Dr. Nathaniel “Nate” Alder leaned back in his worn leather chair, the late afternoon sunlight spilling through the tall windows of his study and glinting off the stacks of books that climbed toward the ceiling like miniature skyscrapers. After forty years of teaching literature at the local junior college, he had finally retired, though the quiet of retirement felt strange, almost foreign, compared to the lively chatter of his classroom students. When the county librarian mentioned she needed someone to drive the summer bookmobile, Nate, half joking, put in his name and volunteered The next morning, he found himself with a ring of keys, an old county map, and a beat-up van filled with books that smelled like stories waiting to be discovered. And so, began his summer. Dr. Nathaniel Alder, was now nearly 70 years old, as he stood beside the county bookmobile as if he were greeting an old acquaintance and wasn’t sure how to talk to the vehicle, for it looked old, but almost charming with its numerous dings, dents and scratches. The county emblem on the side displaying an open book with a pine tree growing out of it, had once been bright green. But now it was closer to the color of sage left too long in a cupboard.