“Where did you pick up that filthy thing?” she asked, her voice dropping an octave.

“It was on the vintage display shelf,” I said.

“It’s a story about a little boat.”

“We don’t buy secondhand garbage for a Vance child,” she said, her fingers clamped tight around the faded cover.

She shoved the book into a dark wastebasket behind the counter, her shoulders rigid.

“My grandson will have new leather bindings, not throwaway scraps from a clinic charity box,” she said.

“It’s just a children’s book, Eleanor,” I said.