He also received an opportunity to work part-time at the neighborhood library.
The job was simple.
He arranged books.
Returned misplaced volumes to their shelves.
Helped visitors find reading materials.
Sometimes he cleaned the reading tables before closing.
The pay was modest.
But the work gave him something important.
A sense of independence.
And surrounded by thousands of books, Adam began to discover a larger world.
He read about history, medicine, philosophy, and law.
One afternoon, he found a book describing famous court decisions that had changed people’s lives.
He sat at a small table and read until the library closed.
He was fascinated by the idea that words spoken in a courtroom could shape someone’s future.
Sometimes those words caused suffering.
Sometimes they brought freedom.
And sometimes, as he had discovered, they opened a door that a frightened person had believed was permanently closed.
He began dreaming of becoming a lawyer.
