The man who returned all the books on a Tuesday

He came in at 11:14, on a Tuesday in April, with a suitcase. The suitcase was new. The books, by their smell, were not.

The librarian was the third generation in her job. Her grandfather had issued some of these books, in another lifetime, to a younger version of this same man, on a hot afternoon in 1987.

He set the suitcase on the counter. He apologised, in advance, for the dust.

She did not say it's fine. She said, instead, which one would you like to start with? She did not, technically, mean the books.

He thought about it for a long time. He picked, finally, the one that had been overdue the longest — a slim, blue novel about a woman and a kettle and a small wooden table by a window. I never finished it, he said.

I know, she said. None of us did.