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“It’s nothing personal.”

“All right.”

“Say you do something terrible. And it’s done. And you can’t change it. Then how do you live the rest of your life? What do you say about it?”

“Do I know what terrible thing we’re talking about?”

He nodded. “Yes. You do know. When I was out walking the other day I took a wrong turn and ended up at the cemetery.” He said, “I’d forgotten she was there.”

“She was part of the family.”

He nodded.

“All I can tell you is what Papa would say. He’d say repent, and then — you can put it aside, more or less, and go on. You’ve probably heard him say that as often as I have.”

“More often.” Then he said, “Regret doesn’t count, I suppose.”

“I don’t claim to know about these things. It seems to me that regret should count. Whatever that means.”

“But if you just found out about it, no matter whether I regretted or repented — what would you think of me?”

“What can I say? You’re my brother. If I were someone else, and I knew you and thought you were all right, then that would matter more to me than something that happened so many years ago.”

“Even though I had never told you about it. And I should have told you.”

“I think so.”

He nodded. “You’re not being kind.”

“I don’t really know.”

“Well, I might have a chance. Things could work out.” He said, “It will be bad at best. A miserable thing to have to hope for. Pain all around. Ah, little sister. It’s no wonder I can’t sleep.”

The television set stayed on the lamp table. Jack turned it on for the morning, noon, and evening news, and turned it off again if there was nothing about Montgomery. His father ignored it completely.

FOR YEARS, BEFORE GLORY CAME HOME AND WITHOUT regard to the occasional pious attentions of family returned for holidays, Lila had gone up to the cemetery to look after the Boughtons as well as the Ameses. Glory noticed a special tenderness toward the first Mrs. Ames and her child, who had passed from the world together so long ago, and toward the other little girl about whom, in that gentle, worldly way of hers, Lila seemed neither to know nor to wonder. Snowdrops, crocuses, jonquils. Jack might have seen late tulips or creeping phlox. That was probably good, Glory thought. She would tell him, if he asked, that the flowers were Lila’s, so he would not think they meant endless mourning so much as the wish to somehow compensate a child for missing seventy springs, or perhaps to offer delight to her perpetual childhood — she wondered if Lila would ever tell her what all the flowers meant, except kindness, and love of the lives, past and present, into which she had chosen to adopt herself, as if finally at home. She would probably smile and say, The soil is better there, or That spot gets more sun. But Glory was pleased that Jack must first have thought how pretty the place was, and then have looked to see who was cared for so lovingly. It must have been some comfort to him, though she knew no comfort was ever sufficient.

Maybe great sorrow or guilt is simply to be accepted as absolute, like revelation. My iniquity/punishment is greater than I can bear. In the Hebrew, her father said, that one word had two meanings and we chose one of them, which may make it harder for us to understand why the Lord would have pardoned Cain and protected him, and let him go on with his life, marry, have a son, build a city. His crime was his punishment, which had to mean he wasn’t such a villain after all. She might mention this to Jack sometime, if it ever seemed to her a conversation had arrived at a point where she could dare, could summon delicacy enough, to compare him to Cain. She laughed at herself. What a thought.

GLORY HAD KEPT MOST OF THE HABITS OF HER PIOUS youth. Morning and evening she took her Bible out to the porch and read two or three chapters. When the others were at home for the holidays, they would sit around the table in the dining room and one of them would read aloud from the Psalms or the Gospels. Like most of their obligations and many of their pleasures, this was, whatever else, a performance meant to please their father, to assure him that they loved the old life, that they had received all the good he had intended for them. To please him was so potent a motive that it displaced motives of her own, which no doubt would have included piety. During the years she lived alone she had read the Bible morning and evening with the thought that her father would be pleased if he knew, and also to remember who she was, to remember the household she came from, to induce in herself the unspecific memory of a comfort she had not really been conscious of until she left it behind. Now, back in her father’s house, as she read she remembered that same comfort, and remembered as well the privilege of distance and solitude, the satisfactions of that other life.

What a strange old book it was. How oddly holiness situated itself among the things of the world, how endlessly creation wrenched and strained under the burden of its own significance. “I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.” Yes, there it was, the parable of manna. All bread is the bread of heaven, her father used to say. It expresses the will of God to sustain us in this flesh, in this life. Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.

What does it mean to come home? Glory had always thought home would be a house less cluttered and ungainly than this one, in a town larger than Gilead, or a city, where someone would be her intimate friend and the father of her children, of whom she would have no more than three. Then she could learn what her own tastes were, within the limits of their means, of course. She would not take one stick of furniture from her father’s house, since none of it would be comprehensible in those spare, sunlit rooms. The walnut furbelows and carved draperies and pilasters, the inlaid urns and flowers. Who had thought of putting actual feet on chairs and sideboards, actual paws and talons?

She had dreamed of a real home for herself and the babies, and the fiancé, a home very different from this good and blessed and fustian and oppressive tabernacle of Boughton probity and kind intent. She knew, she had known for years, that she would never open a door on that home, never cross that threshold, never scoop up a pretty child and set it on her hip and feel it lean into her breast and eye the world from her arms with the complacency of utter trust. Ah well.

Once, Jack had come into the porch and found her sitting there reading the Bible. He seemed pleasantly embarrassed and asked pardon for interrupting, and she said he was more than welcome to stay if he liked, so he took the chair next to hers and opened the newspaper. But he leaned over to see where she was reading. “Psalms,” he said. “An excellent choice.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“I’m almost finished.” She could feel that he was aware of her, restless enough to distract her, so she put the ribbon to mark her place and closed the book. He recrossed his ankles and rustled the paper. So she said, “What is it?”

“Oh. Sorry. Really just a sort of interest, I suppose. In the fact that you still do that sort of thing. That you always used to do. Not that I wouldn’t expect you to. I don’t mean that. In fact, I’m always a little surprised by things I would have expected. When they happen. If that makes sense.”

“I think it does.”

“Do you still, um, pray”—he gestured at the floor—“down on your knees?”

She laughed. “None of your business.”

“I remember when you were little, you’d kneel by your bed and close your eyes and whisper things into your hands. Secrets. Hope’s cat threw up on the rug. Johnny said a bad word. And we would sit there and listen to it all and try to be very serious about it.” He laughed.

“You listened to my prayers?”

“Hope did, and Dan. I heard them laughing about it. So I came in a few times.”

“I can only apologize.”

“No point in it. The damage is done. The Lord will use the information as he sees fit, come Judgment.”

She said, “I’m surprised you remember so much.”

He shrugged. “I lived here, too.”

“All I mean is that when everybody comes home for holidays we go over the old stories again. I doubt that we would remember half of them if we didn’t remind each other three or four times a year.”

“I’ve thought about this place. Sometimes I’ve even talked about it.”

There was a silence. Then he said, “So. Are you going to try to save my soul, little sister?”

“What? Save your soul? Why would I do that?”

“Why not? It seems like a genteel occupation for a pious lady. I thought you might want to do me that kindness. Since you have a little time on your hands.”

She looked at him. He was smiling. She knew him well enough to know that he smiled when he thought he might offend, whether intentionally or unintentionally. He could seem to be laughing at himself, or at her.

She said, “I’d be happy to oblige, but I have no idea how to go about it.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m willing to confess to a certain spiritual hunger. I think that’s usually the first step. So that’s out of the way.”

“And then?”

“Then I think it is usual to ponder great truths. That has been my experience.”

“Such as?”

“The fatherhood of God, for one. The idea being that the splendor of creation and of the human creature testify to a gracious intention lying behind it all, that they manifest divine mercy and love. Which sustains the world in general and is present in the experience of, you know, people whose souls are saved. Or will be.” After a moment he said, “It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them. That’s where the problem lies. In my case.” He looked at her.

She said, “I’m flummoxed. I’ll have to give this some thought.”

“Yes. Well, it is a lot to spring on you, I know. I always nourish the suspicion that pious folk are plotting my rescue. Now and then it has been true. Not so often, really. But you are my sister. So it seemed worthwhile to inquire. Just to save time.” He smiled.

She said, “I think I like your soul the way it is.”

He looked at her and laughed, and his color rose. “Thanks, Glory. That’s no help at all, but I do appreciate it. I really do.”

GLORY MADE UP A BATCH OF BREAD DOUGH. BROWN BREAD was her father’s preference. Something to lift the spirits of the household, she thought. The grocer brought her a roasting hen. She opened the windows to cool the kitchen and air out the dining room a little, and the breezes that came in were mild, earthy, grassy, with a feel of sunlight about them.

Jack came in from the barn, bringing with him a whiff of old straw and sweat and crankcase oil. He took a deep breath. “Ah! Bread!” She lifted the towel so he could see the speckled belly of the rising dough. Then he held up his hands to her, which were oily and grimy, and said, “Don’t touch those potatoes!” He went upstairs. There were sounds of haste and ablution, and then he came back down with his shirt half buttoned and his hair wet. He found a knife. “Blunt as a poker,” he said, but he set to paring. “It is art that keeps the demons at bay!” This was to bring home to her the significance of a long spiral of peeling he had removed intact.

“Amazing,” she said.

He said, “Practice.”

“Were you quoting?”

He nodded. “La Sagesse de Jacques Bouton. Bouton de la Rose, that is. Poète maudit. Poète malgré lui. Roué and — kitchen help. For some reason they didn’t teach the French for that in college.” He held up another spiral of peel. “Pity,” he said. “Things sound so much better in French—pomme de terre, fait-néant, voleur—” He smiled. “My intellectual lady friend was set on keeping up her French. So I summoned what little I could of mine. We read L’Education sentimentale. My enthusiasm for the project was almost unfeigned.”

“Your friends are more interesting than mine.”

“You must know where to find your friends, ma petite.”

“And where is that?”

“If you are very, very good I might tell you. Someday. But you must be exceptionally good.”

She laughed. “God knows I try.”

He said, “That’s a beginning, I suppose. Though not in every case.”

She raised the tea towel and punched the dough, and a great sigh of yeasty air breathed out of it. After a minute he said, “I’ve been into the cash drawer again. I bought some spark plugs and a tire pump. The old one leaked so much it was almost useless. And a fan belt.”

“You don’t have to tell me about these things.”

“And a baseball glove.”

“That money isn’t mine, either, Jack. And Papa doesn’t care about it.”

He nodded, delicately gouging out a potato’s eye. He smiled at her. “A diligent and humiliating search for employment has persuaded me that I have to look beyond Gilead,” he said. “I’ll need a car. If I’m ever to become a respectable family man.”

“So you’re thinking that woman friend might come here?”

He shook his head. “Only when I’m trying to find a way to make myself go out and shop my miserable aspirations around town one more time. Or keep tinkering with that damn car. She’d probably hate it here, anyway.”

“You’ve never told me her name.”

“Her name is Della.”

“I’d like to know her.”

He said, “Would you be kind to her?”

“What a question!”

“Swear to God?”

“Of course! I’d be a sister to her!”

He laughed. “I’m going to hold you to that someday. If my wildest hopes are fulfilled. Which they won’t be.”

After a minute she said, “Jack, there’s something I’ve been wondering about.”

“Hmm?”

“What do you act like when you’re happy?”

He laughed. “I forget.”

“Seriously. When you came in just now, I thought something good must have happened.”

“Oh. How to account for the high spirits. Gasoline fumes? And I have replaced so much of that engine that I must be closing in on the problem by now. With any luck. When I turned the key this time it — chortled. And that triggered a fantasy of charging off in my father’s DeSoto to rescue my lady love from a smoldering Memphis.”

“I thought she was in St. Louis.”

He shrugged. “I’m a little tired of St. Louis. I’d rather rescue her from Memphis.”

“I see.”

“On second thought, her father is in Memphis. He’s very protective, and he has a car that actually runs. And he thinks I’m damn near worthless—‘damn near,’ because he’s professionally obligated to take a charitable view. She has three brothers in Memphis. So I guess I’d better rescue her from St. Louis.” He began to peel another potato. “Joking aside, maybe she would come to Gilead for a while, to give it a try. It’s possible.”

They had an early supper. She had meant to serve the chicken cold, but she decided it was better to serve the bread while it was still warm, and what difference did it make when they did anything, anyway. Her father enjoyed the warm bread and the chicken, too, and the peas with potatoes in cream sauce. He grew voluble, talking about his own boyhood in Gilead, how, he said, he couldn’t even draw water from the well to his grandmother’s satisfaction, let alone split kindling, so he didn’t have as many chores as other children did. “She never trusted me to bring the eggs in, either,” he said. “It was her way of spoiling me. Yes. I used to go over to Ames’s and help him out a little, and then we’d have the whole day, in the summer. The whole day by the river. I don’t know how we passed all that time. It was wonderful. Sometimes his grandfather would be down there, fishing and talking to Jesus, and then we’d be pretty quiet, or we’d wade upstream a little way. He was a strange old fellow, but he was just a part of life, you know. Like the birds singing.”

Jack said, “I spent time at the river. I liked to do that.”

His father nodded. “I always thought this was an excellent place to be a child. Not that I had anything to compare it with.”

“It is a good place.”

“Well, Jack, I’m glad you think so. Yes. Some things might have worked out better than they did, I know that. But there was always a lot to enjoy. That was my feeling, at least. And there still is. I watch the children, and they seem happy to me. I think they should be happy.”

AFTER SUPPER JACK CAME DOWNSTAIRS WITH THE NEW baseball mitt, flexing it and folding the pocket. He said, “I thought I’d see if the Ames kid would like to play a little catch. Is that a good idea? He’s old enough. He seemed interested.”

She said, “I think it’s a good idea.”

He went out to the porch and stood there for a while, and then he came into the kitchen again. “No,” he said. He shrugged. “I’m disreputable. I forget that from time to time. But I have it on excellent authority.” He smiled. “The good Reverend wouldn’t approve. I’m pretty sure they’ll give you your money back.” He handed her the glove. “Those high spirits,” he said. “They can get me in trouble.”

She said, “I don’t understand any of this. I think you worry too much. I’ll keep the glove until you want it.”

“You have to help me think things through, Glory.”

“Does that mean remembering that you’re disreputable?”

“’Fraid so.”

“I think you’re imagining.”

“It is the central fact of my existence,” he said. “One of three, actually. The one you have to help me keep in mind.”

“Well, really, Jack. How on earth am I supposed to do that?”

He laughed. “Don’t be so kind to me,” he said.

SHE THOUGHT ABOUT THE THING JACK HAD SEEMED TO ask of her, some attempt to save his soul. Dear Lord. How could that idea haunt her with a sense of obligation, when she really did not know what it meant. There are words you hear all your life, she thought. Then one day you stop to wonder. She would not bring it up again, but if he did, she should have some way to answer him. She was not at all sure that he had been serious, that he was not teasing her. She might even have taken offense at the time, if there had seemed to be any point in it. A genteel project for a pious lady with time on her hands. How condescending. But that was what he did whenever he felt vulnerable — he found some way to sting, to make it clear that vulnerability was not all on one side. Poor man. But he was so practiced at reciting what he was also practiced at rejecting. He might have meant to draw her into some sort of argument and reject it, too, just to show her he could do it. He was uneasy. That was natural enough. And in fact he had made her embarrassed about that pleasant old habit of hers. Now she had to read the Bible in her room to avoid feeling like a hypocrite, like someone praying on a street corner. When Jack came out to the porch with his newspaper the next day and found her reading The Dollmaker he gave her a wistful, inquiring look, but he said nothing.

She did not know what it meant to be pious. She had never been anything else. Remember also thy creator in the days of thy youth. She had done that. She could hardly have done otherwise. Her father never let a day pass without reminding them that all goodness came from the Lord, all love, all beauty. And failure and fault instructed us in the will of God in the very fact of departing from it. Then there were grace and forgiveness to compensate, to put things right, and these were the greatest goodness of God after creation itself, so far as we mortals can know. Her father’s rapt delight in this belief put it beyond question, since it was so intrinsic to his nature, and they loved and enjoyed his nature, and laughed about it a little, too. Yes! He would achieve some triumph of extenuation and emerge from his study, eyes blazing, having solved the riddle, ready to forgive heroically, to go that extra mile. True, the slights and foibles for which he found extenuation necessary may have been minor or even questionable in some cases, evidence of a certain irritability on his part. But the gallantry of his response to them was no less handsome on that account.

As for herself, she did still pray on her knees. She also said or heard or thought a grace at every meal, even at a lunch counter or when she was with the fiancé. Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it. The proverb was true in her case. And being at home only reinforced every habit that had been instilled in her there. Faith for her was habit and family loyalty, a reverence for the Bible which was also literary, admiration for her mother and father. And then that thrilling quiet of which she had never felt any need to speak. Her father had always said, God does not need our worship. We worship to enlarge our sense of the holy, so that we can feel and know the presence of the Lord, who is with us always. He said, Love is what it amounts to, a loftier love, and pleasure in a loving presence. She was pious, no doubt, though she would not have chosen that word to describe herself.

MAYBE SHE KEPT THE BIBLE OUT OF SIGHT BECAUSE SHE was afraid that if he spoke to her that way again she would have to tell him she had no certain notion what a soul is. She supposed it was not a mind or a self. Whatever they are. She supposed it was what the Lord saw when His regard fell upon any of us. But what can we know about that? Say we love and forgive, and enjoy the beauty of another life, however elusive it might be. Then, presumably, we have some idea of the soul we have encountered. That is what her father would say.

Maybe she had never before known anyone who felt, or admitted he felt, that the state of his soul was in question. Whatever might transpire in her father’s study, there had been only calm and confidence among his flock, to all appearances. Granting the many perils of spiritual complacency, and her father did grant them as often as Pharisees figured in the text, complacency was consistent with the customs and manners of Presbyterian Gilead and was therefore assumed to be justified in every case. Christian charity demanded no less, after all. Among the denominations of Gilead, charity on this point was not granted by all and to all in principle, but in practice good manners were usually adhered to, and in general the right to complacency was conceded on every side. Even her father’s sermons treated salvation as a thing for which they could be grateful as a body, as if, for their purposes at least, that problem had been sorted out between the Druids and the centurions at about the time of Hadrian. He did mention sin, but it was rarefied in his understanding of it, a matter of acts and omissions so commonplace that no one could be wholly innocent of them or especially alarmed by them, either — the uncharitable thought, the neglected courtesy. While on one hand this excused him from the mention of those aspects of life that seemed remotest from Sabbath and sunlight, on the other hand it made the point that the very nicest among them, even the most virtuous, were in no position to pass judgment on anyone else, not on the sly or the incorrigible, not on those who trouble the peace of their families, not on those who might happen to have gotten their names in the newspaper in the past week. The doctrine of total depravity had served him well. Who, after all, could cast that first stone? He could not, he least of all. But it was hard to get a clear view of something so pervasive as to be total, especially if, as her father insisted, it was epitomized in his own estimable person.

She did remember once, when Ames was at dinner years earlier, his mentioning to her father that a local man, unchurched, noted for bursts of rage and for a particular hostility toward children, his own included, had come to the parsonage at midnight to consider his soul. Ames had said, “It’s like a bad tooth — it acts up when everybody else is sleeping, and it’s not the kind of problem you want to deal with by yourself,” and they had laughed together, quietly. Who could know what they knew, what restive hearts had opened to them, how many midnights had brought the sleepless to their doors. She should ask Jack what a soul is, since he seemed to feel the presence of a soul. Cankered, perhaps, but that was what gave him his awareness of it. Either of those prayerful old men, Ames or her father, could probably tell her, too. But it was late to put such a question to them. Jack would laugh at her and tease her, which would be much preferable to their sober, gentle surprise.

HER FATHER WANTED TO GO TO BED EARLY, BUT THEN HE was restless and asked to get up again. She helped him to his chair. “Where is Jack?” he said.

“I think he’s working on the car.”

After a minute he said, “I thought you might read to me. I’d like you to read from Luke.”

She brought the Bible and opened it and began the greeting to Theophilus.

“Yes,” her father said. “That’s fine. He gives a world of attention to that car. I wish he’d play the piano. Then at least I’d know where he is.”

Glory said, “I’ll go find him. He’ll be happy to play for you, Papa.”

“Yes. I’m Saul in his madness. I want some music around here.”

She went out to the barn and Jack was there, sitting in the driver’s seat of the DeSoto. In the earthy, perpetual evening of the place he was reading a book by flashlight. She hesitated, but he saw her in the sideview mirror and put the book and the flashlight in the glove compartment and closed it. She saw him take the little leather folder, which had been standing open on the dashboard, and slip it into his breast pocket.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Papa’s awfully restless and he thought it would help if you played for him a little.”

“Always glad to oblige,” he said, standing up out of the car and closing the door. He smiled at her the way he did when she had become privy to something he had no intention of explaining. He said, “My home away from home.”

“Fine. I wouldn’t have bothered you, but he seems to be really uncomfortable this evening. He asked me to read to him, and that lasted about two minutes. I’d have played for him, but he wanted you to do it.”

He said, “You never bother me, Glory. It’s remarkable how much you don’t bother me. Almost unprecedented.”

“I’m so happy to know that.”

He glanced at her, and when he saw she really was pleased, he smiled.

“WELL, REVEREND,” HE SAID, “GLORY TELLS ME YOU’D LIKE TO hear a song or two. Any special requests?”

“Yes. ‘Blessed Assurance’ and also ‘Whispering Hope.’ But I think I would be more comfortable lying on my bed, if you don’t mind.”

“We can take care of that.” Jack helped him up, took him to his room, and settled him among his covers.

“First ‘Blessed Assurance,’” the old man said. “If you know that one.”

“I believe I do.” Jack sat down at the piano, tinkered at the keys for a moment, found the tune, and played it through. His father did not sing.

“Now ‘Whispering Hope.’”

“Yes, sir.”

When the song ended, his father said, “‘Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice.’ That can actually happen. I have had that experience. Hope is a very valuable thing, since there is not always so much to rejoice about in this life.”

Jack went to stand in his father’s doorway, to spare him the effort of raising his voice. The old man said, “Come here, Jack. Bring the chair over here. There’s something I need to say to you. You’re probably going to have to forgive me for this.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Well, I know that. I can count on that. And you’re a grown man now.”

Jack laughed. “True.”

“So I want to put a question to you. All right?”

“Go ahead.”

“I feel I didn’t do right by you. I wasn’t a good father to you.”

“What? Really?”

“No, it’s a feeling I have always had, almost since you were a baby. As though there was something you needed from me and I never figured out what it was.”

Jack cleared his throat. “I really don’t know what to say. I’ve always thought you were a very good father. Much better than I deserved.”

“No, but think about it now. You were always running off somewhere. Always hiding somewhere. Maybe you don’t even remember why you did those things. But I thought you might be able to give me some idea.”

“I can’t explain it. I don’t know. I was a bad kid. I’m sorry about all that.”

The old man shook his head. “That isn’t my meaning at all. You see, I feel as though you haven’t had a good life.”

Jack laughed. “Oh! Well, I’m sorry about that, too.”

“You misunderstand me. I mean your life has never seemed to have any real joy in it. I’m afraid you’ve never had much in the way of happiness.”

“Oh. I see. Well, I’ve been happy from time to time. Things are a little difficult now—”

“Yes, because you wouldn’t be here otherwise. That’s all right. I just never knew another child who didn’t feel at home in the house where he was born. All the others, you know, they come back for the holidays. It was always like a big party in here, all the games they would play, all the noise they made, and your mother laughing at the endless pranks and the nonsense. And if you could find a way to leave, you’d be gone.”

“I can’t explain that. I’m sorry about it—”

“And then you really were gone, weren’t you. Twenty years, Jack!”

Jack drew a deep breath and said nothing.

“And why am I talking to you about this? But it was always a mystery to me. Be strict! People would say that to me. Lay down the law! Do it for his sake! But I always felt it was sadness I was dealing with, a sort of heavyheartedness. In a child! And how could I be angry at that? I should have known how to help you with it.”

“You helped me. I mean, there are worse lives than mine. Mine could be worse.” He laughed and put his hand to his face.

“Oh yes. I’m sure of that, Jack. I see how kind you are now. Very polite. I notice that.”

“These last years I’ve been all right. Almost ten years.”

“Well, that is wonderful. Now, do you forgive me for speaking to you this way?”

“Yes, sir. Of course I do. I will. If you give me a little time.”

The old man said, “You take your time. But I want you to give me your hand now.” And he took Jack’s hand and moved it gently toward himself, so he could study the face Jack would have hidden from him. “Yes,” he said, “here you are.” He laid the hand against his chest. “You feel that heart in there? My life became your life, like lighting one candle from another. Isn’t that a mystery? I’ve thought about it many times. And yet you always did the opposite of what I hoped for, the exact opposite. So I tried not to hope for anything at all, except that we wouldn’t lose you. So of course we did. That was the one hope I couldn’t put aside.”

Jack withdrew his hand from his father’s and put it to his face again. “This is very difficult,” he said. “What can I do — I mean, is there something I can do now?”

“That’s true,” his father said. “Not a thing to be done. I’m sorry I brought it up. I thought it was troubling my sleep. I guess it was. Why did that make me think it was important? I don’t know. All that old grief coming back on me. I’m tired now, though. It seems like I’m always tired.” And he settled into his pillows and turned onto his right side, away from Jack, toward the wall.

GLORY CAME OUT TO THE KITCHEN AND WAITED, AND after a few minutes Jack came out, too. “Would you mind just staying here with me for a few minutes, Glory?” he said. “Till I’ve had some time to check for broken bones.” He laughed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Ahh. I’m feeling the impulse to do something unwise. You don’t have to sit here until the bars close. Unless you want to.”

She said, “I’m happy to sit here as long as you like.”

“When do the bars close in this town, on a weeknight? It used to be ten.”

“I’m not the one to ask, I’m afraid.”

“It’s not quite eight o’clock now. Two hours, maybe three. That’s a long time.”

“Believe me, I have no plans for the evening.”

He laughed. “Good.”

“Would you like coffee?”

“Coffee? Sure. Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all.”

He said, “You should be impressed that I don’t know when the bars close. That means I haven’t even gone near enough to one of them to read the sign on the door.”

She laughed. “I am impressed. Now that you point it out.”

“Yes, I think I should draw up a list of my accomplishments. That would be number one. Then: I am not incarcerated. And: I nearly finished college—”

“I thought you finished. We were all going to come to your graduation.”

“And then the Reverend got a phone call from St. Louis.”

“He said he should have expected that you wouldn’t want to go through the ceremony.”

“Well, there were some other considerations — some problems, shall we say. Omissions, mainly. Does that surprise you?”

“Not at all,” she said.

He shook his head. “I am a monster of consistency, little sister. Though increasingly I realize that the consistency was mostly alcohol. But now I am a changed man, most of the time. For example, I have just told you the truth about something. I owe it all to the influence of a good woman.”

She laughed.

He said, “What? Is that so hard to believe?”

“No, no. That’s a phrase I used to hear a lot, that’s all.” She said, “Should I tell you the truth about something?”

“Sure. But you don’t have to. This doesn’t have to be an exchange of hostages or anything.”

“I am giving you a hostage, though. I’m trusting you with this. You have to take it to your grave.”

“Will do. On my honor, as they say. If you really want to tell me.”

“I think so. I do want to tell you.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you’re my brother, I guess. Because I want to see how it sounds when I say it out loud.”

“How it sounds to me, or to you? There could be a difference.”

“I suppose so. Does that matter?”

“Well, you know, I’m not the ideal sounding board. Especially if there’s moral complexity involved. That was never my strong point. You might reveal some embarrassing deficiency in me. One more deficiency—” He laughed. “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

“All right,” she said. “No secrets, no confidences.” Then, after a minute, she heard herself say, “I was never married.”

“Oh?” and he began to laugh, wearily and uncontrollably. “Is that the secret? I’m really sorry. It’s because I’m tired,” he said, wiping tears from his face.

“My fault,” she said. “You gave me fair warning.”

“I did, didn’t I.” The laughter persisted, somewhere between a sob and a cough. “I’m really sorry. The thing is, you know, I’m not married either.”

“But no one ever thought you were. I mean, you didn’t make people believe that you were.”

He laughed into his hands, miserably. “That’s true. I never did.” Then he said, “I hope you’re not mad at me, Glory. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be. Please don’t be mad.” He was struggling to catch his breath.

“Oh heck,” she said. “I’m going to get you some coffee.”

“Heck, yes! Bring on the coffee!” he said, and he laughed.

“I say ‘hell’ sometimes. If I’m mad. But I’m not mad. I’m just sort of flummoxed.”

He said, “I do that. I flummox people. It’s really about the best I can hope for, in fact.”

“Well, I’ve gotten pretty used to it. It’s actually a little bit interesting, in a way.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Seriously. I know I did the wrong thing, laughing like that.” He shook his head ruefully, and laughed. “You’re a good soul, Glory.”

“I am,” she said.

“I know that what happened to you was bad. I was an idiot to laugh.”

“It was very bad. One midnight I went out and dropped four hundred fifty-two letters down a storm drain.”

He laughed. “Four hundred fifty-two!”

“It was a long engagement. A policeman saw me and came over to ask me what I was doing. I told him I was throwing away four hundred fifty-two love letters and one cheap ring. He said, ‘Well, I sure hope things work out for you.’” They laughed. “I’m all right,” she said. “It was all horrible enough to be funny, I suppose. Now that it’s over.”

“Yes, there’s always that to look forward to.” Then he shrugged and said, “It’s enough to make me hope there’s a minute or two between death and perdition.”

“Oh come on, Jack. I don’t really think you get to believe in perdition unless you believe in all the rest of it.”

“No? But perdition is the one thing that always made sense to me. I mean, it has always seemed plausible. On the basis of my experience. And I don’t think this is a good time to try to talk me out of it. I’m tired. I’m sober—” He laughed, and she glanced at her watch. “Let me guess,” he said. “Eight-twenty-eight.”

“Eight-seventeen.”

“If you tire of my company, I’ll understand.”

“No, not at all. Could I make you some supper?”

“I just had supper.”

“No, you didn’t. I watched. Six bites of potato.”

“I haven’t had much appetite, I guess.”

“Well, I have news for you, Cary Grant. Your pants have begun to bag.”

“Ah. You have mastered the art of persuasion. A scrambled egg then?”

“And toast.”

“And toast.”

Jack sat at the table, twitching his foot. He cleared his throat.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Not a thing.” Then, after a minute, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I have just been told that I am not the only sinner in this family.” And then he laughed and put his hand to his face. “Now, that was probably a mistake. What a fool I am.”

Glory said, “Well then, let’s just say you’re not the only fool in the family.” She broke an egg into the frying pan.

“But you haven’t told the Reverend about this, I take it.”

“How can you even ask?”

He nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“Stupidity isn’t a sin, so far as I know. But it ought to be one. It feels like one. I can forgive myself all the rest of it.”

“You can forgive yourself.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Interesting.”

She glanced at her watch.

He said, “We’ll change the subject.”

Then he said, as if taking upon himself the effort of sustaining conversation, “That woman in St. Louis I mentioned — she sang in the choir at her church, of course. And sometimes, if the lady who played piano for them couldn’t come to practice, I’d fill in for her. I’d come anyway, just to listen. That old lady could really play, but she was kind. She taught me as much as I could learn. I played for their service a few times. I used to come into the church on weeknights to use the piano, and so long as the music wasn’t too worldly, they didn’t mind. I could have made a decent living playing in bars, but they were — well, they were bars. So I hung around at her church. It was all right. I mean, I was happy then.” He looked at her, smiled at her. “Why are you laughing? You don’t believe me.”

“Sure, I believe you. I’ve been wondering where you learned to play those hymns so well.”

“There it is. Proof of my veracity. And you’re laughing anyway.”

“It’s because I met, you know, the man I didn’t marry, at a choir rehearsal. He was passing in the street, he said, and he heard the music, and it took him back to the sweetest moments of his childhood. He hoped we would not mind if he stood very quietly and listened for a while.”

“Why, what a cad. ‘Sweetest moments of his childhood.’ I could have warned you. That one phrase would have given him away.”

“Yes, no doubt. But at the time I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. So I couldn’t avail myself of your wisdom.”

“True.” Jack cleared his throat. He cleared it again. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was hovering around choir rehearsals looking for vulnerable women. I met my — the woman I mentioned — as I was walking by her apartment building one day. It was raining and she was coming home from school — she was also an English teacher. She dropped some papers and I helped her gather them up. And so on. I’d found an umbrella on a park bench a couple of days before, and here was a lady needing rescue. We became friends almost without calculation or connivance on my part. It was all very respectable. It was.”

She said, “‘Looking for vulnerable women.’”

“Oh well, that isn’t quite what I meant.”

“That is what he was doing, though. You’re exactly right. It’s only that I had never put it to myself in just those words.”

“Sorry.” He smiled and touched his hand to his face. She thought, Why has he turned pale? Then he said, “You know, by vulnerable I suppose I really meant — religious. Yes. Pious girls have tender hearts. They believe sad stories. So I have heard. All to their credit, of course. And they usually lead sheltered lives. Little real knowledge of the world. They are brought up to think someone ought to love them for that sort of thing, their virtue and so on. And they are ready to believe anyone who tells them about, you know, his angel mother, and how the thought of her piety has been a beacon shining through the darkest storms of life. So I have been told. And often, on a cold night, there will be cake and coffee, absolutely free of charge. That can bring out the hypocrite in a fellow, if he has a thin coat or a hole in his shoe. As I understand.” Then he said, “If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t let her go anywhere near a choir rehearsal.”

She said nothing.

Jack stood up. “Yes,” he said, “well. There’s still a little bit of daylight. I’d better go make myself useful, hadn’t I. Earn my bread in the sweat of my brow, as they say.” He stopped by the door and stood there, watching her. After a long moment he said, “I know I should leave this town. But I can’t leave yet.”

“Sit down, Jack. No one wants you to leave. Papa doesn’t, and I don’t.”

He said, “Well, that’s good of you. Good of you to say.”

“Not really. I appreciate the company.” She laughed. “All my life I’ve wanted your attention. I’ve wanted to talk with you. It’s the curse of the little sister, I suppose. I knew it would be hard. That was always clear enough.”

He shrugged. “I’m glad to know I’m living up to expectations.”

She said, “Papa’s right, of course. Neither one of us would be here if we weren’t in some kind of — difficulty. So there’s not much point in pretending otherwise, at least when he’s asleep. I’d have been afraid of the word ‘vulnerable,’ but it didn’t kill me to hear you say it. So now I know that.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Then she said, “She’s the one you write to, the woman you mentioned?”

He smiled. “Why, yes, I write to her. I did just this morning. Dropped a tear where I had signed my name. It was tap water, really, but the thought is what counts. That was letter two hundred eight.”

“All right,” she said. “Sorry I asked.”

“I’m afraid,” he said, very softly, “that sometime you really might be sorry. I mean, if you got to know me well enough, you might not want me around. You might even ask me to leave.” He smiled. “Then what would I do? Who would keep me out of trouble?”

“Well, Jack,” she said, “I don’t think I have to tell you where I’ve heard that before.”

“That, too!” He shrugged. “In my case at least you know there is an element of truth in it. There probably was in his case as well.”

She thought, How very weary he looks. So she said, “Do you remember the time you paid me a dime to stop crying? I was home with the mumps, and I was wretched with boredom. I thought everyone else was at school. But you came out of your room, and you took a dime from your pocket, and you said you would give it to me if I stopped crying. So I did. And then pretty soon you came back and paid me a nickel to stop hiccuping. And then you gave me another nickel after I promised not to tell where I got the money.”

“Well,” he said, “good for me, I suppose. Is that your point?”

“Yes, it is. I was very pleased — I meant to keep those coins, in fact, but I believe I spent them on gum. I’m sure I did keep them for a week or two.”

“So. It sounds as though I bought myself some time. Maybe a little patience.”

“Some loyalty.”

“Excellent. What a bargain.” He laughed. “If you think of anything else that redounds to my credit, let me know.”

“And you taught me the word ‘waft.’”

“Well, don’t tell me everything at once. I wouldn’t want to exhaust my capital.”

“Then sit down,” she said. She gave him the egg and toast and refilled his coffee cup and sat down across the table from him. He ate dutifully and said no thank you when she asked him if he would like more. They were silent for a while. “It’s almost nine,” she said.

Jack washed his plate and cup and put them away, and he sat down again.

Glory said, “How could you think you were the only sinner in the family? We’re Presbyterians!”

“Yes, ‘we have all sinned and fallen short.’” He laughed. “Talk is cheap.” Then he said, “I mean, you have to admit that there is a difference between my tarnished self and, say, Dr. Theodore D. W. Boughton.”

She said, “Teddy’s all right. He means well.”

“Despite his virtues and accomplishments.”

“Yes. In a way, that’s true.”

They laughed.

Jack said, “Maybe there is no justice in the world after all. What a wonderful thought.”

She shrugged. “Depending on circumstances.”

Jack put his hand to his face. “Ah yes. Circumstances. The scene of the crime. The corpus delicti.”

She glanced at her watch.

After a minute Jack said, “I suppose I should look in on the Reverend. I miss the old fellow. Two weeks ago he’d have been out here by now with the checkerboard. And on his way back to bed again.”

She nodded. “I really don’t think we’ll have him much longer.”

“Well. What will you do then?”

“Teach. Somewhere. Not here, I hope. I like teaching.” Then she said, “You’ve seen Teddy since you left home?”

“Oh yes. Once. He came to St. Louis and hunted me down. He walked around the back streets with a couple of photographs until he found someone who recognized me. It took him days. That was a long time ago. He was just out of medical school. And I was — not in very good shape. That may have been my nadir, in fact. We sat on a bench and ate sandwiches together. He asked me to come home with him, but I declined. He offered me some money, and I took it. A miserable experience for both of us. He never talked about it?”

“Not so far as I know.”

“I made him promise he wouldn’t. And wouldn’t come looking for me again. He didn’t do that either. At least he didn’t find me.” He laughed. “Those photographs wouldn’t have been much use after a while.”

“He’s a man of his word.”

Jack nodded. “There’s a lot I could regret,” he said. “If there were any point in it.”

“He’ll be here at Christmas. Thanksgiving, too, if he can get away. With Corinne, who never stops talking. The children are nice.”

Jack shuddered. “So many strangers. People whose names I wouldn’t know.”

“Six in-laws. Twenty-two children. And six of them are married, so six more in-laws. Five grandchildren.”

“All in this house?”

“A good many of them.”

“Whew!” He pondered this. “So you have been coming home all these years?”

“Most of them.”

“With — hmm — with your fiancé?”

She looked at her watch.

He laughed and pushed back his chair. “Yes, I was going to check on the old gent, wasn’t I.”

He got up and went down the hall, and after a few minutes she heard the front door open and, quietly, close. Oh! she thought. Of course. I should have known. Now I sit here and wait till he comes back. No. I sit here for twenty minutes. Why do that? Because he might come back by then, and if I have gone upstairs, he will know what I was thinking, and that would not be good. Still, why would he sneak off like that? But what can it hurt to wait twenty minutes? Half an hour? I will not go looking for him. That would be ridiculous. Especially if he went outside for some other reason. As if there were any other reason, at this time of night. I will give him half an hour.

In twenty minutes she heard the door open and close. He came in and sat down, smiled, shrugged. “I stepped out for a smoke,” he said.

“I don’t mind if you smoke in the house. Papa wouldn’t mind.”

He said, “I stepped out for a stroll.”

“Fine.”

He said, “I stepped out for a drink. But I never actually left the porch.”

“Good for you.”

“Yes,” he said. “Good for me.” He smiled.

“And how is the old gent?”

He shook his head. “Well, you know, he’s old. I don’t know why, but I can’t quite get used to it. When we were kids, he was taller than Ames, wasn’t he? He was very impressive. He used to seem to me to loom over everybody. And he had that big laugh. I was proud of him, I really was.”

“We were all proud of him.”

“Of course.”

“And we were proud of you.”

He looked at her. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“No, really. Not always. And it got a little harder over time.” He laughed. “But we thought you were, I don’t know, chimerical, piratical, mercurial—”

He said, “I was a nuisance and a brat. I was a scoundrel.”

“Well,” she said, “you know more than I do about the particulars. I’m just telling you how you seemed to the rest of us.”

He smiled. “What a pleasant surprise.” Then he said, “Ames always saw right through me. And when he looks at me he still sees a scoundrel. The other day I had the terrible feeling that maybe he wasn’t quite wrong. So I began to be charming, you know. A little oily.” He laughed. “I called him Papa. He deserved it, too. He hadn’t even mentioned to the wife that my father had honored him with a namesake. Can you imagine?”

“You did bring out the crotchety side in him.”

“The poor old devil.” Jack shook his head. “I tried his patience. Like I would have teased a cat or stirred an anthill. Once I blew up his mailbox. He was walking up the street from Bible study. He just put his books down on the porch step and went and got the garden hose. I don’t believe he ever told anybody a thing about it.” He laughed. “It really was quite a spectacle. It was dark. I’d had to climb through my window to be out so late.”

“You know, they moved you into that room, with the porch roof under the window, so that you could make your escape without killing yourself. You remember that time the trellis broke and Mama thought you were dead because you’d gotten the wind knocked out of you.”

“I thought they’d just moved me away from the trellis.”

“That, too, of course. They thought of telling you that you could leave through the door if you were so intent on leaving. But they were afraid that might seem like encouragement.”

He looked at her. “What right did I have to be so strange? A good question. I’ve lost my watch. It must be ten o’clock by now.”

“Yes, five after. I was a child when I said that to you. I hoped you had forgotten it. It didn’t mean anything.”

He laughed. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Good night, now.”

She went up to her room and sat down at the dresser to brush out her hair. She heard the front door open and, quietly, close.

JACK CAME DOWNSTAIRS LATE THE NEXT MORNING AND asked if he could borrow an envelope.

“Do you need a stamp?”

“Yes. Thank you.” He took a folded letter from his jacket pocket and slipped it into the envelope and sealed it, affixed the stamp, and then went into the dining room to write the address. When he came back into the kitchen, he picked up the coffeepot. “All gone.”

“I’ll have a fresh pot for you when you come back.”

“Thanks, Glory.” Then he said, “I’m sorry if I kept you awake last night. I was restless. I needed to take a walk.”

“No, I went right to sleep,” she said, which was not true. “I tried to be quiet.”

“I didn’t hear a thing.” That also was not true. She had heard him come through the door at a little after three. A five-hour walk. Well, he was always a mystery.

Her father had been grave that morning, having heard the furtive opening and closing of the door, she supposed, and again, the opening and closing of it and the cautious steps on the stairs. “No Jack for breakfast this morning, I see,” he said. “Things don’t change, I guess. People don’t. So it seems.” He picked up the newspaper, looked at it for a minute or two, and put it down again. “I guess I’m off to my room, Glory, if you don’t mind helping me here.”

“You haven’t touched your cereal, Papa.”

“That’s a fact. I just don’t feel up to it. If you don’t mind.” So she took him to his room and helped him into bed again. She would speak to Jack, when the time seemed right, and when she could think of a tactful way to broach the subject. There was no knowing what the old man heard, or what he knew, but it was clearly anxiety that made him so unaccountably aware. Jack troubled his sleep even when he didn’t leave the house in the middle of the night. Five hours, she thought, imagining her father awake in the darkness. She sat down with the crossword puzzle. Before she was done with it, Jack had come downstairs with his letter and had left for the post office.

SHE SAW HIM COMING UP THE ROAD AGAIN, LOOKING A little dejected, she thought, but he smiled when he came in the door and set his hat on the refrigerator and a can of coffee on the table. “I thought we might be running out,” he said. “The Reverend isn’t up yet?”

“I guess he didn’t sleep well. He didn’t want any breakfast. I put him back to bed.”

“Oh,” Jack said. “I’m sorry. It’s probably my fault.”

“No way of knowing. Sleep isn’t always easy for him.”

Jack said, “Yes,” and nodded, as if he were accepting a rebuke. He poured himself a cup of coffee, sat down at the table, and opened the newspaper. Then he put it aside. “Did he see this?”

“What?” She looked at the headline. RASH OF BURGLARIES. “I don’t know. I suppose he did. Why?”

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “No reason, I suppose. When I walked into the drugstore this morning, the conversation stopped. You know that feeling you have when you’re the reason people aren’t talking.” He laughed. “So I went into the grocery store, just to see if it would happen again. And it did. I was trying to tell myself it didn’t mean anything.”

“Well,” she said, “I doubt that it did, Jack. Why should anyone think this has anything to do with you? Papa wouldn’t think that.”

He laughed into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is humiliating.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I did that once. I did exactly that. I went out at night and tried doorknobs. And I found a couple of doors that were unlocked and took some money and some beer. Teddy saw it in my room. He said he’d tell the Reverend if I didn’t. He gave me an hour. I used the time to drink the beer. Then the old gent came upstairs and gathered up the money and took me off to return it, drunk as I was. I couldn’t stop laughing — ah!”

“Really, Jack. That must have been — what? — thirty years ago?”

“Hmm. More like twenty-eight.”

“How can you think anyone would remember?”

“You don’t think he remembers?”

“He probably does, I suppose. But that doesn’t mean anyone else would. And it doesn’t mean he thinks you did this, for heaven’s sake.”

He looked at her. “Would you be willing to vouch for my whereabouts?”

“Willing,” she said. “Of course I’d be willing. But I don’t know a thing in the world — your whereabouts are always your best-kept secret.”

He nodded. “That’ll change. But you see my point.”

“No, I don’t. Besides, this must have happened night before last, to be in the paper this morning.”

“Did I leave the house night before last?”

“I don’t know.”

He shrugged. “You see what I mean.”

“Did you?”

He nodded. “I can’t sleep,” he said. “I can’t walk around in the house. He hears me. I can’t stay in that room. Well, now I will.” He looked at her. “I’m not going to leave yet.”

“Leave? But maybe nothing has happened, Jack. Maybe Papa was reminded of that other time, but he’ll forget it again—”

“What will I say to him? By the way, Dad, I sure haven’t been out stealing petty cash from the dime store?” He laughed.

“You won’t say anything. Things like this happen. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Right. I have to remember that. I will keep that firmly in mind.”

“Now, what would you like for breakfast?”

“A little more coffee.”

“No. You’re going to eat something. If you want to look like Raskolnikov, all right. Otherwise, you had better start eating. It would probably help you sleep. I’m going to make pancakes.”

He laughed. “Oh, please no. Not pancakes. You have to let me work up to this.”

“French toast. Oatmeal. Eggs and toast.”

“Now I’m Raskolnikov. Just yesterday I was Cary Grant.”

“You don’t eat and you don’t sleep. That’s what happens. I’ll make French toast.”

“Yes. I have to keep my strength up, I suppose. I have to try to look employable.”

She said, “So you really are thinking of staying here?”

He shrugged. “The thought has definitely crossed my mind.”

“Well. I’m surprised.”

“And you want to leave.”

“Yes, I do. I hate this town.”

“Why?”

She said, “Because it reminds me of when I was happy.”

“Oh. So I suppose there isn’t much chance that you might reconsider.”

“Probably not. Should I?”

He laughed. “I believe you may be the only friend I have in the world at the moment, Glory. Nobody else would bother to force breakfast on me. So my motives are selfish. As always.”

She stirred the milk and eggs and heated the griddle. “I know that could be charm,” she said. “I’ll believe you if you actually do what I tell you to do. Eat, primarily. And stop worrying about everything.”

“I’ll do my poor best. Seriously. I will.”

“Then I might reconsider, after all.”

“It’s kind of you to say that, Glory. Everything would be so much harder if you weren’t here. Impossible, in fact. I know that doesn’t put you under any kind of obligation—”

Their father called from the next room, “Something smells very good. Yes, a late breakfast. That will be wonderful.”

“Coming, Papa,” Glory said. She helped the old man pull himself together and brought him into the kitchen. Jack had set the table and was standing, waiting for them. That deference, that guardedness. The newspaper was nowhere in sight.

“So, Jack. Up and about early today. Yes.”

“Yes, sir. I had a letter I wanted to get in the mail.”

“Well, that’s fine.” Then he said, “Could you say the grace for us, Jack? I think I’m not quite awake yet. Not up to it.”

“Perhaps Glory—”

“No, no, Jack. I want to hear you say the grace. Humor an old fellow.”

“All right.” He cleared his throat. “For all we are about to receive, help us to be truly thankful. Amen.”

His father looked at him. “That will do, I suppose. I have heard that grace any number of times. ‘Bless these gifts to our use and us to Thy service’—that’s another one. Perfectly all right. And the Lord is forgiving. So we can start our breakfast now.”

Jack said, “Sorry.”

“Yes, it doesn’t matter. Prayer, you know, you open up your thoughts, and then you can get a clear look at them. No point trying to hide anything. There is a great benefit in anything the Lord asks of us, especially in prayer. I should have done more to encourage that habit in you.”

Jack said, “You did a great deal, as I remember.”

“Not enough, I’m afraid.”

Jack smiled. “So it would seem.” He glanced at Glory.

She said, “Would you like syrup on your toast, Papa? We also have honey and blackberry jam.”

“Syrup is fine. Here I am trying to sort out things I should have seen to forty years ago. Well, just take it as fatherly wisdom, Jack. Prayer is a discipline in truthfulness, in honesty.”

Jack said, “Yes, sir. I will bind those words for a sign upon my hand. They shall be for frontlets between my eyes.”

His father looked at him. “That may be sarcasm, but at least you know your Scriptures.”

“I didn’t intend it as sarcasm, really.”

“Very good. But here is the other thing I want to see to. It came to me in my prayer this morning. There is an account at the bank, some money from your mother’s side of the family. I was going to just leave it there for all of you to share when I died. But I will tell the bank to give the two of you access to it. There is no reason why you should want for money. No need for problems of that kind.”

Jack blushed darkly. He put his hands to his face.

“Yes,” his father said. “We’re Boughtons because my father’s grandfather was an Englishman, but except for him we’re Scots. You know about all that. But I mention it because I was always told by my grandmother, and my father, too, that you can’t be too careful with money. But I think you can be, and I think maybe I have been a little too careful with it. My father, you know, he was a man of God, a very good man, but he was shrewd in ways I thought were not always becoming to him. My intention was to be openhanded, especially toward my children. As I could have been, because my poor old father left me the farm and this house and the furnishings. But I think I may have been more like him than I realized. I have money that just sits there in the bank, year after year.”

Jack said, “You’ve always been generous.”

“But not like I could have been. So I want to change that now.”

“I don’t think there’s any real need.”

“Reason not the need, Jack. Yes. If it lightens your burden a little, that’s reason enough. I hate to think that any trouble might have come to you because your father was a tight-fisted old Scotsman!”

“I can reassure you on that point, sir.”

“Good. That’s fine. But there is that other vice of the Scots, you know. Drink.”

Jack smiled. “So I understand.”

“It is a plague among them, my grandmother said. They have no defense against it. She said she had seen many a good man wholly destroyed by it.”

“Remarkable.”

“Yes, it is. It is. When you’re old like me you will understand. These are serious things, with grave consequences.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend any disrespect. I really didn’t.”

His father looked at him. “I know that, Jack. And I see that the fault here is mine. I have been speaking to you as if you were a very young man, and you are not young at all.”

Jack smiled.

“I’ve been saying things to you I should have said many years ago.”

“You did say them, sir.”

The old man nodded. “I thought perhaps I had.”

Glory said, “Neither one of you has eaten a bite. You are both wasting away before my eyes, and the dogs in this neighborhood are getting too fat to walk. It is ridiculous.”

“Yes, Glory, well, I’m very tired now.”

“I’m sorry, Papa, but no one is leaving this table until he has eaten breakfast.”

Jack smiled and stretched and looked at her as if to say she had no idea of the difficulty of what she was asking of him, but then he took a few bites. “Excellent, Glory. Thank you.” He pushed back his chair.

“You haven’t finished yet.”

“That’s true,” he said, and he rested his head on his hand and ate what she had put on his plate, mock docile. “There,” he said. “Now may I be excused?”

“No. You can wait for Papa to finish. Where are your manners?”

“A full-fledged domestic tyrant,” her father said. “You see what I have had to put up with.”

“Stop grumbling and eat.”

Her father said, “I wouldn’t mind if you cut this up a little for me, Glory. You could help me out here.”

“I’m sorry. I should have thought of that.”

“Too busy barking orders!” he said, and laughed.

Jack sat back with his arms folded and watched the old man struggle to close his hand on his fork. The scar under his eye was whiter, as it was, she knew by now, when he was weary.

WHEN SHE HAD SETTLED THE OLD MAN FOR SLEEP, SHE went out to the garden. Jack was at work already, chopping weeds. He stopped to watch the mailman pass on the other side of the street, then he lighted a cigarette.

She said, “Beware the Thane of Fife.”

“Yes,” he said. “This being a Scotsman is no bed of roses. A Scotsman!” He laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one of those.”

“I suspect Scottishness is another name for predestination. It explains everything, more or less.”

“The poor old bastard. Sorry. I wouldn’t want to have me for a problem. At his age. Not that I won’t.” Then he said, “You know, if there has been another break-in, the cops might come by.”

“The cop. This is Gilead.”

“I’m serious, Glory. That could be very bad. For the old gent. For me, too. He already thinks I did it.”

“You’re making too much of this, Jack. If he thought you were a thief, would he give you the keys to the family coffers?”

“Yes, he would. That is exactly what he would do. He would think I might have needed money. He would give me money to keep me from stealing again. That’s what he was talking about in there.”

“Maybe.”

He nodded. “You know I’m right.” He said, “I don’t want you to comfort me, Glory. I want you to help me. This could ruin everything. I deal with things like this very badly. I’ve gotten worse with practice.”

“Of course I’ll help you. But you have to tell me what I should do.”

He said, “Just think it through with me. Help me think what to do if things go wrong. It probably seems crazy to be so scared, but I am scared.” He laughed. “I’ve done — I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life, but another— If I had to do thirty days, that would pretty well finish me up.” He said, “I fear I am not in my perfect mind, little sister. I don’t know how to deal with this.” Then he said, “You have to keep me sober. That’s the first thing.”

“I’ll do my best, Jack. I will. I swear to God. But if you want me to help you think this out, you’ll have to give me a little time. And you’ll have to promise me that you’ll try to ignore Papa. He shouldn’t talk to you the way he does. He isn’t himself. He’s always loved you more than any of us.”

“I do try to—”

“If he were himself, he would be grateful to you for ignoring the things he’s been saying.”

He wiped his face with the heel of his hand. “Thank you, Glory. That’s good of you.”

They saw the mailman stop and put letters in the box, and they began walking down from the garden together.

He laughed. “It’s amazing. I’m in hell over a miserable thirty-eight dollars.”

She looked at him. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.” Then, “It was in the newspaper, Glory. In the article.” He was ashen. He stopped and rubbed his eyes. “I can show you. I have the paper in my room.” Then he smiled at her, that weary, bitter smile of his, as if he knew her far too well, and did not know her at all.

She said, “Forgive me, Jack.”

He said, “Sure, I forgive you. What choice do I have?” He took the mail from the box, a bill and a letter from Luke to their father, glanced at it, and handed it to her. “Do you ever hear from him? Your, um, fiancé?”

“What? No.”

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

“Do you write to him?”

“No.”

He said, “Five years. That’s about eighteen hundred days. So you’d have been getting letters at the rate of one every four days, more or less.”

“He traveled.”

Jack laughed. “Yes. Of course he did. Still, he was a prolific son of a bitch.”

“Sometimes he just clipped poems out of magazines and signed his name.”

“Which was?”

“What does it matter?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m your big brother. I might want to stalk him down someday. Give him a black eye. Recoup some remnant of the family honor.”

“Well,” she said, “you’d better start eating a little, then.”

“A big fellow, is he.”

“No.”

“I get it. Another crack about my physique.”

“Yes. You deserve it. You know I don’t like to talk about any of this.”

He seemed to consider. “One sinner to another,” he said. “I have never found comfort in confession, either. It just unleashes every bad consequence you might have avoided by keeping your transgressions to yourself. That has been my experience, at any rate.”

She said, “So I guess I have that to look forward to.”

He shrugged.

She said, “I promised I would help you, and I will. But you probably don’t want me to be mad at you. I don’t think as well when I’m mad.”

He smiled. “Fair enough. I’ll forget I ever heard of what’s-his-name.”

“Good.”

“Well, maybe I won’t forget the part about clipping out poems. That could come in handy. And the number four hundred fifty-two just seems to have lodged in my brain.” He watched her face. “And then there is such comfort for me in the thought that there has been some minor smirching of your soul, I doubt I will forget that. Though I promise I’ll make the attempt.” Then he said, “What is this? Ah, tears! One friend in the world and I’ve made her cry!”

She said, “I’m not crying. Do you want my help?”

He laughed. “I need your help. I want it — abjectly.”

“I’ve told you. I’ve promised you.”

“You are crying.”

“So what? Look after Papa. I’m going up to my room. We can talk about things when I’ve had some rest.”

He opened the door for her and followed her inside. He said, “Glory.”

“What?”

“I know this is a lot to ask. I know that. But I wish you wouldn’t leave me alone just now.” He put his hand to his face. He laughed. “What was that expression you used a minute ago? Ah yes. ‘I swear to God.’”

She stepped closer to him so that she could speak softly. “Has it ever, ever occurred to you that you are not the only miserable person in this house? That must be fairly obvious. The least we can do is avoid making things worse than they have to be.”

He smiled. “You think I’m a petty thief.”

“How on earth can I know what to think?”

“Children!” their father called. “I could use some help here!” “Coming, Papa!”

The old man was propped on one arm in a tangle of covers. “Such dreams I’ve had this morning! I’ve used a day’s worth of energy just wrestling around in my sheets! Is Jack still here? Yes, there he is, there you are.” He sank back on his pillows.

Jack smiled from the doorway. “Still here,” he said. “You’re not rid of me yet.”

“Oh yes, rid of you! Come here where I can look at you, son. That’s how it was in the dream. I could never get a clear look at you.” He said, “Do you remember when you were about thirteen and you got the new suit for Easter? And some of the others grumbled a little, because they said you would never come to church anyway? But that day you did. The suit was big on you, but you looked so fine in it. You had your tie hanging around your neck, and you came to me, and I tied it for you. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, sir. I believe I was late.”

“No, you were almost late. That’s an important difference. You came running around the side of the church and sort of vaulted over the railing and landed on the steps, just as quick and graceful as could be. And then you looked at me, and I think you hoped I would be pleased, and of course I was, very pleased, and so was your mother. Yes. Bring that chair over here and sit down for a minute. Let me look at you for a minute.”

Jack laughed. “Maybe I should shave first. Comb my hair.”

“You just come here and sit down like I told you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You just mind for once.”

Jack put the chair beside his father’s bed and sat down.

His father patted his knee. “Now you see how easy it is,” he said. “I’ve never asked you for very much, have I?”

“No, sir, you haven’t.”

“Just take care of yourself. That’s the one thing I ask. Don’t do yourself harm. Don’t neglect the things God has given to you for your comfort. Your family. Your brothers and sisters. The others tell me they haven’t heard a word from you.”

“Sorry. I’ll see to that.”

“Luke called yesterday. He asked if you would like to speak to him and I had to say I didn’t know. He told me to give you his love. He said they all sent their love.”

Jack laughed. “Thanks,” he said.

“You were off at the post office anyway. But that is a thing I don’t understand. A man with three fine brothers doesn’t have to deal with the world on his own, like some kind of lone wolf. They’d all be glad to help. I would, too, if there were anything left of me.”

“I’m all right.”

“Well, that’s just not true, Jack. I’ve still got eyes in my head. You’re bone weary. Anyone could see that.”

Jack stood up. “As I said, things are hard right now. I’m doing the best I can. Glory is helping me, aren’t you, Glory?”

“That’s good,” his father said. And then, as if to explain himself, “I just woke up from the saddest dream! My grandmother always said you can trust a morning dream. I hope she was wrong about that.”

“It sounds like I’d better hope so, too.”

“Well, you’re still here. You’re alive.” He closed his eyes.

JACK WAS RESTLESS, SO SHE GAVE HIM A SHOPPING LIST. IT surprised her that he was willing to brave Gilead again, and he was gone long enough to make her begin to worry, but then he came back with a bag of groceries. She saw him from the garden and followed him into the kitchen. He had put his hat on the refrigerator and loosened his tie. “One pork roast,” he said. “One pound of butter. One loaf of bread. Two yellow onions.” He put a carton of cigarettes on the table. “I owe you for these. And”—he said—“one small present for Glory.” He reached into the bag again and produced an elderly book. “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Friedrich Engels. It was the best I could do. There was nothing by Marx. Nothing by DuBois, either. Plenty of Norman Vincent Peale, but I thought you might already have read him.” He smiled.

She picked up the book and opened it. “This hasn’t been checked out since 1925.”

“I suppose that’s why it was there at all. It has just stood quietly on the shelf for a quarter century, waiting to tantalize my sister’s budding interest in Marxism.” He unswaddled the pork from its butcher paper. “The best piece of meat in the store, so the grocer told me. Pretty fine, don’t you think?”

“Yes, very nice.”

He wrapped it up again and set it in the refrigerator. “You don’t seem pleased.”

“Well,” she said, “the card is still in the book, and 1925 is still the last date on it.”

“Oh. Hmm. Are you suggesting that I might have stolen it?”

“No. Just that you might have failed to satisfy the library’s expectations before you walked off with it.”

“I certainly do intend to return it. If you really want me to.”

“Of course.”

“A minor infraction.”

“No question. But they would have let you borrow it. They might have asked you to sign your name.”

“I’ll confess, I considered that. But then I thought, Jack Boughton, noted rake and scoundrel, is observed in the Gilead public library checking out a virtual malcontent’s bible. Here I am trying to rehabilitate myself, as they say, to cut a moderately respectable figure in this town. So that seemed out of the question. I could have told the truth, that the book was for you because you had mentioned to me your interest in exploring Communism, but then I would have been exposing you to every consequence I dreaded for myself. And why do that, I thought, when there is so much room for it in this grocery sack? If slipping it in with the butter and onions resembles petty theft, I will not lower myself in Glory’s estimation, since that is the sort of thing she expects of me anyway.”

“Oh,” she said.

“What!?”

“I’m still being punished.”

“No, I meant that as a little joke, I believe.” He looked at her. “You don’t seem to see much humor in it.” He laughed. “You’re right. A relapse. It all seems a little crazy, doesn’t it. In the circumstances. Best not to seem light-fingered just now. You’re absolutely right.” Then he said, “When I walked into the store, there was that same silence I mentioned to you last time. If Gilead had forgotten any of the particulars of my troubled youth, it’s been reminded of them again. As if Jack Boughton were the only thief in the world. God help me if anything catches fire around here.” He looked at her. “I’ll take Herr Engels back tonight. There’s a slot in the door.”

“No, you aren’t going out at night anymore, remember? Not before the bars close. And not after the bars close.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot.” He smiled. “I’m under house arrest. But I don’t want to leave here,” he said. “Not just yet. The way things are going, though, I suppose I might as well leave.”

“You have to remember, nothing has happened. As far as you’re concerned.”

“Yes, that is so true. Jack Boughton is in hell over nothing at all. And it serves the bastard right, I’d say.”

“I’ll take the book back tomorrow,” Glory said. “I can just slip it onto a shelf. Not that anything would ever come of it, but it’s one less thing to think about.”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “All right. I was going to ask you if I could borrow it, though. I’ve never read it myself. I thought it might help me pass a night or two.”

“Well,” she said, “I’ll take it back day after tomorrow. Next week. It won’t make any difference. I might read it.”

He laughed. “Good girl. We might even be able to work up a disagreement, one of those ideological differences I read about in the news from time to time. Shouting and arm waving. In the heat of it all I might come up with a conviction or two.”

“That sounds wonderful,” she said, “except we’d better forget the shouting, for Papa’s sake. But we could still do the arm waving.”

He shook his head. “That would be so — Presbyterian, somehow.”

“There are worse things.”

“Oh yes, I’m well aware that there are.” Then he said, “I had no right to come back. It’s a terrible worry to him, having me here. He worries in his sleep.”

“He dreamed about you before you wrote to him, before he knew you were coming. You were always on his mind, all those years. It isn’t having you here that makes him worry.”

“Then it’s — what? — my existence, I suppose. My hapless, disreputable existence. And from his point of view I can’t even put an end to it. There is no end to it. I’ll always be somewhere in eternity, rotting, or writhing. The poor old devil feels responsible for my soul.”

“He never said one thing in his life about rotting or writhing!”

“True. It was always ‘perdition,’ wasn’t it. I finally looked the word up in the dictionary. ‘The utter loss of the soul, or of final happiness in a future state — semicolon — future misery or eternal death.’” He said, “This does all seem a little cruel, don’t you think? He’s a saint, and I believe he’s afraid to die because of me. To leave me behind, still unregenerate — I know that’s what he has on his mind. I can tell by the way he looks at me.”

“You told him things have been different.”

He laughed. “He thinks I’m a thief, Glory. He thinks I’m going to disgrace us all again. And that could happen, too. I mean, that I could be accused — that could happen.” He put his hands to his face.

“It won’t. Not over something so minor. No one is going to upset Papa over a robbery at the dime store. You know I’m right, Jack. We’ve worried about this way too much.”

“Yes,” he said. “Perspective. Thank you, Glory. I’d forgotten what it’s like to have anyone give a damn who my father is.”

She said, “If you feel he’s so worried about you, have you ever considered — just to ease his mind—?”

He looked at her. “Lying to the old fellow? About the state of my soul?” He laughed and rubbed his eyes. He said, “Ah, Glory, what would I be then?”

“Forgive me. It was just a thought.”

After a minute he said, “You remember that lady I mentioned, the one who had a good effect on my character. She was very pious — still is, no doubt. Very virtuous. I actually asked her father for her hand in marriage. He was aghast. Really horrified. Religion was one part of it. My not having any. I wished very much at the time that I could have been, you know, a hypocrite. But I just didn’t have it in me. My one scruple. And it has cost me dearly.” He considered. “No, if I were being honest, I’d have to say he despised me on other grounds as well. Religion first and foremost, of course. He was a man of the cloth. Is.” He laughed. “I fell a little in my own estimation. I don’t know what I could have expected his reaction to be. Something less emphatic, I suppose.” He said, “I don’t know why I told you that story, except maybe to let you know I do have one scruple. I’m not sure I should be as confident as I am that there is a difference between hypocrisy and plain old dishonesty. Though I have noticed that thieves are crucified and hypocrites seem not to be. And from time to time I have taken up my cross—” He laughed. “Not lately, you understand.” He looked at her. “Sorry. No disrespect intended. I’m not a hypocrite. That was my point.”

“I know you aren’t. I shouldn’t have suggested—”

“A fraud, perhaps. I’ll have to grant you that.” He smiled.

“I didn’t accuse you of anything. If I were in your place I might be tempted, but you’re right. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

He nodded. “If I thought I could get away with it, I might be tempted, too,” he said. “But I’ve been taking stock. These gray hairs. This battered visage. These frayed cuffs. I’ve had to admit that I’m not a very good liar, Glory. A lifetime more or less given over to dishonesty, and I have very little to show for it. It wouldn’t be a kindness for me to lie to him, because I know he wouldn’t believe me. If he still has a shred of respect for me — well, you see what I mean. I wouldn’t want him to lose it.”

“I find it hard to believe these things you say about yourself, Jack.”

He laughed. “‘All Cretans are liars.’ Feel free to doubt me, if you want to. It gives me a sort of reprieve, I guess. But you see my problem. I can never persuade anyone of anything.”

“I’m persuaded,” she said. “Not of anything in particular, I suppose. Except that you’re very hard on yourself.”

He nodded. “Yes, I am. For all the good it does me.” There was a silence.

“Well,” she said, “I wouldn’t care if you were a petty thief.”

He smiled. “That’s very subjunctive of you.”

“All right. I don’t care if you are a petty thief.”

He said, “Thanks, Glory. That’s kind.”

He did not show her the newspaper article, the mention of thirty-eight dollars, and she did not ask to see it.

GLORY WENT TO THE HARDWARE STORE TO TELL THEM they would keep the Philco, and to ask them to install an antenna. When she came back she looked for Jack around the house, then found him in the barn, oiling the blade of a scythe, of all useless and forgotten things. She said, “I went to the hardware store to ask them to put up an antenna. They kept me there for an hour. But they did tell me who it was that stole that money from the dime store. Some high school kids. Good kids, they said. That’s why there was never anything about it in the paper. It was a prank, I guess. Then one of the boys had an attack of conscience and fessed up.”

Jack laughed. “How nice of them to tell you! I wonder how they knew you would be interested.”

“Oh well. It’s one less thing to worry about.”

“True,” he said. “In a sense that’s true. For the moment.”

THE NEXT MORNING JACK OFFERED TO READ TO HIS father, and the old man was pleased. “Yes!” he said, “that will pass the time!” So they thought they might make a custom of taking him into the porch early every morning, after he was bathed and shaved, when the warmth would be tolerable to him, and the breeze would be pleasant.

“What would you like to hear?” Jack asked. “We’ve got The Condition of the Working Class in England.”

The old man shook his head. “Read it in seminary,” he said. “It was very interesting, but as I remember, the point was clear. I don’t feel I need to return to it. I’m surprised we still have it. I thought I gave my copy to the library.”

Jack laughed and glanced at her. He said, “Here’s one Luke sent. Something of Value. It’s about Africa.”

His father nodded. “I had a considerable interest in Africa,” he said. “At one time.”

Glory said, “Luke sent me a note about that one. He says the critics raved.”

Jack said, “I’m a little bit interested in Africa, myself.”

“Yes, well, Mozambique, Cameroon, Madagascar, Sierra Leone. Beautiful names. When I was a boy I used to think I’d go there someday. We can read that one.”

“It’s about Kenya.”

“Well, that’s fine, too.”

Jack lowered his head and began to read, leaning over the book almost prayerfully. He smiled at the parts he liked—“‘Somewhere out of sight a zebra barked, and along the edge of a stream a baboon cursed.’” Teddy used to say Jack was the bright one, that he, Teddy, was only conscientious. And in fact there was a kind of grace to anything Jack did with his whole attention, or when he forgot irony for a while. It was always a little surprising because it was among the things about himself he shrugged off, concealed when he could. But his voice was mild and warm, courteous to the page he read from, and his father looked at her and lifted his brows, the old signal that meant, He is wonderful when he wants to be. Really wonderful.

The old man laughed over the cook’s pagan version of “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,” listened with interest to the household arrangements of the McKenzies, marveled at the killing of the elephants, and nodded off. Jack continued reading to himself. He said, “I think I can see how this is going to end.” He turned to the last few pages. “Yes.” He read, “‘Peter hunched his shoulders close to his neck and took a deep, sobbing breath and squeezed. Kimani’s tongue came all the way out past his teeth, and his eyes suffused in blood as the tiny vessels broke. There was a slight crick and then a sharp crack, as if a man had trodden on a dry stick, and Kimani’s body went limp.’”

Their father roused himself. “Kimani is that child he’s playing with at the beginning, isn’t he? Those two children are playing together.”

Jack nodded.

“I guess he killed him.”

Jack closed the book. “I guess he did.”

“A pity,” the old man said. “That seems to be how it is, though. So much bad blood. I think we had all better just keep to ourselves.”

Jack laughed. “I have certainly heard that sentiment before,” he said. “I know a good many people who agree with you about that, believe me.”

“Yes. We might want to try another book, Jack, don’t you think? It seems there’s nothing in that one that’s going to surprise us.”

“Not a thing.”

He nodded. “The fellow writes well, though. The elephants were very interesting.”

THE DAY SEEMED TO BE PASSING IN THE WAY THAT HAD become customary, Glory tending to household things while her father slept and Jack made himself useful around the place, making small, patient inroads on dishevelment and disrepair. Or so she assumed. Then she realized that she hadn’t seen him for a while. Usually he found some reason to speak to her from time to time, to joke with her a little, as if to assure himself again that she was kindly disposed toward him. She looked out at the garden, then she walked to the shed, looked into the barn. Jack was nowhere to be found. This is ridiculous, she thought. I can’t worry this way. An hour passed, then two. She had glanced through the mail and the new Life magazine. She had answered letters from Dan and Grace. Then the screen door closed and there was Jack, coming through the porch, looking disheveled and yet a little pleased with himself. He was in his undershirt, having made his shirt into a bundle of some kind which he set on the table and opened. “Mushrooms!” he said. “Morels! Right where they always were!” Sand and leaf mold and that musky smell.

“Where were they?”

“In a remote area, my dear. Far from the haunts of men.”

“Honestly! I’m your sister! Your only friend in the world!” “Sorry. No dice. Just look at these beauties. We eat mushrooms tonight, Glory!”

“What is that?” their father called. “What are we talking about?”

Glory said, “Go show Papa. He loves morels.”

“I think I’d better clean up a little.”

“You don’t have to clean up. Just go show him.”

So Jack carried the bundle into his father’s room and spread it open on the old man’s lap. “Ah,” his father said. “Ah yes. You’ve been out foraging.” He drew a deep breath and laughed. “‘See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which Jehovah hath blessed.’ Morels. Dan and Teddy used to bring me these. And blackberries, and walnuts. And they’d bring in walleye and catfish. And pheasants. They were always off in the fields, down by the river. With the girls it was always flowers. So long ago.”

Jack stood back and watched the old man study the mushrooms, sniff them, turn them in the light. He rubbed his bare arms as if he felt the way he looked, thin, exposed. He said softly, “Bless me, even me also.”

“No,” his father said, “that’s Esau. You’re confusing Esau and Jacob.”

Jack laughed. “Yes, I am the smooth man. How could I forget? I’m the one who has to steal the blessing.”

His father shook his head. “You have never had to steal one thing in your entire life. There was never any need for it. I have been searching my memory on that point.”

Glory said, “Papa, while I was in the hardware store the other day—”

But Jack said, “No, don’t. Don’t.” And smiled at her, and she knew she had come near shaming him. He had not robbed the dime store. How painful for this weary man to need exoneration from the mischief of bad children. “So good to be home,” he said to her afterward. “No place like it, the old song says.”

“Can I get something for you? Coffee?”

“Sure. Coffee. Why not?” He said, “You are a good soul, Glory. That fellow who did not marry you was a very foolish man.”

She shrugged. “Not altogether. He was a married man.”

“Oh.”

“So he said.”

“Oh.”

“Of course I didn’t know it at the time. Particularly.”

He laughed. “Particularly.”

“You know what I mean. I could have figured it out if I’d wanted to.”

He nodded. “Ah, that’s hard. I’m sorry.” After a moment, “And no child was born of this union, I take it.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“So you were spared that, at least.”

She drew a deep breath.

He said, “I’m sorry! Why did I say that? Why don’t I just stop talking? Why don’t you tell me to stop?”

“Well, Jack, you didn’t know her. So I suppose it isn’t surprising that you’d think about her that way. As something we might have wished to be spared.”

“Yes, the little girl.”

“Your little girl.”

“My little girl.” He stood up. “I’m not much good at — I stayed away all that time — it was the best I could do—”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean we’re glad she was born. We enjoyed her life. I believe she enjoyed it, too. I know she did.”

He put his hand to his face. “Thank you. That’s good to know, I suppose. I’m probably saying the wrong thing — I’ve never known how to deal with this. Shame. You’d think I’d be used to it.”

“But I’m trying to tell you, there was so much more than shame in all that, or wrongdoing or whatever. Anyone could have been proud of her. That’s what I tried to say in those letters I sent you.”

“Oh. Then I guess I should have read them.” He laughed. “Dear God,” she said. “Dear God in heaven, I give up. I throw up my hands.”

“Please don’t say that, Glory. I’m alone here—”

“Well,” she said, “you know I don’t mean it.”

After a moment he said, “Why don’t you mean it?”

“Well, I’m your sister, for one thing. And for another thing—” He laughed.

“—I’m your sister. That’s reason enough.”

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s very kind.”

JACK HAD ADDED TO THE GARDEN, SUNFLOWERS AND SNAPdragons and money plants, several hills of cantaloupe, a pumpkin patch, three rows of corn. He rescued the bleeding-heart bushes from a tangle of weeds and tended the gourds with the tact of a man who believed, as all Boughtons did, that they throve on neglect. When her brothers and sisters were children they had made rattles of the gourds when they dried, and bottles and drinking cups, playing Indian. They had carved pumpkins and toasted the seeds. They had pretended the silver disks of money plants were dollars. They had pinched the jaws of snapdragons to make them talk, or pinched their lips closed to pop them. They had eaten the seeds of sunflowers when they were ripe and dry. They had opened the flowers of bleeding hearts to reveal the tiny lady in her bath. Corn on the cob they had all loved, though they hated to shuck it, and they had all loved melons. Jack tended these things with particular care. When he was restless he would sometimes walk out into the garden and stand there with his hands on his hips, as if it comforted him to see their modest flourishing. Once, when he saw her looking at it all, he said, “Have I forgotten anything?”

“No, I don’t believe you have.”

“I’m no farmer,” he said, clearly pleased that his crops were doing well enough just the same.

His father watched from the porch day after day and asked him what it was he was planting, and then whether the corn was up and the sunflowers, and whether the melons were setting on. Jack brought him a sprig of bleeding heart, the bud of a pumpkin blossom.

“Yes,” the old man said, as he did when memory stirred. “Those were good times.”

ONE EVENING JACK CAME IN FROM THE LATE TWILIGHT while Glory was settling her father for the night. They heard him in the kitchen getting himself a glass of water. The air had cooled. Insects had massed against the window screens, minute and various, craving the light from the tilted bulb of her father’s bedside lamp, and the crickets were loud, and an evening wind was stirring the trees. It always calmed her to know Jack had come inside for the night. She knew he would be propped against the counter, drinking good, cold water in the dark, the feel and smell of soil still on his hands. But her father was restless. He had something in mind, an intention he meant to act upon even in violation of this sweet quiet. He said, “I want a word with him. If you wouldn’t mind, Glory.”

So she called him, and she heard him shift himself upright and set his glass in the sink, with that little delay that meant reluctance overcome. When he came into the room he smiled at her. “Well, here I am.”

His father said, “Bring that chair over here. Sit down.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s something I want to say to you.” He reached a hand out of the covers and patted Jack’s knee. He cleared his throat. “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I feel I know what is troubling you, Jack. I believe I always did know, and I just haven’t been honest with myself about it. I want to talk to you about it.”

Jack smiled and shifted in his chair. “All right. I’m listening.”

“It’s that child of yours, Jack.”

“What?”

“Yes, and I want you to know that I realize how much I was at fault in it all.”

“What?” Jack cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand.”

“I should have baptized her. I have regretted many times I didn’t do at least that much for her.”

“Oh,” Jack said. “Oh, I see. Yes.”

His father looked at him. “Maybe you didn’t realize that, that she died without the sacrament, and maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about it, since it might only add to your grief. I was reluctant to mention it. But I wanted to be sure you understood the fault was entirely mine.” He put his hand to his face. “Oh, Jack!” he said. “There I was, a minister of the Lord, holding that little baby in my arms any number of times. Why didn’t I just do the obvious thing! A few drops of water! There was a rain barrel right there by the house — who would have stopped me! I have thought of that so many times.”

Glory said, “Papa, we’re Presbyterians. We don’t believe in the necessity of baptism. You’ve always said that.”

“Yes, and Ames says it. He’ll take down the Institutes and show you the place. And Calvin was right about many things. His point there is that the Lord wouldn’t hold the child accountable — that has to be true. As for myself, well, ‘a broken and contrite heart Thou wilt not despise.’ I must remember to believe that, too.”

They were silent. Finally Jack said, “Everything that happened was my fault. It was all my fault. It is hard for me to believe that you could find any way to blame yourself for it. I’m — I’m amazed.”

“Oh,” his father said, “but you were young. And you didn’t know her. Glory was always trying to get a good picture to send to you, she’d dress her all up, put bows in her hair. But you couldn’t really tell much from the pictures. She was such a clever little thing, such a sprightly, funny little thing. She couldn’t wait to get up and start walking. Remember, Glory? When she was no bigger than a minute she’d be tagging after her mother, they’d be playing together — I’ve often thought I should have baptized her mother, for that matter.” Then he said, “To know a child like that, and then not to do just anything you can for her — there’s no excuse.” He said, “The Lord had the right to expect better of me, and you did, too. I understand that.”

Jack pushed back his chair and stood up. “I–I have to—” He laughed. “I don’t know. Get some air.” He smiled at Glory. “If you’ll pardon me, I—” and he left the room.

Glory kissed her father’s forehead, and then she said, “You get some sleep now,” and turned his pillow and smoothed it. She followed Jack into the kitchen. He was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He said, “Do you mind if I turn off the light?” So she turned it off. After a long time he said, “If I were an honest man I’d have told him I have never given a single thought to — any of that. Not one thought. Ever.”

“Well.”

“I mean, to whether or not she was baptized. I have thought about the rest of it, from time to time. I have.” He laughed. “Never because I chose to.”

She said, “That was all so long ago. You were young.”

“No. I wasn’t young. I don’t believe I ever was young.” Then he said, “Excuses scare me, Glory. They make me feel like I’m losing hold. I can’t explain it. But please don’t try to make excuses for me. I might start believing them sometime. I’ve known people like that.”

She paused. “You did know that she died.”

“That envelope had a black border. I thought it might be—”

“What? Someone who mattered?”

“I didn’t say that. I didn’t mean it. You just never expect a child to die—” He said, “I never thought of it then. Now I do. I think of it now, all the time.” He laughed and put his hands to his face. “That can’t be justice. It would be horrible to think it has anything to do with justice.”

What could she say to comfort him? “These things are hard to talk about. I say things I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.” And after a moment, “I don’t really think justice can be horrible.”

“Really? Isn’t that what vengeance is? Horrible justice? What would your papa say?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure, but grace seems to answer every question, as far as he’s concerned.”

Jack looked at her. “Then he shouldn’t have to worry about his reprobate son, should he. I wish you would point that out to him. I mean, it does seem like a contradiction, doesn’t it?”

She said, “It does. I think we’re beyond the point where we can raise questions about his theology, though. If I pointed out a contradiction in his thinking, I would probably upset him. He’s gotten touchy about that kind of thing. Well, he has been for years. Anyway, I don’t think he worries about all that any more than you do.”

He shrugged. “Like father, like son.”

THE OLD MAN SEEMED TO HAVE ALARMED HIMSELF WITH his candor. He was suddenly anxious to be with Jack, at companionable, fatherly peace with him. He mustered a sociable interest in television, especially baseball, and he and Jack talked about the teams and the season as passionlessly as anything of great moment could be talked about, as if they were summer weather, drought and lightning. He always seemed to nod off if there was news of turbulence anywhere.

Jack must have taken his father to be in fact asleep, because when the news turned to the troubles in the South, he said, softly, “Jesus Christ.”

The old man roused himself. “What is it now?”

“Oh, sorry,” Jack said. “Sorry. It’s Tuscaloosa. A colored woman wants to go to the University of Alabama.”

“It appears they don’t want her there.”

Jack laughed. “It sure doesn’t look like it.”

His father watched for a moment and then he said, “I have nothing against the colored people. I do think they’re going to need to improve themselves, though, if they want to be accepted. I believe that is the only solution.” His look and tone were statesmanlike. He was making such an effort to be mild and conciliatory, even after Jack’s misuse of the name of the Lord, that Jack simply studied him, his hands to his mouth as if to prevent himself from speaking.

Finally he said, “I’m a little unimproved myself. I’ve known a good many Negroes who are more respectable than I am.”

His father looked at him. “I don’t know where you get such a terrible opinion of yourself, Jack.”

“Well, I guess that’s something we should both be grateful for.”

His father said, “I’m serious. There’s a lot you could do if you put your mind to it.”

Jack laughed. “True enough. I could stay in a hotel. I could eat in a cafeteria. I could hail a cab. I could probably exercise my franchise. Unworthy as I am.”

“You’re a college graduate,” his father said firmly.

Jack smiled and glanced at Glory. She shook her head. So he said, “True.” Then he said, “Most people don’t have that advantage, however. I mean, white people.”

“All the more reason you should take some pride in yourself.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, sir. I’ll bear that in mind.”

After a moment his father said, “I know I strayed from the point a little there. But I’ve wanted to mention that to you. I’ve wanted to say you should think better of yourself.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll give it a try.”

“The colored people,” his father said, “appear to me to be creating problems and obstacles for themselves with all this — commotion. There’s no reason for all this trouble. They bring it on themselves.”

Jack looked at him. He drew a long breath, then another. He asked softly, “Have you heard of Emmett Till?”

“Emmett Till. Wasn’t he the Negro fellow that — attacked the white woman?”

Jack said, “He was a kid. He was fourteen. Somebody said he whistled at a white woman.”

His father said, “I think there must have been more to it, Jack. As I remember, he was executed. There was a trial.”

Jack said, “There was no trial. He was murdered. He was a child, and they murdered him.” He cleared his throat to recover control of his voice.

“Yes, that is upsetting. I had another memory of it.”

Jack said, “We read different newspapers.”

“That might be the difference. Still, parents have a responsibility.”

“What?”

“They bring children into a dangerous world, and they should do what they have to do to keep them safe.”

Jack cleared his throat. “But they can’t always — they might really want to. It’s very hard. It’s complicated—” He laughed.

“So you know some colored people, there in St. Louis.”

“Yes. They’ve been kind to me.”

His father regarded him. “Your mother and I brought you children up to be at ease in any company. Any respectable company. So you could have the benefit of good friends. Because people judge you by your associations. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.”

Jack smiled. “Yes, sir, believe me, I know what it is to be judged by my associations.”

“You could help yourself by finding a better class of friends.”

“I have made a considerable effort in that direction. But my associations have made it very difficult.”

“Yes.” His father was wary of this concession. The readiness of it sounded like irony. After a minute he said, “It seems to me you always think I’m speaking of that child of yours. You regret that you weren’t a father to her, I know that. And if you had it to do over again, you’d want to be there with her, I know that, too. And the Lord knows it.”

Jack covered his face with his hands and laughed. “The Lord,” he said, “is very — interesting.”

“I know you don’t mean any disrespect,” his father said.

“I really don’t know what I mean. I really don’t.”

“Well,” the old man said, “I wish I could help you with that.” Then he turned his face resolutely toward the television screen. Jack sat down beside him and watched it with him. In the gray light he looked saddened and spent and oddly young, a man whose father was still his father, and impossible, and frail. The old man patted his knee. Cowboys and gunfire. Glory fixed them a supper and they ate quietly, carefully polite. “I believe this is Thursday. Am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d like roast beef for Sunday dinner. I want the whole house to smell like roast beef. I’ll put on a necktie. We’ll light the candles. Maybe Ames and his family will join us. We could have a sort of a good time, you know. Will you be there, Jack?”

“Sure.”

“You could play a little piano for us.”

“I could do that.”

“Let me see your hand, where you had that splinter in it.”

“It’s healing.”

“Let me see.”

Jack gave his father his right hand, and the old man took it in his hands and stroked it and studied it. “There will be a mark there.” Then, “Twenty years,” he said, “twenty years.”

Jack settled his father for the night, dried the dishes, and went to his room.

WHEN GLORY CAME DOWNSTAIRS THE NEXT MORNING, Jack was at the stove, preparing to fry bacon. He said, “I believe I may have undergone a conversion experience.” He looked at her sidelong.

“Interesting. Tell me more.”

“Nothing dramatic. I was brushing my teeth, and a realization came to me. The gist of it was that Jack Boughton might become a Congregationalist. You know, at least try it on for a few weeks.”

“That’s a little bit dramatic. I mean, if you’re actually thinking of going to church.”

“I intend to do exactly that, little sister. Unless I change my mind. This coming Sunday. If it wouldn’t be inconvenient for you, which is why I thought I’d mention it. We can’t leave the old gent here on his own, I know that—”

“So that you can go to church? I might have to tether him to the bedpost to keep him from floating out the window. Aside from that, I doubt there would be any problem.”

“Well, that’s actually a concern of mine. He might make too much of it. It’s just a thought I had. I might not even go through with it.”

“I’ll stay with him. It’ll be all right.”

“I thought maybe I could talk with Ames about a few things. If I got on better terms with him. That’s all it really amounts to. A gesture of respect.” He looked at her. “You would tell me if you thought this was a bad idea.”

“I really don’t know what could be wrong with it.”

He nodded. “Ames will be sure to mention it. So there’s no point being secretive about it. I wondered if you wouldn’t mind—”

“I’ll just bring him his coffee, and he’ll ask me why I’m not dressed for church, and I’ll say, Jack wanted to go this morning.”

“And then—” Jack said, and they laughed. “Ah,” he said, “help me think this through. Maybe you should just say Jack went to church this morning. If you say I wanted to go, he’d read a lot into that. Maybe — Jack decided to go. No, that’s almost as bad as wanted.”

“All right. Jack went to church this morning.”

“And then what?”

“Who knows. I’ll improvise. This is uncharted territory.”

“So it is.” He looked at her. “You don’t think this will seem too cynical, do you? Hypocritical? Unctuous? Calculating?”

She shrugged. “People go to church.”

“Other people do. I mean, I’ll hardly be inconspicuous. And old Ames doesn’t think the world of me.” After a moment he said, “Well, nothing to be done about that, hmm? That’s why I thought of going in the first place. I can’t think of another approach. I have tried. I will sit under his preaching, as they say, and maybe his feelings toward me will soften a little. I’ll be very attentive.” He smiled. He said, “It’s worth a try. Then he and the wife will come to dinner, I’ll play a few of the old favorites. It could work.”

“All this is fine, Jack. But I can’t quite convince myself that it’s necessary.”

He nodded. “I’ve been a torment to his dearest friend for forty-three years, give or take. He’s sick of me. He doesn’t want to be, but he is. I would be, too. But I want to talk to him.”

She said, “It’s a good idea. Very good, I think.”

“All right, then. If you say so. I’ll probably do it.”

Jack put on his tie and his hat and went off to the store to buy groceries for Sunday dinner with two ten-dollar bills from the household money Glory kept in the drawer in the sideboard. She could have called the grocer’s and ordered them, as she usually did, but Jack said he needed to get out of the house for a while. So she went down to the Ameses’. Lila was in the garden picking lettuce into a basin and Robby was fooling around on his swing, lying across the plank on his stomach, pushing and pivoting and sweeping the grass with his fingertips. Lila stood up when she saw Glory at the fence and smiled at her and called the little boy to come say hello, so he came and said hello and then ran off to look for his friend Tobias, who had been called in for lunch.

Glory said good morning, and Lila answered, “It is. It’s a fine morning.” She brushed her hair back with her hands. “Could you use some salad? It’s coming in faster than I can eat it myself, and my men aren’t much for greens, neither one of them.” She handed the basin to Glory. “I was just picking it because it’s so pretty. I’d be glad if you could use it.”

Lila was wide at the shoulders and hips, and her hands were large, tentative, competent. Sometime, somewhere, it had seemed good to her to pluck her brows thin and arched, and so they remained, a suggestion of former worldliness at odds with her stalwartly maternal frame. Sunlight seemed a bother to her, like a friendly attention she might sometime weary of, though for now she only smiled and shrugged away from it, holding up her hand to shield her eyes. Glory said, “Papa asked me to invite you to dinner tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Jack stopped by a few minutes ago. I told him I’d speak to the Reverend about it. Preaching wearies him more than he likes to admit.”

“It could be an evening dinner. That would give him time to rest.”

THAT AFTERNOON, WHEN SHE WAS OUT IN THE GARDEN weeding the strawberries, picking the handful of ripe ones, she heard the DeSoto’s starter straining twice, then again, and then the roar of an automobile engine, the sound robust for a moment, then trailing away. Again the starter and the engine, and after a minute or two the rattle and pop of gravel as the DeSoto eased backward out of the barn. It gleamed darkly and demurely, like a ripe plum. Its chrome was polished, hubcaps and grille, and the side walls of the tires were snowy white. There was a preposterous beauty in all that shine that made her laugh. Jack put his arm out the window, waving his hat like a visiting dignitary, backed into the street, and floated away, gentling the gleaming dirigible through the shadows of arching elm trees, light dropping on it through their leaves like confetti as it made its ceremonious passage. After a few minutes she heard a horn, and there were Jack and the DeSoto going by the house. A few minutes more and they came back from the other direction, swung into the driveway, and idled there. Jack leaned across the front seat to open the passenger door. She walked across the lawn to the car and slid in.

“Wonderful!”

He nodded. “We’re doing all right so far. I smell strawberries.”

She held out her hands. “I haven’t washed them.”

He took one, eyed it, and gave it back. “How about a little spin around the block?”

“Papa will want to come.”

“Yes, well, I’m working up to that. I’d like to put a couple of miles on this thing, so I’ll know it can be trusted. We wouldn’t want to make the old fellow walk home.”

So she closed the door and they pulled into the street.

He said, “You must have a license. You used to drive.”

“I do. Somewhere. Do you?”

He looked at her. “Why do you ask?”

“Never mind. Just making conversation.” They completed a decorous circuit of the block, and when they pulled into the driveway, they saw their father standing in the screen door.

“Something very exciting!” he called. “I thought I might come along, if it’s no trouble.” He seemed even about to attempt the front steps.

“Wait!” Jack ran across the lawn and took him by his arms and helped him down to the sidewalk.

“Thank you, dear. This is very good.” He leaned on his cane and gazed appraisingly at the DeSoto. “Yes. It’s a fine-looking car. I knew I must be saving it for some reason.” He chuckled. There was a barely restrained glee about him, as though he felt he had done something, or had done nothing, to excellent effect. “I had offers for it, you know. Several of them. Yes.” He regarded the gleaming DeSoto with something warmer than pride of ownership. “And now, look what you have done with it! Jack, this is wonderful!”

Jack was watching all this with his hands on his hips and a look of grave, distant pleasure, as if it were a moment proposed to him by imagination, an indulgence he could not finally allow himself. “It seems to run all right,” he said. “I suppose we could take a little drive.” He helped his father into the front seat. “I’ll go in and get a couple of dollars for gas, just in case.” He walked toward the house, then came back. He held out his cupped hands to Glory and she emptied the berries into them. “Two minutes,” he said. When he came back he had the berries in a cereal bowl, rinsed and glistening with water. He handed the bowl to Glory and climbed into the driver’s seat. He turned the key, turned it again, and the engine caught, and the three of them backed out and sailed off down the street. When a neighbor waved, the old man made the merest gesture of his hand in reply, as if this were all foreseen and intended, too perfect a vindication to be in any way remarkable. Jack laughed.

Glory said, “Have a strawberry.”

Jack took one and handed it to his father, then took one for himself. He popped it in his mouth and spat the stem out the window.

“Yes,” his father said, as they passed through the countrified outer reaches of Gilead into country itself, “this is the high life.”

The sky was blue, the terraced hills glittered with new corn, and in the pastures the cows were standing with their calves or lying in the mingled, muddied shade of oak trees. “Well, I’d almost forgotten it all,” the old man said. “It’s good to get out of the house from time to time. Ames will enjoy it.” He talked for a while about the old Gilead. It was the smell that reminded him. There used to be chicken coops and rabbit hutches behind every house almost, and people kept milk cows, and there was enough open land right in town to be plowed with a horse or a mule and planted in corn. You knew the animals around town just like you knew the children, and if some old she-goat was grazing in the flower garden, well, you knew her and she knew you and you could just walk her home. But the geese could be mean, and noisy. They’d follow you along and nip at you, pinch your heels. There was no sleeping through the racket all those roosters made in the morning. But at night you could hear the animals settling, and that was very comforting. Jack drove with such solemn caution that the dogs that ran out to the car were a long time in giving up the chase and falling back.

They turned onto another road, and then Glory and her father were silent for a while, watching the landscape grow uneasily familiar. Then Jack said, “Oh.” He said “I—” and pulled off onto the shoulder to turn the car around, so close to a shallow ditch that the rear wheels slid in the sand. A hundred yards ahead of them was the bridge across the West Nishnabotna, and a little way beyond it that small white house. Jack gunned the car and it lurched into the road and stalled. “Sorry. I can deal with this,” he said. “Give me a minute.” He put his hands to his face and took a breath. Then he put the car in gear and turned the key and touched the choke and it started, and he maneuvered it very carefully, reversing twice before he eased onto the right side of the road. “I guess it’s time to go home,” he said.

Through all this his father maintained a serene, high-minded expression, as he always did when he sensed emergency. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I have been keeping an eye on events in Egypt. In that one case I have felt that the policies of Eisenhower are appropriate to the situation. But time will tell.”

Jack said, “True.”

“Kenya is another matter.”

“That’s true, too.”

After another mile or so he pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. “Glory, would you mind driving the rest of the way? It isn’t far. I forgot to get gas. I’m not sure the gas gauge is working, and it distracts me to worry about it. And that worries me.” He laughed. “I haven’t driven a car in twenty years.”

So she changed places with him. He held the door for her, ceremoniously, smiling at her, wry and weary. “Thank you so much,” he said.

She looked to see where the pedals were, and the clutch, and then she put the car in gear and it lurched and died, and she tried again and it started. Jack said, “There’s still something wrong with the — with the blasted thing. It doesn’t sound right. This was stupid of me. I knew I should have stayed in town.” He lit a cigarette and rolled down the window.

Glory said, “We’ll be fine,” having no particular grounds for confidence except that as they approached town the houses were less scattered. Rural people might or might not have telephones, but they were certain to have gasoline, and, if it came to that, to have practical experience with balky machines. That is what Jack dreads most, she thought. Having to knock at a door. Out here someone might know about him, without mitigating acquaintance with his estimable father. Well, she would spare him that, one way or another. And the car was running well enough. Her father appeared to be dozing, though still maintaining that statesmanlike expression that meant he could be counted on not to add difficulty to a situation, even by seeming aware of it.

When the DeSoto had brought them home, Jack stood up out of the backseat and stretched, and then opened his father’s door. The old man roused himself. “I will telephone Ames,” he said. “After I’ve had some rest.” He handed Jack his cane. “If you don’t mind, dear. I’m a little bit stiff.” Jack lifted him out by his arm, and then he seemed at a loss how to help him, because his father had made a sharp little cry, and then laughed. “Ouch!” he said. Jack looked at Glory, tired.

She said, “Let me help.” She took her father’s other arm, and they walked him into the house, slowly, carefully. Her helping did nothing to lessen her father’s pain, but it did spare Jack from being the sole immediate cause of it. She took off the old man’s tie and shoes and bundled him into his chair. She went to the kitchen to get him aspirin and a glass of water, and she heard the car start and went out to the porch. She saw the beautiful old plum-colored DeSoto disappear into the barn, and then she heard the barn doors close. When Jack came in, he held the keys out to her.

“It’s your car,” she said.

“I’m making you a gift of it.” He shook the keys so they jingled. “Here. I don’t want the damn thing.”

“Tell me that in a week and I might believe you.”

He dropped the keys on the piano and smiled at her. “Whatever you say, Pigtails.”

She said, “Jack, you can’t leave.”

“Well, I can’t very well stay, can I.” He rubbed his eyes and laughed. “No point in it. I can see myself giving my lady love a tour of the scenes of my youth. Not that she has so many illusions about me. But the few she does have might just be crucial.”

“Maybe they are. Who knows. But we have to think about Papa. We don’t want to kill him.”

“No, we don’t. And if we were to leave, we would be forever alienated from our little sister, on whom we have become surprisingly dependent.”

“Yes, we would. You would. And I mean it, Jack. If I’ve ever meant anything in my life.”

“Such ferocity,” he said, and laughed and rubbed his eyes. “Thank you. A good brisk threat can orient a fellow. But what is this? Now you’re crying!”

She said, “Never mind.”

“You forgive me.”

“Of course.”

He said, “There are all the others, Glory. The old fellow would love to have them around, and they’d be a lot more help to you than I am.” He said, “This might be too hard, you know. I’m not exactly a pillar of strength. And if I went wrong, it would be better if I did it somewhere else. Better for Papa. I do think about that.”

“Yes, you thought about that for twenty years, didn’t you.”

He laughed. “In fact I did. And maybe I wasn’t wrong, Glory. Not altogether wrong.”

“You know more about that than I do. But you said that for ten years you had been all right.”

“That’s true. Almost ten.”

“Then you could at least have come home for Mama’s funeral.” Her voice trembled. “That would have meant so much to him. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t know why I did.”

He smiled. “I’m a scoundrel, Glory. Let’s leave it at that.” He said, “I’m sorry. I’m going to have to lie down for a while. Please excuse me.”

“Wait.” She went to him where he stood with his hand on the stair railing, his face so weary, and she kissed his cheek. He laughed.

“Thanks,” he said. “That was kind. That might even help me sleep.”

He slept, and he came down to help set the table for supper. “I can stick around for a while. If that’s still all right.”

“It’s all right,” she said.

He watched a baseball game on television with his father when the dishes were done.

SUNDAY MORNING JACK CAME DOWNSTAIRS DRESSED AND shaved, in his stocking feet, carrying his shoes, to avoid waking his father. He looked at her and shrugged as if to say, What have I got to lose, and she handed him a cup of coffee. He sipped it, leaning against the refrigerator. Then he went to the money drawer and took two dollars. “For the collection plate,” he said softly. “I owe you.” He brushed at the brim of his hat. “Do you mind if I borrow your watch? Then I can take a little walk before the service begins.” She gave him the watch and he glanced at it and then slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Well,” he said, “here goes.” He stopped in the porch to put on his shoes and adjust his hat, and he left.

Half an hour later she heard her father stirring, and she took him his tray of coffee and applesauce and buttered toast and the aspirin tablets with a glass of water. She was still in her robe and slippers and wearing a hairnet. He said, “Aren’t you feeling well, my dear? No church today? Maybe I should call Ames and tell him we’ll have to have dinner another time—”

“No, Papa, I’m fine. I stayed home today so Jack could go.”

“Go to church? Jack?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Jack went to church?”

“Ames’s church. As a gesture of respect, he said.”

“Yes, well, that’s very good. John can give a fine sermon. That new fellow we’ve got now, I’m not so sure about him. I might go to the Congregationalists myself. If I went anywhere. Well.” He laughed. “This is something. This is quite a day.”

He sat perfectly still for a minute, smiling into space, considering. “Just when you’re about to give up entirely! The Lord is wonderful!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t read too much into it, Papa.”

“Read into it! It’s just a fact! You go to church and there you are!” He said, “I thought I must have turned him against it all. I really did. I’ve heard of that in preachers’ families. More than once.”

“Well, he seems to have had some contact with a church in St. Louis. He says he played piano for them.”

“Did he! I wouldn’t know that. He doesn’t talk to me very much. Never did.” He laughed. “Your mother used to ask me, Why do we keep paying for piano lessons for that boy? Because he wouldn’t practice, you know. If you tried to make him, he’d just walk out the door. But I said I thought something might come of it. He’d go to the lessons when Teddy went. Yes. I told her I thought we should treat all the children the same, Jack, too.” He sat there smiling, his face bright with vindication. “It’s wonderful. You make some sort of decision, just a little choice you can’t even quite explain, and years later — Well, I knew he was clever. That was clear to me. He was always paying more attention than he would let on. But I knew it, I did.” He laughed at the thought of his own shrewdness. “Yes.”

Glory said, “He seems to have friends in the church there.”

“Friends! Well, I suppose he would. That just happens in a church, doesn’t it. He didn’t really have friends as a boy, though. He never seemed to want them. I’ve prayed his whole life that he’d have a friend or two. It often came to my mind, you know, that loneliness of his. And it didn’t really occur to me — it honestly never occurred to me — that off in St. Louis somewhere my prayers were being answered! Isn’t that something!” He shook his head. “It would have been a weight off my heart, I’ll tell you that. I could have spared myself years of grief, just by having a little trust. There’s a lesson in that.” Then he said, “I do wonder what happened, though. I mean, right now he doesn’t strike me as a man who feels he has friends. Then I could be wrong.”

“He doesn’t tell me very much either.”

“Well,” he said, “here I am worrying, and this is a remarkable day! I have to bestir myself. Would you mind giving my hair a little trim, Glory? I’ve been feeling sort of shaggy. It’s probably my imagination, mostly.” He laughed. “Not much there anymore, I know. Still.”

So she brought her father into the kitchen, sat him down, wrapped a towel around his shoulders and tucked it close around his neck. She got a comb and the pair of shears and set to work. His hair had vanished, or was on the point of vanishing, not through ordinary loss but by a process of rarification. It was so fine, so white and weightless, that it eddied into soft curls. Wafted, she thought. She hated to cut it off, since there seemed very little chance that it could grow back again as it was. It was like cutting a young child’s hair. But her father claimed to be irked by the prettiness of it. Fauntleroy in his dotage, he said.

So she clipped and trimmed, making more work of it than it was in order to satisfy him that some change had been accomplished, combing it down a little with water so he would feel sleek and trim. The nape of his neck, the backs of his ears. The visible strain of holding the great human head upright for decades and decades. Some ancient said it is what makes us different from the beasts, that our eyes are not turned downward to the earth. Most of the time. It was Ovid. At the end of so much effort, the neck seemed frail, but the head was still lifted up, and the ears stood there, still shaped for attention, soft as they were. She’d have left all the lovely hair, which looked like gentle bewilderment, just as the lifted head and the ears looked like waiting grown old, like trust grown old.

“Yes,” her father said, “whenever I thought of him, he was always alone, the way he used to be, and I would wonder what kind of life he could have, with no one even to care how he was, what he needed. I realize that was the one thing I thought I knew, that he would be alone.” He laughed. “Yes, that cost me a lot of grief, and I never thought to question it. I prayed about that more than any one thing, I believe.”

The screen door opened and Jack came into the porch, then into the kitchen. He looked at her and shrugged. “My courage failed,” he said. “I thought if you were dressed you might be able to go late. Sorry.”

After a moment her father said, “Come here, son,” and held out his hands. Jack set his hat on the table and came to the old man and let him take his hands. “There is nothing surprising in this,” the old man said. “Not at all.” There was a quaver in his voice, so he cleared his throat. “Many people find it hard to go to church if they’ve been away for a while. I’ve seen it very often. And I’d say to them, It’s because it means something to you. The decision is important to you. As it should be! So, you see, there’s no reason at all to be disappointed. I used to say, The Sabbath is faithful. In a week she’ll be here again.” And he laughed, sadly, and patted Jack’s hands.

Jack looked down at him, tender and distant. “Next week,” he said.

Glory combed through her father’s hair and then kissed it where it was whitest and thinnest, just at the top of his head. “All done,” she said, and took the towel off from around him.

Jack said, “I don’t suppose you’d have time for another customer.”

“Well, sure.” She was surprised. They had always been so careful of him, almost afraid to touch him. There was an aloofness about him more thoroughgoing than modesty or reticence. It was feral, and fragile. It had enforced a peculiar decorum on them all, even on their mother. There was always the moment when they acknowledged this — no hugging, no roughhousing could include him. Even his father patted his shoulder tentatively, shy and cautious. Why should a child have defended his loneliness that way? But let him have his ways, their father said, or he would be gone. He’d smile at them across that distance, and the smile was sad and hard, and it meant estrangement, even when he was with them.

Her father was also surprised. He said, “Well, I’ll get myself out of your way here.” Glory helped him up from his chair. “I’ve got to give the paper a little going over, if Ames is coming. I have to be up to the minute in case he starts talking politics.” She settled him by the window, and when she came back, Jack was still standing there, waiting.

“You’re probably busy,” he said.

“Not especially. But I have to warn you, I don’t make any claims for myself as a barber. I really just pretend to cut Papa’s hair.”

Jack said, “If you could trim it a little. I should have gone to the barbershop yesterday. I might have felt a little less — disreputable.”

“This morning? You looked fine.”

“No.” He took off his jacket, and she wrapped the towel around his neck and around his shoulders. “I could feel it. It was like an itchiness under my skin. Like — scurrility. I thought it might be my clothes. I mean that they made it obvious. More obvious.”

He shied away from her touch. “You’re going to have to sit still,” she said. “Is it Ames?”

“Him, too. But I can’t really say the experience is unfamiliar. It has come over me from time to time. It rarely lasts more than a few months.” He laughed. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. You don’t have to.”

“Sit still.”

“You can’t commiserate. You have never felt disreputable.”

“How do you know?”

“Am I right?”

“I suppose.”

“I am right.” He said, “In case you’re wondering, scurrility seems to be contagious. Be warned. I should wear a leper bell. I suppose I do.”

“You’re imagining.”

“No, I’m only exaggerating.”

“You didn’t actually go inside the church.”

“I didn’t even cross the street.”

She put her hand under his chin and lifted his head. Had she ever touched his face before? “I can’t really see what I’m doing here. You’ll have to sit up.”

“I suppose old Ames must have seen me there. Loitering. Lurking. Eyeing his flock.” He laughed. “What a fool I am.”

“Sit still.”

“Will do.”

“I’m going to trim around your ears. I’ve got to get it even.”

He crossed his ankles and folded his hands and sat there obediently while she snipped at one side and then the other. She tipped up his face again to judge the effect. There were tears on his cheeks. She took a corner of the towel and patted them away, and he smiled at her.

“Exasperation,” he said. “I’m so tired of myself.”

HE ASKED HER TO CUT HIS HAIR SHORTER ON THE TOP SO it wouldn’t fall down on his forehead. He said, “I look like some damn gigolo.”

“No, you don’t.”

He eyed her. “How would you know?”

“I suppose I wouldn’t know.”

He nodded. “One brief stint as a dance instructor. The old ladies loved me. But I was drinking at the time, so I never really mastered the samba.”

She laughed. “That’s a sad story.”

“Yes, it is. I thought I was doing all right. But my employer frowned on, you know, improvisation. I did some very interesting steps, but you really have to be able to do them again, at least once. That was his major criticism.”

“Ah, Jack.”

“Jack indeed. I spent that winter at the library. It was such a miserable winter that I seized the opportunity to improve my mind. The old ladies loved me there, too. A gentleman fallen on hard times. I subsisted on bran muffins and white cake. These were not the same old ladies. Less rouge, no henna.”

“I’ve noticed how well-read you are.”

He nodded. “I have been a frequenter of libraries over the years. It’s the last place people think to look for you. The sort of people who come looking for you. Much better than a movie theater. So I thought I might as well read what I was supposed to have read in college. Insofar as memory served. Awfully dull work, a lot of it. I’d never have lasted a week in college if Teddy hadn’t been there to do it for me.”

“Oh.”

“He’s never mentioned that.”

“Not a word, so far as I know.”

“That precocity of his? It came from years of doing my homework. He is deeply in my debt. I would never mention this, of course. Except to you.”

“That’s good of you.”

He nodded. “We are brothers, after all.”

“But you have to sit still.”

“I’m trying.”

“Maybe calm down a little.”

“An interesting suggestion,” he said. “A really good idea.”

“I will not touch another hair of your head unless you sit still.”

“Fair enough. Just let me have the scissors and I’ll finish it up myself.”

“Not a chance, buster.”

He laughed.

“Not in the mood you’re in.”

He nodded. “You’re right to worry. I just want to be rid of this damn forelock. What do they say? Seize Fate by the forelock?”

“Time, I think. It’s Time that has the forelock.”

“Well, something’s got me by the forelock. Nothing so dignified as Fate, I’m pretty sure. If thy forelock offend thee, cut it off. Sorry.”

“Then sit still.”

“Did you ever wonder what that means? If thy right eye offend thee? As if it were not part of thee? It’s true, though. I offend me — eyes, hands, history, prospects—”

“Did you have any breakfast?”

He laughed.

“You didn’t. I’m going to make you a sandwich. You’re worried about seeing Ames tonight at dinner.”

“Yes, well, it seems I’ve done as much as one man could do to make the experience embarrassing.”

“Nonsense. Really. If he did see you on the street, what of it?”

“Good point, Glory. Perspective. Just what is called for here. Would he have noticed my discomfort with myself from that distance? Well, so what? A law-abiding citizen has a perfect right to feel wretched on a public sidewalk, on a Sabbath morning. Even to pause as he does so. Near a church, too. There’s poetry in it, of a sort.”

“You don’t really know that he saw you.”

“Right you are.”

“Meat loaf or tuna salad?”

“Meat loaf. Just a little catsup.”

She started to move his jacket away from the table and he stood up and took it out of her hands, smiling. It was another sensitivity, like the privacy of that bare, orderly room upstairs. Fine. She was sorry she had forgotten. He felt for the slight weight in the left breast pocket, about which she did not let herself wonder, and put the jacket on. “I’ll shake out this towel,” he said. “Then I’ll sweep up a little.”

JACK BROUGHT HIS FATHER’S ARMCHAIR INTO THE KITCHEN so he could be present for the paring of apples and the rolling of pastry. “I have always enjoyed that,” the old man said, “the sound of a knife slicing through an apple.” He asked for a look at the pie before the top crust went on—“More fragrant than flowers!”—and for a look at it afterward, when the edge had been fluted and the vents were cut. He said, “My grandmother used to go out and gather up windfall apples. Our orchard was too young to produce much, but she’d pick them up wherever she found them and bring them home and make a pile of them out there in front of the shed, and they’d stay there till they fermented, and then she’d make them into cider. She said it was medicinal, tonic for her achy bones, she said. She’d give me a taste sometimes. It tasted terrible. But when the morning was chilly, the steam would pour off those apples like smoke. A smoldering pyre of apples. The chickens would roost on it, for the warmth.” He laughed. “The cats would sleep on it. She always had her own little projects. She’d eat kidney when she could find it. Tongue. Mutton. In spring she’d be out in the fields, along the fences, picking dandelion greens as soon as the sun was up. She’d come in with her apron full of purslane. My mother thought it was embarrassing. She’d say, ‘You’d think we didn’t feed her!’ But she always did what she wanted to do.” He talked on with the intermitted constancy of a pot simmering. Jack trimmed mushrooms he had brought in and washed them, and washed them again until he was sure there was no trace of sand left in them. He chopped the onion. The kitchen began to smell of pie baking.

“This is wonderful,” his father said. “So much going on and me right in the middle of it. In the way, too, I suppose. It was kind of you to set me up like this, Jack. You’re very good to me.”

Jack laughed. “You deserve it,” he said.

His father said, “Yes, the pleasures of family life are very real.”

“So I understand.”

“Well, you would remember them yourself, Jack. Your mother was always baking something. Ten of us in the house, and there were people dropping by all the time in those days. She felt she had to have something nice to offer them. The girls would be out here helping her, making cakes and cookies. All the talking and laughing. And a little fussing and scuffling now and then, too. Yes. But you were always off somewhere.”

“Not always.”

“No, not always. That’s just how it seemed to me.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, we missed you, that’s all.”

And now here he is, Glory thought, haggard and probationary, with little of his youth left to him except the wry elusiveness, secretiveness, that he did in fact seem to wear on his skin. He stood propped against the counter with his arms folded and watched his father while his father pondered him, smiling that hard, wistful smile at what he knew his father saw, as if he were saying, “All those years I spared you knowing I wasn’t worth your grief.”

But the old man said, “Come here, son,” and he took Jack’s hands and caressed them and touched them to his cheek. He said, “It’s a powerful thing, family.”

And Jack laughed. “Yes, sir. Yes, it is. I do know that.”

“Well,” he said, “at least you’re home.”

WHEN THE PIE WAS DONE AND THE ROAST WAS IN THE OVEN AND the biscuits were made and set aside and the old man had nodded off in the warmth of the kitchen, Jack went upstairs and Glory sat down to read for a while. The table was set, the kitchen was in reasonable order, Lila was bringing a salad.

She heard Jack washing up, shaving again, no doubt. That was how he nerved himself. By shaving and by polishing his shoes. He ironed his own shirts, very carefully, though not as well as she could have done it for him. He never let himself be a burden to her if he could avoid it, or accepted help he did not immediately repay with help. When she laundered her father’s shirts for him, he in return mopped the kitchen floor and waxed it, too. He did such things with a thoroughness and flair he always quite plausibly ascribed to professional experience. She tried to assure him that it wasn’t necessary to maintain this careful reciprocity, but he only raised his eyebrows, as if to say he might know more about that than she did. She realized it was not only proud but also prudent in a man so disposed as he was, by habit and experience, to doubt his welcome. It calmed him a little to know he had been useful.

And his self-sufficiency was also guardedness, as if his personal effects could be interpreted, or as if, few as they were, worn as they were, they were saturated with the particulars of his secretive life and could mock or accuse him, or expose old injury, or old happiness, which seemed to be the same thing, more or less. Once, when he had been home for a week or so, she had gone out to hang the laundry and had found two of his shirts on the line, already dry. So she took them in to iron them, since she would be ironing anyway. Collar, yoke, sleeves — this was the proper order of things, so her mother had said, and she did not depart from it. When she began to iron the first of the sleeves, she noticed that it was spangled with stars and flowers, an elaborate embroidery of white on white from the cuff to the elbow, and one final flower near the shoulder.

Jack came into the porch, stopped abruptly when he saw what she was doing, and smiled at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I’ve intruded again.”

He said, “Careful. That’s my best shirt.”

“I’m always careful. The embroidery on it is really beautiful.”

“A friend of mine said she would mend it for me, and that’s what she did instead. It was a kind of joke.”

“Very pretty, though.”

He nodded.

She said, “You can finish. You’ve made me nervous.”

He shrugged. “I’m touchy. I know that.”

“No, this is beautiful. You’re right to worry about it.”

He said, “I almost never wear it. But I lost that other suitcase.” He came just close enough to look sidelong at the flowers and stars, pressed smooth, softly bright like damask. “I never expected anything like that. She did it years ago. Years ago.” That was the first she had heard of Della.

JACK CAME DOWNSTAIRS TO HELP PREPARE THEIR FATHER for his dinner, wordlessly, since the old man slept on in the vapors and perfumes of Sabbath. He polished the old man’s shoes and brushed his jacket and rummaged through his ties. He brought out two, one a dark blue stripe and one maroon and ruby. Glory touched the gorgeous one, Jack nodded and draped it over the shoulder of the jacket. Then he rummaged again and found the tie clasp that looked like a dagger with a St. Andrew’s cross on the hilt, and the matching cuff links. She shrugged. Allusions to Scotland aroused in their father a wistful indignation, and a readiness to defend the proposition that history in general ought to have unfolded otherwise, with that one sad instance as case in point. Ames, being no Scot, nor much interested in history after the sack of Rome and before the Continental Congress, heard him out with a patience their father found trying. “Then what does matter?” their father would ask the air, once Ames was out the door. So Jack returned them to the dresser. He came back with the Masonic set, Scottish Rite, of course, but a reminder of power and prosperity won despite all. Ames was no Mason, either, so their father’s vows of secrecy forbade conversational forays that might otherwise have become tedious. She nodded.

She brought out his best new shirt. Jack touched the sleeve and whispered, “Very nice!” Their father had always said it was a false economy to buy clothes of poor quality because he was, in his decorous, ministerial way, a dandy. From time to time, in their childhood, boxes arrived from Chicago. Suits and shirts and ties emerged from them, ordinary enough to pass unnoticed, except as they gave his lanky body an air of composure and grace. A new dress or suit, which also arrived from Chicago, was the reward for the child who gained the most height as a percentage of his or her height the previous Easter. This began as a ploy of their mother’s to get them to eat vegetables. The figuring of percentages was added as a concession to Teddy’s notions of equity. It was he who reflected on the fact that the girls would be sure to grow less than the boys did in absolute terms. Jack never turned up for the measuring ceremony, which was a boisterous business of cake and cocoa and argumentative calculation. But that one year the suit was for him anyway and he did come to Easter service. Looking so beautiful, his father said when he mentioned it.

SO SHE AND JACK MADE A SORT OF PIECEMEAL SIMULACRUM of their dozing father. Jack played solitaire beside him while Glory dressed, then Jack went upstairs while Glory finished the vegetables and the gravy. Half an hour before the Ameses were to arrive, Glory roused her father and helped him into his clothes, washed his face and brushed his hair into a fine white tousle that went handsomely with his glorious tie and the irascible look he assumed to conceal his pleasure at these attentions to his vanity.

“Jack is here,” he said, as if to exclude other possibilities.

“He went upstairs a few minutes ago.”

“He will be back downstairs in time for dinner.”

“Yes.”

Then Ames arrived with Lila and Robby, the three of them in their church clothes, and she took her father into the parlor with them, the company parlor, where they sat on the creaky chairs no one ever sat on. It had been almost forgotten that they were not there just to be dismally ornamental, chairs only in the same sense that the lamp stand was a shepherdess. Ames was clearly bemused by the formality her father had willed upon the occasion. The room was filled with those things that seem to exist so that children can be forbidden to touch them — porcelain windmills and pagodas and china dogs — and Robby’s eyes were bright with suppressed attraction to them. He leaned at his mother’s knee, lifting his face to whisper to her now and then, bunching and twisting the hem of her dress in his hands. There were remarks on the weather. Her father said, “Egypt will have consequences,” and she went into the kitchen to sauté the morels, since Jack had still not appeared.

Just when his absence began to seem conspicuous and awkward, when she had gone into the parlor to tell them that Jack would certainly be down in a minute or two, they heard him on the stairs, and then there he was, standing in the doorway. He was dressed in one of his father’s fine old dark suits. There was a silence of surprise. He brushed at his shoulder. He said, “The cloth is a little faded. It looks like dust.” Then no one spoke until his father said, “I was quite a tall fellow at one time.”

Jack was wearing one of the creamy shirts she had brought down from the chest in the attic and the blue striped tie, and his hair was parted high and combed straight to the side. He looked very like his father in his prime, except for the marked weariness of his face, his mild and uninnocent expression. Aware of the silence, he smiled and touched the scar beneath his eye. But he would have looked elegant, after a decorous and outmoded fashion, if he had not been Jack, and if they had not thought, therefore, What does this mean? what might he do next? And there was something moving in the fact that the suit fit him almost perfectly, or would have if he were not quite so thin. He was the measure of the failure of his father’s body, and also perhaps a portending of the failure of his own.

Ames said, “Well,” and looked at him for a moment before he remembered to rise.

Glory had noticed that men who were on uncertain terms with each other will take one step forward, leaning into a space between them as if the distance had been arrived at by treaty and could be breached only for the moment it took them to shake hands. “Jack,” he said.

Jack said, “Reverend. Mrs. Ames.” And then he laughed and smoothed his lapels and looked at Glory sidelong, as if to say, “Another bad idea!” He was wearing the dagger tie clasp. The brightness in his face meant anxiety. When he was anxious a strange honesty overtook him. He did understandable things for understandable reasons, answering expectation in terms that were startlingly literal, as if in him the skeletal machinery of conventional behavior, the extension and contraction of the pulleys of muscle and sinew, was all exposed. And he was aware of this, embarrassed by it, inclined to pass it off, if he could, as irony, to the irritation of acquaintances and strangers, and, she could only imagine, employers and police.

She said to her guests, feigning the same slight strangerliness they feigned, too, “Please come into the dining room. Jack will help me serve.”

“Oh, good,” Jack said. “I was feeling a little at a loss.” Then to Lila he said, “No gift for small talk, polite conversation. None at all.”

Lila smiled. “Me neither.” She had a soft, slow, comfortable voice that suggested other regions, and suggested, too, in its very gentleness, that she knew a good deal more about the world than she would ever let on. Jack looked at her with pleasant interest, with a kind of hopefulness, Glory thought. Clearly Ames noticed, too. Poor Jack. People watched him, and he knew it. It was partly distrust. But more than that, the man was at once indecipherable and transparent. Of course they watched him.

He followed her into the kitchen. He said, “Maybe I should go change.”

“No, no. You’re just fine. You look nice.” She put serving dishes into his hands. “I’ll bring the condiments. Come back for the roast.”

He carried in the huge, chipped semi-porcelain platter on which roasts and hams and turkeys had always made their entrances in that house and, after a moment’s hesitation, set it down in front of his father, in keeping with what was once family custom. But the old man was still a little grimly bemused by the apparition he had seen of himself in his relative youth. He said, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. It might as well still be on the hoof for all the luck I’d have with it. Give it to Ames.”

Jack said, “Yes, sir,” and after Lila had rearranged the serving dishes, he set the roast in front of Ames, who said, “I’ll do my best.”

Jack took the chair next to his father, and then Robby left his mother’s side and came around the table and leaned into the chair beside Jack’s.

“I could sit here,” he said shyly.

Jack said, “You could, indeed. Please do,” and helped him pull the chair a little way from the table. Ames glanced up from the roast.

Lila said, “He’s taken to you. He don’t often act that friendly. Doesn’t.”

Jack said, “I’m honored,” as if he meant it. Then he stood up from the table. “Excuse me. One minute. An oversight,” and left the room. They heard him leave the porch.

His father shook his head. “He’s up to something, I suppose. No idea in the world what it could be.”

They sat waiting for him, and in a few minutes he came back with a handful of sweet peas in a water glass, which he put down in front of Lila. “We can’t have Mrs. Ames as our guest and no flowers on the table!” he said. “It’s not much of a bouquet. A little better than nothing, I hope.”

Lila smiled. “They’re nice,” she said.

Ames cleared his throat. “Well, Reverend Boughton, since I have carved, maybe you could offer the blessing.”

Boughton said, “I was thinking you might do that, too.”

There was a silence.

Jack took a slip of paper from his pocket. “In case of emergency,” he said. “I mean, in case this should fall to me, the grace. I’ve written it out.”

His father looked at him a little balefully. “That’s excellent, Jack. Perhaps it won’t be necessary.”

Jack glanced at Ames, who shrugged, and he began to read. “‘Dear Father,’” he said. He paused and studied the paper, leaning into the candlelight. “My handwriting is very poor. I crossed some things out. ‘You are patient and gracious far beyond our deserving.’” He cleared his throat. “‘You let us hope for your forgiveness when we can find no way to forgive ourselves. You bless our lives even when we have shown ourselves to be utterly ungrateful and unworthy. May we be strengthened and renewed, to make us less unworthy of blessing, through these your gifts of sustenance, of friendship and family.’” And then, “‘In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.’”

Again there was a silence. He looked at Ames, who nodded and said, “Thank you.”

“Jack, that was fine,” his father said.

Jack shrugged. “I thought I’d give it a try. I should have noticed I had the word ‘unworthy’ down twice. I thought ‘sustenance’ was good, though.” He laughed.

After a moment Boughton said to Ames, “We have had some conversation about family over the last few days, and I believe Jack has brought the conversation to a point here. It is in family that we most often feel the grace of God, His faithfulness. Yes.”

Jack nodded. He murmured, “Amen.”

Heartened, his father launched into an account of his views on Dulles’s policy of containment. “It is provocation!” he said. “Pure and simple!” Ames thought Dulles might be proved right in the long term, and Boughton said “the long term” was just a sort of feather pillow that was used to smother arguments.

Ames laughed. “I wish I’d known that sooner.”

Boughton said, “You’ve always enjoyed a good quarrel as much as anybody, Reverend.”

Jack asked his father if he thought the long-term consequences of the violence in Montgomery would be important, and his father said, “I don’t believe there will be any consequences to speak of. These things come and go. The gravy is wonderful, by the way.” Jack absently spindled the slip of paper in his fingers. When he realized Ames had noticed, he smiled and smoothed it out again and slipped it into his pocket. Ames cut Robby’s roast for him, and Jack split and buttered a biscuit and set it on the boy’s plate.

Whatever part of her father’s hopes for the evening could be satisfied by fragrance and candlelight and by food consecrated to the rituals of Boughton celebration, that part at least had been seen to. The roast beef was tender, the glazed beets were pungent, the string beans were as they always were so early in the year, canned. But she had simmered them with bacon to make them taste less like themselves. She waited for someone to remark on the biscuits, but it was the gravy they admired, and she was proud of that, too.

Still, there was something strained about it all, as if time had another burden, like humid air, or as if it were a denser medium and impervious to the trivialization which was all they would expect or hope for on an evening like this one, now that grace was said. Her father gazed at Jack from time to time, pondered him, and Jack was aware of it. His hand trembled when he reached for his water glass, and ordinarily the old man, gentle as he was, would have looked away. But instead he touched Jack’s shoulder and his sleeve. Ames, his expression pensively comprehending, watched his friend take the measure of his erstwhile youth.

Jack said, “Dinner with Lazarus.”

His father drew his hand away. “Sorry, Jack. I didn’t quite hear that.”

“Nothing, it just came to my mind. ‘And Lazarus was one of those at table with him.’ I’ve always thought that must have been strange. For Lazarus. He must have felt a little—‘disreputable’ isn’t the word. Of course he’d have had time to clean himself up a little. Comb his hair. Still—” He laughed. “Sorry.”

Boughton said, “That’s very interesting, but I’m still not sure I see your point.”

Ames turned a long look on Jack, almost the incarnation of his father’s youth. It was a reproving look, as if he suspected that he did see the point and he felt the conversation ought to take another turn. Jack shook his head. “I just—” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking about.” He glanced at Glory and smiled.

FOR A WHILE TALK DRIFTED GENTLY AND PREDICTABLY from the world situation to baseball to old times. Then there was a lull in the conversation, and Jack turned his gaze on Robby, who had sat beside him quietly, using his spoon to make a fort or embankment of his mashed potatoes.

“Robby for Robert,” Jack said.

He nodded.

“Robert B.”

He nodded and laughed.

“B. for Boughton.”

He nodded.

Jack said, “I believe that is the best name in the world.”

Ames said, “Your father was always naming his sons after other people. He didn’t have a Robert of his own.”

“No,” Boughton said. “Glory would have been Robert, but she wasn’t a boy.”

Jack looked at her.

His father, afraid he had been rude, said, “It worked out very well — four of each.”

Jack shrugged. “Faith. Hope. Grace. Roberta—”

“No,” his father said. “Charity was my first thought. But your mother sort of put her foot down. She thought it would make her sound like an orphan or something. The word is actually agape. Caritas is the Latin. Nothing you would name a child.”

Glory said, “I think we should change the subject.”

“Your mother wanted to call her Gloria, the usual spelling, but I couldn’t see that, when all the other names are in English.”

Jack said, “Fides, Spes, Gratia, Gloria.”

“Ah, the old jokes,” Glory said.

“Yes, it was Teddy who came up with that one,” the old man said. “Everything was high school Latin around here for a while, wasn’t it.” He looked at Jack. “Teddy called yesterday, by the way.”

Jack nodded. “Sorry I missed him.”

“Well, I suppose he’s used to it by now. I guess he’d better be.”

Jack smiled at his father. “Yes, well, there’s something else I forgot. If you’ll excuse me for a minute—” And he put down his fork and stood up and left the table and left the room.

Boughton shook his head. “First he was off picking flowers. Now he’s left the table in the middle of dinner. I suppose because I mentioned Teddy. I don’t understand it. They used to be close, when they were boys. At least he’d talk to Teddy now and then. I believe he did. That was my impression.”

Glory said, “You might lower your voice a little, Papa.”

“Well, sometimes I just don’t understand his behavior,” he said in an emphatic whisper. “I thought after all this time he might be—”

Glory touched her father’s wrist, and Jack walked into the silence of interrupted conspiracy, or so he must have thought, smiling as he did, guilelessly, eyebrows raised. “Sorry,” he said. “If you’d like, I could just wait out here in the hall for a minute or two. Until you’ve finished.”

“No. You’d better sit down,” his father said. “Your dinner is cold enough already.”

Jack smiled. “Yes, sir.” He was holding a baseball in his hand. When he had sat down, he held it up for Robby to see. “What have we here?” he said.

Robby said, “Um, fastball!”

Jack laughed with surprise, and looked at his hand. “Right you are!” He shifted the ball in his fingers. “And what is this?”

“Knuckleball!”

“And this?”

“Um. Curveball.”

He shifted the ball again.

“Um. I forget that one. Let me think. A slipper!”

“Well,” Jack said, “when I was a boy we used to call it a slider. Same idea.”

Robby put his hands to his face and laughed. “No, a slipper is, like, a shoe!”

Jack nodded. “I suppose you could get in trouble with the umpire if you were out there throwing slippers,” and then he watched the child with grave, pleasant interest until he had finished laughing. “So I guess you want to be a pitcher.”

Robby nodded. “My dad was a pitcher.”

“A very fine pitcher, too,” Boughton said. “I don’t think people play that game as much as they used to anymore. They’re home watching it on television.”

“My dad taught me all those pitches,” Robby said. “With an orange!” He laughed.

Ames said, “We were just talking baseball over lunch the other day. I thought I’d show him a few things.”

“He’s a quick study,” Jack said.

Ames nodded. “I’m a little surprised he remembered all that.”

Robby said, “We have a real baseball, but it’s up in the attic somewhere. My dad hates to go up in the attic.”

“Well,” Ames said. “I see I have been remiss.”

Jack put the baseball beside Robby’s plate. “This one is for you. It’s a present. I knew you probably had one of your own, since your dad was a pitcher. But an extra one can come in handy.”

Robby looked at his mother. She nodded.

“Thanks,” he said. He took up the ball, shyly, tentatively.

“It’s brand new, so you’ll have to take care of it. Do you know how to take care of a new baseball?”

“No, but my dad’ll tell me.”

Jack said, “It’s pretty simple. You just rub dirt all over it. Scruff it up a little.”

“Rub dirt on it—” the boy said, doubtful. “I guess I’ll ask my dad, anyway.”

Jack laughed. “That’s always a good idea.” And he glanced at his own father. “My dad and I used to play a little ball.”

The old man nodded. “Yes, we did. We had some good times, too, didn’t we?” He looked at his hand. “Hard to believe it now, when I can’t even tie my own shoes! I think back to those times, when I was just an ordinary man, not even a young man, and it’s like remembering that I used to be the sun and the wind! Taking the steps two at a time—!”

Ames laughed.

“Well, it all just seemed so natural, like it could never end. Your mother would be there in the kitchen, cooking supper, singing to herself. And she’d have a cup of coffee for me, and we’d talk a little. And I could tell just by hearing all the voices who was in the house. Except for Jack, of course. He was so quiet.”

Ames said, “The sun and the wind!”

“Oh yes, you can laugh. A big brute like you wouldn’t even know what I’m talking about. It seems to me I’ve gotten old for both of us.”

“I beg to differ, Reverend. I feel I’ve done my share of getting old.”

Robby said, “He told me he’s too old to play catch.”

Ames nodded. “And so I am. It’s a sad fact.”

Glory saw her brother glance at her, as if an intention had begun to form, and then he looked away again and smiled to himself.

THEY ATE THEIR PIE. “I SUPERVISED,” HER FATHER SAID. “Jack pared the apples and Glory made the pastry, and I made sure it was all up to my specifications.” He laughed. “Jack put my chair out there in the kitchen, right in the middle of everything. It was very nice. We’ve had some good times, we three. I told you that he’s almost got the old DeSoto running. Yes. Good times. And he plays the piano! I must say, that came as a surprise.”

“Yes,” Jack said, “I could play a little now, if you’d like.” And he excused himself. They heard him from the next room, trying one hymn and then another—“‘I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses,’ then ‘Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer! that calls me from a world of care.’” Glory brought him a cup of coffee. “Thanks,” he said. “‘If I have uttered idle words or vain, if I have turned aside from want or pain.’” He laughed. “If only I knew how you do that!” Then “‘Love divine, all loves excelling’—they’re all waltzes! Have you noticed that?” Lila and Robby came to listen, then Ames, who had stayed behind a little to offer Boughton help, should he admit to needing it.

Lila said, “I like waltzes.” So Jack plunged into a brief and distinctly Viennese “There’s a Garden Where Jesus Is Waiting.”

Ames looked on without expression. Her father’s expression was statesmanlike.

And then Jack played, “‘I want a Sunday kind of love, a love that lasts past Saturday night.’ I’ve forgotten the words. ‘I’m on a lonely road that leads to nowhere. I want a Sunday kind of love.’”

Lila said, almost sang, “‘I do my Sunday dreaming, and all my Sunday scheming, every hour, every minute, every day. I’m hoping to discover a certain kind of lover who will show me the way.’”

Jack said, “Why, thank you, Mrs. Ames!” and she smiled.

His father said, “I thought we might enjoy something a little more in keeping with the Sabbath.”

Lila said, “That’s a good song, though.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, Jack.”

He nodded. He played “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” and “Faith of Our Fathers” with a kind of exuberant solemnity, and they sang, and then Ames said he was weary after a long day and it must be after Robby’s bedtime, too. The boy had climbed up on the piano bench beside Jack and was shyly touching the keys. Jack went to see the guests to the door, but Robby stayed behind, plinking tentatively. When his mother called him and he climbed down from the bench, he noticed that the seat could be lifted, and he opened it. He said, “There’s money in here!”

Ames reflexively took Boughton’s arm. Glory said, “Oh, I put it there,” but her father crept toward the bench to peer into it as if it were a chasm opening. Glory said, “It’s just leftover money from the household allowance. I take it out of the other drawer so I can keep track of what I’m spending,” but her father, with Ames holding his arm, continued to stare at it. Jack looked in at it, too, and then he started to laugh. “Good try, Glory. A likely tale!” He said, “If there are thirty-eight dollars in there I will have to believe in — something.” And he put his hands to his face and laughed.

His father was bewildered to the point of indignation. “Now that,” he said, “is a remark I simply do not understand!”

Robby said, “Well, it is kind of funny to have all those dollar bills in there!”

Ames smoothed the boy’s hair. “Yes, it is. You’re right about that. Now, you go home with your mother. I’ll be along pretty soon.”

When Lila and the boy were out the door, Glory slammed the piano shut, so hard that the strings rang. “Everyone is ignoring me!” she said. Her anger startled all of them. “Wait.” She went into the parlor and came back with the big Bible. She closed the bench and set the Bible on it. “Now watch. Everyone watch.” And she knelt and put her right hand on the Bible. “I solemnly swear, so help me, God, that I personally put that money in the piano bench. It looks as if I were hiding it, but it was just a lazy kind of bookkeeping. That’s all it was. And I did it. No one else. If I’m lying, may God strike me dead.”

Her father said, “That kind of language isn’t really necessary, dear,” but he was clearly impressed, and also relieved. “You’re good to your brother,” he said, and Jack laughed. “I only meant—” he said, and looked so weary that Ames took him into his room and helped him lie down. Before he left, Reverend Ames said goodbye to them both, and shook Jack’s hand again. His cordiality seemed heavily compounded with regret, with suppressed irritation. Still, Jack was clearly grateful for it.

When he was gone Jack said, “That thing you did with the Bible was great. I’m going to have to remember that.” And he laughed. Then, “If you hadn’t rescued it, the whole thing would have been a disaster, but as it was, I thought, well, I didn’t think it was a disaster, all in all.” He looked at her as though he had asked her a question.

Amazing, she thought, but she said, “No, it went well enough.”

He nodded. “I believe it did. My expectations were low. Reasonable in the circumstances. Still. His kid seemed to like me. And the Mrs. That part of it went pretty well.” He went upstairs and came back down again in one of his own shirts and began to help her clear the table.

She said, “Jack, can I ask you something? No, I’ll tell you something. I’m beginning to think your Della can’t be worth all this misery.”

“What? She’s worth it. If I could be any more miserable, she’d be worth that, too. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

“She doesn’t write to you—”

He smiled at her, stung.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what the problem is.”

He said, “That’s true. You don’t.”

“But I know you a little now, and you’re really not so hard to forgive.”

“Why, thank you.” Then he said, “But you don’t know how much she’s had to forgive. You can’t even imagine. And there’s more every damn day.” He looked at her. He said, “And I think that’s enough about Della.”

THE NEXT DAY GLORY WENT TO THE HARDWARE STORE and bought two pairs of the tan cotton pants and three of the blue denim shirts local men wore when they were not farming or fishing or dressed for a funeral. They were folded over cardboard, stiff when they were new, but she would put them through the wash twice and press them a little and they would be fine. She guessed at Jack’s size. Anything long enough was too wide, but he would have to make the best of that.

While she was hanging them on the clothesline, he walked over from the garden and stood with his hands on his hips, watching. He said, “Those for me?”

“If you think you can use them.”

He laughed. “I’m pretty sure I can.” He said, “Thanks, Glory,” and he reached over and touched a sleeve appreciatively. There was no irony in the gesture. “I’ll have to owe you for this.”

“You don’t owe me for anything. I took some money out of the piano bench. I’m as broke as you are.”

“I lost that other suitcase.”

“I know.”

He was quiet for a minute. “You had a pretty good job.”

“I did.”

“That bastard took your money.”

She shrugged. “I gave it to him. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t have any real plans for it.”

He nodded. “The old fellow thinks you had to quit teaching because you got married.”

“And you know differently.”

“Yes. None of my business.” He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and tapped it on his thumbnail.

“What?”

“I’ve often thought—” he said. “I mean, it’s been my experience — that women can be too kind. Too kind for their own good.”

She laughed. “I’ve thought so, too, from time to time.”

“You’re kind.”

“Case in point.”

He studied her face, wincing against the smoke from his cigarette. Then he said, “Could you forgive him?” He glanced away. “Sorry. None of my business.” He said, “You brought it up last night. I was just wondering.”

She smiled at him.

“Right,” he said. “You don’t like to talk about it.”

There was something that charmed her in the fact that her brother, the one true worldling in the whole tribe of Boughtons, seemed to be asking her for advice, or for wisdom, standing there in the sunlight with the wind hushing in the dusty lilacs of their childhood and laundry swaying on the lines where their school clothes used to hang. He looked older in sunlight. It brought out a sort of toughened frailty in him. But, standing at a little distance, looking away at nothing in particular, he had that oblique and hesitant persistence about him that meant he was in earnest, so far as she could tell.

So she said, “Could I forgive him? I’m not sure I understand the question. But the answer is no.”

He nodded.

“I don’t wish him any harm, and I’m glad I’ll never see him again. I don’t enjoy being reminded of him.”

“Sorry. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but you did bring it up. You said I’m not hard to forgive. Something like that.”

“Were you good to her?”

“I tried to be.” He shrugged.

“Then if she’s a kind woman she’ll probably forgive you. Of course I don’t know what you did, what she’d have to forgive you for.”

He laughed and tossed away his cigarette. “I’m not sure I do, either. There were so many things she put up with — it’s what I am, as much as anything. What I’m not. She got tired of the problems. I should have been more protective somehow.” He said, “I tried that. Once I sort of defended her honor. Not wise in the circumstances.” Then, “It probably wouldn’t matter if she did forgive me. I thought she might write, though.” He said, “You get used to kindness. After a while you begin to count on it. You miss it when it’s gone.”

She said, “I know a little bit about that,” and he nodded, and the lilacs rustled, and the sun shone, and there was quiet between them, a calm that came with being of one mind. So she had to say, “You shouldn’t lose hope.”

He laughed. “Sometimes I really wish I could.”

She said, “I know about that, too.”

Why hadn’t she bought clothes for him weeks ago? Because he was a stranger she was afraid of offending with so personal an attention. Because her buying clothes for him would allude to his poverty and offend him. Because it might seem like a subject of conversation for people who saw her buying them and this would embarrass and offend him. Because he was vain, and particular, and Jack. Cheap, sturdy work clothes were not the kind of thing he thought he should wear, and they would offend him. But in fact she saw him check the shirts on the line several times, and when one of them was dry enough, he brought it in and ironed it and put it on. The pants were heavier and took longer to dry. She saw him check them, too, then walk over by the orchard, pick a fallen apple off the ground, throw it up on the barn roof, and wait and catch it when it came down, and throw it again. Her brothers all did that when they were boys. Jack looked a little stiff, as if he were making an experiment in attempting this lonely game after so many years. Tentative as he was, it might have meant happiness.

AMES STROLLED OVER THAT EVENING AFTER SUPPER, FOR a game of checkers, he said, but he and their father sat in the porch with the board between them and talked quietly together, the way they did when advice of some kind was being sought and given. Glory brought them ice water and left them to themselves. It was a courtesy Ames paid to his friend to seek out pastoral wisdom even though he must have had wisdom of his own to spare after so many years, and since he was, by temperament, the more obliging of the two and therefore seldom in particular need of wisdom, his own or Boughton’s. All the same, he would offer up some soul to her father’s contemplation and then they would consider together, as they did in the old days, how to mollify, comfort, instruct. Boughton had resigned his pulpit ten years earlier, under circumstances that made Ames especially careful to respect his views. The Sunday-school children were marrying, and the married couples had settled into difficult, ordinary life, and the grave old men and women who had taught the Sunday-school children about bands of angels and flying chariots were themselves crossing over Jordan one by one. So he helped Ames think through whatever question might have arisen among the Congregationalists, whom he knew better than his own former flock now, through these murmured consultations. “Yes,” he would say, “a good deal of tact will be called for in dealing with that fellow,” and Ames would say, “That’s for sure.” During these conversations her father’s expression assumed its old sagacity, that gentle shrewdness of the practiced shepherd of souls. “But I’d tell him where matters stand. I’d be frank about it.” His eyes would kindle with the thought of firmness and candor, the memory of those old pleasures. Ames always watched him with a kind of bemused and wistful respect, as if he were now the younger man and his friend had aged past him into a venerability he might never attain. “Yes,” he would say, “I will certainly be frank.”

Jack came upon them there, talking together. She heard them greet him, and a word or two, and then he came into the kitchen with cucumbers from the garden. His shirt bloused and his pants gathered a little under his belt, but she was pleased all in all with the way he looked and she could tell he was, too. He managed to seem a little dapper, somehow, a thing his pride required. She knew this was a relief to him. He washed the cucumbers. “Cucumbers smell like evening,” he said. “Like chill. Need any help?” When she said no he went to the piano and sat down and began to play “Softly and Tenderly,” a favorite hymn of his father’s. He played it softly, and, she thought, very tenderly. She went into the hallway to listen, and he glanced up at her sidelong, as if there were an understanding between them, but he played on pensively, without a hint of detachment or calculation. “Come home, come home, ye who are weary, come home.” The old men fell silent. “Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.” Her father sang, Ames with him. Then “Rock of Ages,” then “The Old Rugged Cross,” and when that song was over, it was night. It had begun to thunder and rain, one of those storms that come after dark and change the weather. The old men sat there, silent for a long time. She brought Ames an umbrella, and after a while she heard him take his leave. She was afraid the damp might make her father uncomfortable, but he asked her, very kindly, to leave him alone for a little while. He said, “Tell Jack that was wonderful. I was proud of him.”

She found Jack in his room, the door open, lying on his bed reading a book. She said, from the doorway, “Jack, Papa told me to tell you it was wonderful that you played for them. He said he was proud of you.”

He considered. “Was Ames still here when he said that?”

“Not when he said it to me. Ames would have known it anyway.”

Jack nodded. “I suppose he would. Good. Thanks, Glory.”

IT RAINED SOUNDLY AND SATISFACTORILY OVERNIGHT. There was talk of drought, and one good rain would not end the worry, but it did make a beautiful morning, a mild and fragrant wind and shimmering trees loud with birds. Jack had left the house early. Glory heard the creak of the screen door before the sun was well up. His restlessness took on the aspect of virtue, rousing him out of bed in the dark and sending him out into the garden to expend the sour energies of failed sleep. She went down to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee, and sat in the porch while it brought itself to the kind and degree of fragrance her family had always preferred. Then she poured a cup for Jack. She found him out by the clothesline. He pulled a line down and released it, and raindrops flew up, brilliant in the morning light. He did the same with the next one, and the next.

“Thanks,” he said, as he took the cup from her. She saw that he had brought the gasoline can out of the barn. He said, “Back in a minute,” and went into the house, and came out again with his suit on hangers and a dishtowel over his shoulder. “I’m going to do a little dry cleaning.” He poured gasoline into an empty coffee can and soaked the cloth in it, and then sponged the sleeve of his jacket, saturated the bulge at the elbow and the creases at the inside of the elbow, and pulled it straight. He glanced at her. “This sort of works,” he said. “After a while the smell goes away. Here,” he said, and handed her his cigarettes and his matches. “I can be absentminded.”

She said, “I’ve heard that people did this. I’ve never actually seen anyone do it before.”

He said, “Sheltered life.”

The whole of that morning he worked at his suit. She saw him stand back finally and study it as it swung there in the wind and apparently decide it was good enough, since he emptied the coffee can out on the ground and carried the gasoline back to the barn. She went out to see for herself, and it did look to her as if it had fewer of the signs of hard use than it had had before, that it looked more impersonal, less conformed to one particular life. In the breeze there was something game about it, even a little jaunty. No wonder he was pleased.

He came inside, washed up, and made himself a peanut butter sandwich. “Want one? I’ll give you half of mine. All of it. I washed my hands.” He said, “What is the French for sandwich?”

“I’m pretty sure the French for sandwich is sandwich.”

He nodded. “I was afraid of that. So I am at a loss to make this slightly gaseous object more appealing to you. To me, for that matter.”

“Jelly?”

“Hate the stuff. It can be good in doughnuts.” He lifted the top slice of bread and looked under it. “An ugly food, peanut butter. If I struck a match, perhaps I could serve it to you flaming, madame. As they do in the finer restaurants. Mademoiselle.”

“No, thanks. I’m having soup. Want some?”

He shook his head. “I am hungry in general. It is the particulars that discourage me.”

“Then you might as well just eat your sandwich.”

“True.” He said, “Do we still have that baseball mitt?”

“Yes, we do. I put it in my closet. I was afraid you might find some way to swap it for a hair shirt.”

He nodded. “That was prudent of you. I was thinking, if you still had it, I might borrow it back.”

She said, “Sure. As soon as you finish your sandwich.”

“I do this,” he said, “only because I trust you to have my best interests at heart.” He ate it in eight bites and washed it down with a glass of water. “Well, now I’ve fed the beast,” he said. “It should stagger through till supper. It is an oddly patient beast, my carnal self. I call it Snowflake. For, you know, its intractable whiteness. Among other things. A certain lingering sentiment attaches to it. It reminds me of my youth.”

She brought him the mitt. He said, “Kids his age are always losing things, so I bought another baseball. I mean, I was always losing things. At his age.”

“That’s fine.”

He put the mitt on his hand and popped the ball into the pocket with a flick of his wrist. That ancient gesture. “I thought Ames might appreciate — A kid ought to learn how to play catch. I was good at baseball. I thought he might remember that.”

“It’s a good idea, Jack. I don’t think you need to worry so much about what Ames thinks of you.”

“I know what he thinks of me. It can’t get much worse. So that doesn’t worry me.”

“Then what does?”

“You’re right. Deranged by hope. I guess I thought he might look down upon me from his study window and say to himself, ‘He’s a cad and a bounder, but I appreciate his attention to my son.’” He laughed. “That won’t happen. No need to worry about that. What a stupid idea.”

Glory said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you to take the new Life and The Nation over to the Ameses’. They don’t subscribe. Ask Lila if Robby might like to play a little ball. If she says yes, the Reverend won’t object.”

He nodded. “All right. I’ll do it. Nothing ventured and so on.”

AFTER HALF AN HOUR SHE WALKED OUT JUST FAR ENOUGH to see Jack and Robby in the road in front of Ames’s house, Robby encumbered with the big stiff glove, scrambling after the ball when Jack tossed it and throwing it back halfway and in something like the right direction. “That’s the idea!” Jack called. The child squared off and punched his mitt, ready for anything. The next toss bounced off his shoe. Jack laughed, very kind laughter that she had not heard for decades if she had ever heard it. He ran forward to field Robby’s throw, and when he turned around he saw her. He waved. “Home soon,” he called.

She called back, “No hurry,” sorry she had distracted him. He looked like a man full of that active contentment that makes even ordinary movement graceful. He looked at ease in sunlight. She hoped old Ames had indeed gazed down upon him. He might have seen him as his father did, for once.