Page 74 of Finders Keepers
“It’s more of a personal quest,” he says.
“Well, now,” Mr. Aaron says, raising his bushy eyebrows. “That sounds like a story of its own.” His expression makes it clear that he now expects to hear all about it.
Quentin looks at me for a few seconds, searching for something. Finally, he turns back to Mr. Aaron and Emily. “Nina and I go way back,” he explains. “Her family and mine shared a duplex, so we were next-door neighbors growing up. I woundup moving away when we were fifteen, but that last summer we lived beside each other, we spent a bunch of time exploring Julius Fountain’s estate together. Which made us also want to know more about the man who built it. That’s how we learned about your father’s oral history interviews.”
“Ah,” Mr. Aaron says. “I never did get to go there, you know. But my father spoke of it often.” He glances up at Emily. “Maybe we’ll visit when it isn’t so hot out.”
“I don’t know if you’ve read the interviews,” Quentin continues.
Mr. Aaron nods. “Some time ago.”
“In them, Fountain talks about this whole other side to Sprangbur, the fantasy world where he claimed to spend so much of his time. He called it Edlo. Seemed like a place where you could lose yourself in pretending, which was something I understood the appeal of. My parents were going through a divorce, and it was decided I would live with my mom in Michigan, where she’d gotten a new job. I was going to have to join her there at the end of that summer. I dreaded leaving the only home I really remembered having. My school, my friends. The pressures on me back then were very different from those on Fountain, but I could definitely empathize with wanting to get lost in a fantasy for a while.” He glances at me again, that serious look on his face instead of the smile I’m expecting. “That was also the summer I realized I was in love with Nina. And spending time with her was the closest thing I’d ever found to how Fountain described Edlo—magical, delightful, a respite from everything that weighs on me. It’s still the closest thing.”
“Oh my god, that’s so romantic,” Emily says, then covers her mouth with her hand sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Quentin simply smiles at her before returning his attention to Mr. Aaron. “There’s an intellectual curiosity as well, of course. But Edlo and love have this inseparable connection in my mind, and I can’t help but think that understanding Fountain’s world better will also help me love better.” He glances at me before taking my hand and, lowering his voice so I’m the only one who can hear his next words, says, “Loveyoubetter.”
I cannot conjure even a single thought exceptQuentin loves me. He said the other night that he lovedme. Back then. Past tense. Present tense is not something that’s entered the conversation yet. And here he is, professing his love for me to this elderly man and his granddaughter as if it’s a basic fact about him. His middle name is Foster. He went to the University of Michigan for undergrad. He doesn’t like olives. And he loves me.
Helovesme.
“Ah! Nothing quite like young love!” Mr. Aaron exclaims with a chuckle. “Let’s get you the book, then.”
Book? What book? My eyes go wide as Quentin whispers, “ ‘Stiff of spine, body pale…’ ” and it all suddenly makes sense. The riddle was about a book. Maybethisbook.
Eugene looks up at Emily, still leaning on the chair’s back. “Sheyfele, it’s on my bed. Get it, would you?” His granddaughter dutifully heads back upstairs.
“Did your father ever talk about Julius Fountain?” Quentin asks. I don’t know how he’s managing to carry on normal conversation when my heart is thudding so hard in my chest I’m worried it’s visible on the outside, like a cartoon character’s.
“Oh, yes. Even though they only spent that one day together, for the interview, Papa spoke of Mr. Fountain often and with great respect and affection.”
The Albert Aaron in the interviews did not seem particularly impressed with his informant’s personality. Not that I blame him. Fountain didn’t hold much back, nor did he pass up an opportunity to amuse himself by embarrassing someone else.
“You’re shocked,” Eugene remarks, humor dancing in his dark brown eyes as he takes in my face, which I’m sure shows all sorts of emotions right now. Shocked is one of them, though.
“It didn’t seem like they got along all that well,” I say. “At least based on the transcripts we read.”
Emily returns, a thin, purple, clothbound book reverently cradled in her hands.
“It’s true that Mr. Fountain did not make a good first impression on my father,” Mr. Aaron says, taking possession of the volume. He thanks his granddaughter before continuing, “But beyond his peculiar behavior and the occasional cutting remark, Julius Fountain was a good man. A kind one. Papa used to say that he left Sprangbur Castle equal parts annoyed and charmed. Then ‘charmed’ won out once this arrived at our apartment a few months later.”
He reaches forward and lays the beautifully bound manuscript on the coffee table in front of us. I move my glass of water to the floor out of an abundance of caution before leaning in, my shoulder and leg pressed tightly to Quentin’s as we both take in the book. I’m the first to reach out to touch it, but I pause with my fingers on the edge of the cover.
There’s a handwritten note tucked inside. I carefully slip it out and unfold the paper, immediately recognizing the penmanship from a few of the documents in the Fountain collection at the library.
“Oh, wow.”
Mr. Aaron smiles as I glance up at him.
“ ‘Dear Mr. Aaron,’ ” Quentin reads aloud. “ ‘I send you this as…’ I can’t make out that word.”
My graduate work might not be particularly useful in day-to-day circumstances, but it did give me substantial experience deciphering old cursive handwriting. It’s beyond absurd, yet I have the sense that this is what the past two decades of my life were leading up to, readying me for this moment. I take over, reading, “ ‘I send you this as promised during our meeting last June, and hope it finds you and yours well. Your boy must be toddling around and being quite a darling terror by now. I gift him these stories of my beloved second home of Edlo, inviting him into this place I hold so dear, with the wish that it will inspire joy and freedom in the tender years of his life and beyond. I remain—J. J. Fountain.’ ”
Quentin’s finger hovers over a postscript written along the edge of the page. “Can you see what this says?”
I take a moment to decipher the much smaller writing, tilting my head as far to the side as it will go to turn it upright, then realizing belatedly that I can simply rotate the paper. “I think…‘P.S. What you said before you left Sprangbur, about love…I have come to find you were correct. Thank you, Albert, from the depths of my desiccated old heart, for showing me what I could never see clearly on my own.’ ”
“Do you have any idea what that means, Mr. Aaron?” Quentin asks.
