Page 46 of The Missing Pages

I HOVERED IN THE LIbrARY WATCHING VIOLET AND THEO stare at the four-letter word I had spelled out for them.

“I knew it,” Violet said.

Theo’s face squinted. “You knew what? That the ghost of Harry Widener is in love with you?”

“No, not at all.” She stared at the board, contemplating how to put her thoughts into words. “I think there’s a missing part of Harry’s story. And for some reason, he’s chosen me to be the one to uncover it.”

“But why do you think that?”

“Well, no one knows really anything beyond the basics about Harry, do they? We know he graduated from Harvard in 1907. We know he loved books and started avidly collecting his junior year, and that a man named A.S.W. Rosenbach helped him acquire a significant part of his collection.”

“Well, actually I knew none of this before you shared it with me,” Theo said, laughing. “But I’m catching up. And I remember from my college tour that he died on the Titanic, supposedly because he went back for a book in his cabin instead of getting into the lifeboat with his mother.”

“Yes. Right. The tour guide version of his life.” Violet shook her head. “But if we stick to the facts, yes, we know that he drowned on the Titanic and his mother later created the Widener Library in his honor.”

“And that’s it?” Theo looked incredulous.

“That’s the nuts and bolts of it. I know Madeline has been combing Rosenbach’s letters to see if she can learn something that’s been overlooked by past scholars. But honestly, there’s almost nothing else to go by. He’s a complete mystery.”

“So strange,” Theo said as he helped Violet fold up the board and put it back in her bag.

“Exactly. So tell me, why would he spell out the word “love” unless he himself had experienced it?”

Theo shrugged. “I have no idea, Vi.”

“I’ll tell you why. Because he wanted us to know that he had, in fact, been in love. And I think it’s important for him that the world finally knew.”