Most of the books were old, dusty, not touched in years, and from the non-Christian religion section—Norse mythology was 293 in the Dewey decimal system. The entire section totaled seven books. Calla always complained about lack of funding. If she had her way there’d be books stacked to the ceiling. There was a point in my life when I knew a good chunk of the Dewey decimal system by heart. I had decided as a girl to learn it, and commit as much of it to memory as I could, so it would save me time in the library. Most of our visits had been quick stop-offs on the way back home from shopping, doctor appointments, or other reasons to be in town. There were long stretches in the winter that were spent solely on the farm, and all-day library visits were rare, almost unheard of. There was too much work to do at home. Besides, that kind of memory exercise came easy to me back then. But lately, mostly since I had started indexing books, my long-term memory had changed.
