My dentist, Dr. Ishikawa, mailed a library book back to Arkansas last month. It was 44 years overdue. In 1980, when he was ten, his father's company moved the family to Arkansas for two years. A town of 4,000. Masaki spoke no English. At school, he ate lunch alone. At recess, he stood by the fence. After school, he went to the town library, because it was the only place in America where nobody expected him to talk. The librarian was Miss Lorene. Thirty. Big hair. Bigger laugh. She learned to say his name right on the first try. Nobody else in town ever did. Every afternoon, she kept the corner chair free for him. She left picture books on it. Then easy books. Then a real one. A thick book about a boy and a horse. He read it slowly. A dictionary on one knee. One page a day. In the spring of 1982, his grandmother got sick in Japan. The family left in five days. He never said goodbye to Miss Lorene. When he unpacked in Tokyo, the horse book was in his backpack. In Japan, something you borrow and don't return is a weight you carry. And the longer you carry it, the heavier it gets. At first, mailing it felt too embarrassing. Then it felt too shameful. Then forty years went by, and it was simply impossible. It sat on his shelf through medical school. Through his wedding. Through two kids. This year he turned 56. He decided he could not turn 57 with it. So he wrapped the book. He wrote a two-page apology, very formally, the Japanese way. And he calculated the late fees. Ten cents a day. 44 years. He wrote a check for $1,606. He didn't expect an answer. He just wanted to put the weight down. Three weeks later, an envelope came from Arkansas. Inside was his check, torn in half. And a letter. In big, loopy handwriting. "Dear Masaki, You don't owe this library one red cent. That book was never late. I renewed it every two weeks. Since April 1982. When we went to computers in 1998, the system wouldn't let me. Said nobody could have a book that long. I called the company and argued with a young man in Ohio for forty-five minutes. He let me. You left before you finished it. You were on page 43. I know because you folded the corner down, which I asked you nicely not to do. I figured a boy who read that slow and that careful was going to want to finish someday. So I kept it out for you. I'm 76 now. Retired. I still come in Tuesdays to renew it. Libraries are patient, honey. So am I. Love, Miss Lorene" Dr. Ishikawa read it at work, in the ten minutes between a filling and a cleaning. He had to cancel his two o'clock. He says that for 44 years, he thought he had taken something from America. It turns out America had been lending it to him the whole time. He is flying to Arkansas in the spring. He's bringing the book. He wants to put it in her hands himself. He wrote and told her. She wrote back one line. "Fine. But it's due back in two weeks."