights activist hero of Franklin. You’re the man who integrated the Midwest. I have a historical crush on you.” I slapped my other hand over my mouth to stop myself. A little too late.

“And you seem to have a tendency toward overstatement.” He removed his hand from my clutch and turned to look at the lot and the gathering crowd. “You also have something of the activist in you.”

Was he angry? He hadn’t seemed angry before, but now his back was to me and I couldn’t tell.

“Joshua Greenwood Silver?” This was probably not the most important part of the conversation we were having, but it was the part my brain stuck on. “Was your mom a Greenwood?”

He looked surprised. “Yes. Her name was Evelyn. She lived in this house.”

I may have done another gasp. “I know. She sparked in the back garden with a man named Walt.”

He either laughed or cleared his throat. Maybe both. “Walter Silver is my father’s name.”

If I clapped my hands together, I did so quietly. “I have a package of their love letters at the library,” I said. “You have to come and see them.”

Mr. Greenwood-turned-Dr. Silver possibly decided that I’d dodged the important subject long enough.

“What’s in the barrel, Miss Elliott?”

I pointed to the side of the house where I’d cleared out the junk around the lot. “A few dozen phone books from the pile. I only used the most damaged ones.” I couldn’t believe how calm I felt telling this man I’d stolen his garbage and lit it on fire in his driveway. When I took a deep breath, I smelled the reek of hot rubber and felt compelled to continue my confession. “And a tire, but it was in the barrel already. A few squirts of hand sanitizer to make it start burning fast. I learned that in high school chemistry.”

He looked over his shoulder at me, one eyebrow raised. “You’re staging a protest on my property.”

I started to fidget. “Actually, there’s a property easement in the gravel there.” I pointed to the lot. It occurred to me that if I had planned to deny my involvement, I’d waited too long. “Dr. Silver, I love this library. I just wanted to stir people up so they’d remember they love it, too.”

He turned to face me again. “I understand the urge.”

A laugh escaped my mouth. My shoulders relaxed, and I looked back to the burning barrel.

“And,” he continued, as if a chatty conversation about radicalism late at night on his porch in November wasn’t at all strange, “I understand the connection one can feel to a beautiful old building.”

My thoughts were uncharitable at best. Right. You love this house so much that you cover it in garbage. I glanced at him to see if he heard my thoughts.

Possibly.

“Look inside, if you please.” He reached over and opened the front door. Dim lamplight revealed an immaculate living room decorated with what looked to me like gorgeous antique furniture. The paintings on the walls were tasteful and elegant. He looked at me to make sure I’d seen, then closed the door.

“It’s a historical monument, this old house. It’s on the register. There’s a marker.” He waved behind his back, somewhere toward the street, in a dismissive gesture. “The building is important to the historical society.” He looked at me again. “The building. Not who lives in it now, or who may have lived in it before. So according to the powers that be”—the lift of his eyebrow left me in no doubt of his feelings—“I must not throw anything away that belongs to the home.”

He stopped talking, and I waited. Nothing else seemed to be coming, and so I followed his gaze to the piles of trash and junk littering his porch and lot.

When understanding hit me, it hit hard. An unfeminine “Ha!” escaped my mouth. Followed by, “You’re protesting?” The words came out faster, louder, and far higher in pitch than I’d intended. “The garbage, the mess—it’s in protest?”

He could have been offended. He probably should have been. But when he looked at me, I saw his eyes crinkled up. The half-smile on his face made him look at least a decade younger. He didn’t answer, exactly—he just gave a single nod. We had achieved an understanding.

“How many years have you been staging this particular protest?”

He didn’t answer the question directly. “When my employment situation changed suddenly several decades ago,” he said, “I found refuge in this old house. My parents had both passed, leaving me in comfort, at least financially.” He looked toward the window, but curtains made it impossible to see inside. “Sometimes a place we love can shelter us. Buildings were meant to protect people. But a building is more than bricks and mortar. What happens inside tends to shape the spirit of the place.”

Marigold would adore this guy.

“Mr. Silver,” I said, still grasping for belief that I was talking to the one and only Joshua Silver, “I had no idea that my, um, demonstration might make trouble for you. What can I do to fix this?”

He shifted on the junk-filled porch to stand with his back against the door. “Don’t do a thing. Don’t say anything to anyone. Keep silent. Let’s see how it pans out.”

I felt dismissed, like I should walk away, but I had to make sure. “Does that mean you’re not going to report me?”

The left side of his face lifted again in that half grin, and I could see the suit-and-hat-wearing man from the photographs, still there under years of aging and sadness.

“I am certainly not going to report you. But I will expect a little something from you.”

Shoot. I was so stunned to find out that Old Man Greenwood was actually Dr. Joshua Silver that I had forgotten to protect myself from the possible crazy murderer. I took three quick steps backward, nearly upending what looked like a paint can full of nails.

“I know that to your mind, I’m some old man who happens to live next door to your work.” Was that all he thought? Well, then, that was a win for everyone. “But I do have some experience that can be useful to you. I expect you to make use of your resources. Ask me questions. Compare your experiences to mine.” He reached for the doorknob. “And the next time you’re looking for a job, I want you to come to me first.” He bowed in my direction before letting himself inside.

I ran off the porch and pushed through the gathering crowd toward home, every few steps looking at my hands. I’d met Dr. Silver. I’d shaken his hand.

I let myself inside and locked up.

I got on my librarian Twitter account and tweeted, “A vote to close the Franklin library is like a vote to burn books. #SaveFranklinLibrary”

Then I pulled up the shared file I was making on my Dr. Silver research. Reading over both my notes and Will’s notes about Dr. Silver’s protests, I couldn’t help but see some similarities in our stories. He had pushed boundaries to help people get the educational opportunities they deserved. Some people hated it. I pushed some boundaries of my own. And sure, not everyone was thrilled. But maybe I could help bring about the change of heart needed to keep the library open.

When I slid into the bed, I smelled the reek of oily smoke in my hair. I fell asleep smiling.