My first task was to find the library. Make that the new library. The one I’d often frequented as a kid had been torn down in order to make room for a recently rebuilt town hall. I learned from a passing teenager that the “place where they keep the books” had been moved two streets south, and was now part of the community centre.

      Entering the centre, I braced myself for an onslaught of “welcome backs” from people I’d known growing up, but no one paid attention to me. In fact, no one seemed even remotely familiar looking.

      This may be a good thing, I thought, as I made my way through the lobby, past the swimming pool entrance and then into the library itself.

      “May I help you?” a female voice inquired.

      I turned expecting to see Mrs. Jameson, the one and only librarian from my youth. What I saw however, was an attractive young woman I guessed was nineteen, smiling in my direction.

      “You’re not Mrs. Jameson,” I quipped.

      “Mrs. Jameson?” the woman replied apprehensively. “Oh - Mrs. Jameson - the old librarian.”

      “Yes. Is she still in charge?” I asked, taking in my spacious surroundings.

      “Actually,” the woman started hesitantly, “Mrs. Jameson checked out her last book - so to speak - a couple years ago. Didn’t you see the memorial plaque as you came in?”

      “Must have missed it,” I replied.

      It dawned on me that a lot of people I knew as a teenager - young or old - had in the intervening years moved onto greener pastures (literally and figuratively speaking).

      “I’m sorry to hear that,” I added.

      “I may not know every title here, like Mrs. Jameson did,” the young librarian said with a warm sincere grin, “but I bet I can help you find whatever you’re looking for.”

      I watched her for a couple seconds, studying her face and body language. She seemed so innocent. The nineteen year old females I was accustomed to dealing with were usually stoned out of their minds and selling their bodies on the streets. Then something in the way her lips curled upwards at the corners of her mouth sent a pulse of recognition to my mind.

      “Your first name wouldn’t happen to be Linda, would it?” I asked.

      “How’d you know that?” she replied astonished.

      “I went to school with your brother Keith. Your last name’s Burkhard, right?”

      Now she studied me for a few seconds. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you,” she responded.

      And why should you? I thought. You were probably all of six or seven years old the last time we were in the same room together.

      “I doubt you would. I’m Steve Cassidy. My family lived on Salisbury Drive. The big yellow house at the end of the street.”

      “I remember that place,” she said, her face brightening. “It had two large pillars on the front porch.”

      I stood confused. “You talk as though it’s no longer there.” A pain shot through my system, with the sudden realization that my childhood home was, in fact, one of the things that had moved on since my last visit.

      “You didn’t know?” Linda watched as I shook my head. “There was a fire - maybe a year ago. It burnt to the ground.”

      “Was anyone hurt?” I asked in the steadiest tone of voice I could muster.

      “Oh no - it was empty at the time.”

      A sickening, empty feeling filled my chest. Why hadn’t anyone tried to contact me? Surely someone in town would have had the decency to call and tell me that the house my father had built with his own hands had been reduced to ashes.

      But as quickly as my blood pressure reached critical mass, it began to drop back down to a more manageable level.

      The truth was the house no longer belonged to my family anyway. After leaving town, I’d arranged for the place to be sold and its contents auctioned off. At the time, I felt it was the only way to escape the past, which would in turn allow me to start afresh somewhere else. Or so I’d hoped.

      Departing with no forwarding address also would have hampered any local contact, I reflected.

      “Are you all right?”

      The intoxicating fragrance of Linda’s perfume was the first indication that she was now standing in front of me, (even though I had no recollection of her getting up from behind her desk).

      I’ve only been back for a few hours and already I’m losing it, I thought fearfully.

      Linda didn’t wait for a response. “Why don’t you come over here and sit down?” she said, taking me by the arm to a nearby reading table. “You suddenly don’t look so hot.” I silently followed her lead and sat in the chair she’d pulled out. “Can I get you some water?”

      I took inventory of all the emotions her face conveyed and could not detect the slightest trace of pity. She was genuinely concerned about my well being.

      Amazing, I thought.

      “No,