This is the library of our unrequited longings, stacked in piles on the floor next to various pieces of furniture, or lined up on foldable shelves. None of them hold the answer to our questions: when will the wildfires stop raging? how do we remedy drought? when can we breathe without filtering the air? This summer, a truck crashed and fell over the side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The driver's body was recovered— one opinion is that he died on impact before the vehicle sank into the water. Is it something for which to be grateful, that he did not choke to death from drowning? There are many conditions that might be offered as potentially worse, none of them consoling. The water is like mended glass. Gulls skim across its surface.