“I’m tempted to call it a mystery the way a person can be gone and yet not be. Perhaps it’s one of those things a person makes peace with never fully figuring out.”
– “The Book Accident”
I’m pleased to share my recent essay The Book Accident,” which appeared in the Gals Guide Anthology: Female Friendship (Gals Guide Press: 2025). Read on for more on absence, presence, and grief …
It was a mystery to me how Christine could love Hemingway like she did. Not all friendships require understanding, though, and Christine was a friend to me. She offered me friendship in the way an older woman sometimes does with a younger one: less formal than a mentor and with more (helpful) distance than a family member. She consistently treated me like a capable woman who had insights to share. I didn’t always believe I was that kind of person, but she persevered.
I spent a great deal of time at Christine’s house after she had her “book accident.” A bracket on her shelving broke, and on that shelf’s way down, it took another shelf and quite a few more books underneath along with it. Christine was fine, but the books sprawled across the floor. Then, before a worker put up new shelves, he took down the rest of the books and stacked them on the floor in no order whatsoever. Later, Christine grinned and shook her head at the mess as she showed me the room. I was helping her get the books back onto the shelves.
It shocked me to see how many books she actually owned that were by or about Hemingway. We’d already made our peace on him, though. The day I’d admitted I disliked her favorite author, this woman who’d traveled to France, Spain, and Italy to walk in Hemingway’s footsteps had taken the time to help me articulate what I wanted from an author that Hemingway didn’t provide. Maybe that was how any good English teacher would have handled the conversation, but I still relished the experience of constructive conflict.
When the day came for me to help pick up all those books on her floor, though, Christine shocked me further by saying I could organize the Hemingway collection however I wanted. I kept questioning her about each section of books, asking what kind of order she wanted me to put them in. It was a wall-full of books, after all, and an English teacher had to have preferences.
“Whatever makes sense to you,” she’d say. We were chatting along the way, which made the project an especially good time for me. I always enjoyed our visits. “You know what you’re doing,” she kept assuring me.
Over the years she found many ways to assure me of this. Even when I began believing her more consistently, she kept reminding me: I was capable, I had gifts to share, and I wasn’t alone. I’m sure Christine knew very well the many reasons a woman might need to practice finding confidence with someone who’d made that journey, herself.
It’s been a couple of years now since Christine passed away. Intellectually, I know she’s gone, but I don’t quite know how to understand her absence. As many people before me have said about a loved one’s death, I keep saying, “I can’t believe she’s gone.” It really doesn’t feel as if she is.
Like a bell reverberating long after it’s struck, Christine’s presence is staying with me. I’ve seen her face when I’ve craved a supportive listener in a room where I was speaking. I’ve published things and, knowing I couldn’t call her up to thank her for all the ways she encouraged me, I’ve still whispered, “thank you.” I’ve realized I can’t even use the word “absence” at all to speak of her.
I’m tempted to call it a mystery the way a person can be gone and yet not be. Perhaps it’s one of those things a person makes peace with never fully figuring out, like how I could hit it off with a member of the Hemingway Society or how one life manages to help another life flourish. Such things happen, though. Inexplicable gifts show up in our days, and they have something sacred about them. Christine’s friendship felt like that kind of gift to me, and it’s remained as vivid as Christine herself.
I noticed that again recently on the day I had my own little “book accident.” I watched as my books tumbled down and sprawled across the floor. Then I laughed out loud. I could just see Christine grinning and shaking her head at the mess. I did regret the bent pages and banged up covers. And yet, in that moment, I knew I wasn’t alone. I also believed I was fully capable of turning that cleanup into a good time.
“The Book Accident” originally appeared in Gals Guide Anthology: Female Friendship (Gals Guide Press: 2025).
Callie J. Smith 