Jack

by Marilynne Robinson

  He would have to sit down somewhere to read it. Somewhere private. It did not say, “Stop walking past my house,” because he had stopped, with some effort. Of course, two weeks was not long enough to demonstrate his resolve, which was considerable, though she couldn’t know that. She was not asking him to return anything he had pocketed. That one tiny flower.

  The door to Mrs. Beverly’s shop opened. The bell rang. He had gone to work, never having decided to. This must be what most people do, the explanation of the city, day after day itself. Mrs. B. said, “Morning, Slick. I’m going to need help with some shelving.” She was a short woman afflicted with a fear of heights, rueful at the thought of climbing a stepladder.

  “Glad to oblige.” So the letter would wait in his pocket until noon. He put the stepladder against the wall of shelves in the back room, climbed up, and pulled down a dusty box. Brogans, he decided. One was brown and one was oxblood. He put the box aside, on the assumption that there must be another box like it, mutatis mutandis. Six boxes were saddle oxfords, but the seventh held a brogan and an oxford, a size twelve and a size eleven, not that this mattered, except that it made him check through the shoes that apparently matched. Among the oxfords he found a box containing a nine and a twelve. None of the other boxes contained a twelve and a nine. He put that box aside also. The next box contained one shoe, a nine, a wing tip. He set it aside. Ten boxes were matching pairs. In the eleventh he found two Christmas ornaments in bunched newspaper. Plain red balls with nothing particular about them to explain their being shelved here. The box said tasseled loafers, white, eleven. He noticed that the ornaments were a matched pair as to size and color. When he noticed that he had noticed this, it brought tears to his eyes. The wall of identical boxes began to look to him like something weirdly insoluble, like an algebra test in a dream. When Mrs. B. brought him his sandwich, he was actually sitting on the floor among these unaccountable boxes, dozens of them.

  She nodded and said, “Bad inventory can do a lot of damage. I wouldn’t take it too much to heart.”

  “Yes,” he said. “My thought was that if we could make them into pairs, they’d be easier to sell. Possible, at least.”

  “I appreciate that. Might as well burn them, otherwise.”

  He imagined a reeking, smoldering heap. Surely she wouldn’t. Why did he seem to know exactly what a burning shoe would smell like? He realized he was suffering a little slippage, losing ground to self-doubt. Sweet Jesus, he thought, just a plain sandwich, the usual ingredients. And so it was, peanut butter and jelly. He realized he had suppressed an impulse to tell Mrs. B. that this confusion was not his fault.

  She said, “I don’t know, Slick. You could be doing me a world of good.” Then she began tidying up, putting lids on boxes. Indiscriminately.

  It was the letter. He was on a knife edge—rebuffed, maybe. Or assured a little that no harm had been done. What to make of it, her, himself? Possibilities were pleasant on one side, drastic on the other. It was not in the nature of a letter to settle anywhere in between. He had to wash his hands before he could touch it. Whatever it said, he would keep it. He would read it once, and then it would be among his effects. Teddy would say, “There was a girl,” and they would make it so much more than it was. So much less.

  He wiped his fingers on the cleanest part of a towel they kept for buffing shoes and opened the letter. It said, “Dear Mr. Boughton, My aunt Delia is here visiting for the week. I would like you to meet her. Could you come for coffee at any time on Saturday or Sunday afternoon? Or any weekday evening? If you could come by for a few minutes, I would be very grateful.” Then, “Yours truly.”

  This was worse than the worst he could have imagined. An aunt. Aunts never just drop by. Aunts weigh in. He had to go, even though he knew what the lady would say. It is better form, no doubt, to say face-to-face, “How do you do. Lovely weather. Don’t come near my niece again.” Very much meaning, where aunts come, uncles follow. Diplomacy is war by other means. He would show up, sober, looking as decent as he could without expense or trouble, take his scolding, and take his leave. “It has been a pleasure.” Della’s good name depended in some part on his presenting himself as a gentleman. He could not very well tell this aunt about the iron resolve that had kept him off her street for fifteen days, or that for weeks, before the one, inauspicious night, he had kept his distance as scrupulously as any aunt could wish. That hint at an address he had incised in her book was only meant as an assurance to himself that a cobweb of connection still existed between them. He’d have penciled in a nice little couplet, if he could have thought of one, something sad and formal, an adieu. So very sad and formal she would see the humor of it and laugh. That failing, he put his address, a sort of “I exist!” Thinking that, if she ever noticed it, it might also make her laugh. Well, he did imagine she might sometime stroll past, out of curiosity, and he might just then be stepping out his door, and there would be pleasantries, and they might walk a few blocks together. This sort of fantasy was lively enough that he knew he would never again fall behind on his rent. He would not have inscribed that tiny message if he had imagined at the end of it all having an aunt to deal with. He was so used to the sensation of being caught at some trifling, stupid thing, which always became a reflection on the whole of his character and his prospects—irrefutably, since the very triviality of it all would probably, sweet Jesus, make him laugh. But this was worse. This was not just anyone, self-deputized by an inch or two of standing in the world. This was a personage who would take some few minutes, at least, of his acute embarrassment back to Memphis, as an anecdote to be pondered, chuckled at, dismissed, that Della herself might smile at and shrug off when they teased her about it.

  If he did not obey this summons, that would seem to signal disrespect, as if his acquaintance with Della meant nothing to him, whatever it might mean to her. Or it would suggest shame or guilt, and that would cast doubt on Della’s insistence that their poor, strange shred of a relationship was entirely honorable. When, Christ knows, it was utterly, lyrically, gallantly honorable, whatever the neighbors were saying. A shabby fellow with a furtive air can be as gallant as the next man, depending on circumstances. The thought passed through his mind, actually unsettled his hair, that if he made a bad impression, one that cast doubt on her good judgment, her great, ministerial, aunt-delegating family might whisk her away to Memphis, away from Sumner and the dreams she thought had been fulfilled. He knew that if he dwelt on the possibility, he would be doomed, and she would, too.

  The invitation was written to make excuses impossible. Come any time at all. It gave fair warning. My family have sent an emissary to look you over. He had never imagined that his name would be spoken to or among her family. He was hardly a beau, a suitor. And he had long felt at home, so to speak, among the anonymous, whose behavior might arouse some small interest in the criminal justice system, but no more than a “Get lost” from family and friends, assuming they took that much notice. He could probably take it as a compliment, an elevation of status, that an aunt would have come from Memphis, presumably to dismiss him with a ceremonious cup of coffee. He must be careful not to say, “I do stay away from her. I stay away from her every day. Hour by hour.” He had learned that determination is suspect, more so as more effort is involved in it.

  He would carry a folded newspaper to suggest he was a man with interests, with a foot in the larger world. A man with no lesser worries than the emergence of a stable peace in Europe. He would have bought it, the last journalistic word, not some fractious waif of time left on a park bench with the puzzle half finished. Aside from that, a shave, a haircut, that familiar walk, Aunt Delia.

  It is odd, what families do to their children—Faith, Hope, Grace, Glory, the names of his good, plain sisters like an ascending scale of spiritual attainment, a veritable anthem, culminating in, as they said sometimes, the least of these, Glory, who fretted at her own childishness, the hand-me-down, tag-along existence of the eighth of eight children. He
himself, who aspired to harmlessness, was named for a man who was named for a man remembered, if he was, for antique passions and heroics involving gunfire. He was afraid that Delia or Della might mention a cousin named Dahlia, and he would laugh. Sweet Jesus, do not let me laugh inappropriately.

  He wrote back on Tuesday, saying that he would come to her house at two o’clock on Saturday, allowing himself some time to consider the situation, though he knew this was not wise. There was the mustering of a somewhat presentable self, which might take two days. That brought him to Thursday. He would spend Friday at work and then the library and then in his room trying to sleep. He would spend Saturday morning looking for someone selling something edible on the street, though he knew he would not be hungry. At one o’clock he would shave again, brush his hat, straighten his tie. And there his imagination failed.

  He wrote several more letters and did not send them. He had done nothing to bring about that meeting in the cemetery. His being there at all was fairly unusual. It had honestly never occurred to him that Della might be there, too. And it was certainly not his intention to fall asleep on that couch. He was not drunk that night, though he had been recently, which was probably a factor. He crossed that out.

  He had never been good at explaining things he did. It was just alarming to him to consider how much sense they always made at the time, or in any case, how unavoidable they seemed. He suspected he drank to give himself a way of accounting for the vast difference between any present situation and the intentions that brought him to it. By Friday he had covered every page in the little notebook he had bought so he could write that first letter. And then it was Saturday.

  * * *

  The aunt was bespectacled, shorter than Della and not as dark. She was one of those people whose flesh cleaves to her bones so neatly that he could not guess her age within ten years. She offered her hand, “Mr. Boughton. It’s very good of you to come,” and gestured toward the sofa. “Sit down, please.” She sat down in the armchair. She looked at him without seeming at all to be looking him over, though of course she was doing just that. At any moment old Slick might emerge, Slick, the terror of every good aunt. She said, “Della has told me about you. She speaks very well of you.”

  “She’s very kind.”

  “Yes, she is,” Delia said. “Very kind.”

  There was a silence. He thought she might be waiting for him to say that Della had spoken about her, too, which was the kind of polite lie he was prone to, a garden gate opening on a minefield, more often than not.

  “Well,” she said, “I’m sure Della mentioned a cup of coffee—”

  “Please don’t go to any trouble.” He stood up when she did.

  She said, “It’s no trouble! I’ll only be a minute!” Kindly and officious, that little fluster of making welcome. So he took the minute to step over and look at the pictures on the piano. Slender young men and sturdy old men in dark suits and clerical collars, women and children in church clothes. And that picture of Jesus, the same one his father kept in his study. They were a sound, substantial family, clearly. If anyone could be safe anywhere, it would be in the embrace of a family like this one, he thought. Like his own family. And here he was, the shabby outsider, self-orphaned, wondering why all this seemed oppressive to him, why attention in the person of this unexceptionable aunt should make him feel something so like guilt, when the idea was to seem capable of respectability, to shore up whatever Della might have said about him for Della’s sake, though it bothered him to think she had told them anything at all.

  Delia came back into the room. “Do sit down.” She might have said, “Sit down, dear,” without the slightest change in the tone of her voice. “I wanted a few minutes to talk with you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I understand.”

  “You know that Della is a wonderful young woman.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Even as a little child she was just as bright as a button. Always in a corner somewhere reading a book. She was already reading before she started school! Always talking about being a teacher. Then she read about Sumner High School, and she started dreaming about coming here to St. Louis.”

  “Yes, she told me that.”

  “Yes, well, of course she did. It has meant so much to her. Her daddy wanted to keep her closer to home. We all did. But her heart was set on coming here.” There was a silence, and then she said, “I think that coffee must be done by now.”

  This kindly woman was struggling to get from the part of the conversation where they agreed that Della was a precious soul to the part where she told Jack to leave her alone. How to proceed gently enough to be rid of him without avoidable injury to him. He might just tell her he knew what she wanted to say, he appreciated the truth of it, had concluded on his own that his friendship with Della should be ended for her sake, and that he had come that afternoon to let her family know he understood and respected—for that matter, shared—their concern.

  But she brought him his coffee, two cookies on the saucer, a tremor in her hand, a narrow bracelet loose on her wrist, and he realized he had decided not to put an end to this interesting struggle of hers. She sat down in the armchair again, and after a few minutes she said, “Della’s father asked me to look in on her. We do worry. I wouldn’t say she’s headstrong. She isn’t willful. She’s just impatient with—certain limits. She acts sometimes like they don’t even exist. Smart as she is, I think she may not quite realize what the consequences can be for a woman in her situation, how much she can lose if there’s even talk. I mention these things to her, and she just, you know, hangs her head and waits till I’m done.”

  Lovely Della, hanging her head, weighing things, keeping her thoughts to herself.

  Delia said, “Of course I’m here to ask you to stop seeing her. I’m sure you know that. She knows it, too. She told me if I insulted you she’d never speak to me again! So I’m trying very hard not to do that. You can probably tell. And I did want to meet you. I know she’s spoken to you about many things, maybe things she’s never said to anyone else. She told me that once you two talked together the whole night. She told me how kind you were to her. How respectful.” This was true. Still, he blushed. He could feel his brow dampen.

  “I want to assure you—”

  “No need. She’s assured me already.”

  After a minute, he said, “Let me assure you of this. I know I should stay away from her. I’m an unsavory character. No, that makes me sound interesting. I’m a bum, without aspirations or illusions. My father is a preacher, and I know she sees that in me, the manners and so on, and it makes her more—at ease with me than she might be with another bum. But I’ve been honest with her.” He checked his memory and decided this was true enough. If he hadn’t mentioned the stint in prison, he had never found the right moment. Or looked for it, particularly. This also was not the right moment.

  She said, “You don’t owe me any account of yourself. I believe you when you say you’ll stay away from her. That’s what I needed to know. So I can speak to her father for her.”

  He said, “May I ask who brought me to her father’s attention? Lenore?”

  She nodded. “Lorraine. She’s very protective of Della.”

  He laughed. “I bring that out in people.”

  She said, “Well, dear, maybe you do. And maybe you’re a little too hard on yourself. I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk. I feel much better now.” She glanced at the clock. It was five minutes before three. She stood up and took his coffee cup and handed him his hat and newspaper and began the little fluster of polite farewell. “Thank you so much for stopping by.” She was trying to be not too abrupt about getting him out of the house when the front door opened and Della walked in. In a burst of afternoon light, as it happened. “Mr. Boughton,” she said softly, and made a brief study of his face. Her aunt looked at her with unconcealed exasperation. And there he stood, hat in hand, wondering what could possibly be expected of him. He said, “Miss Miles.” And then ther
e was a silence. Della took a step toward him, so that she was standing almost beside him, and he could actually feel her loyalty to him like a sort of heatless warmth emanating from her. He had to leave, but he couldn’t move. Delia was looking at them with her head cocked and her hands on her hips. She said, “Mr. Boughton was just leaving.” So he took a step, then another one, and turned to thank the aunt again, who was by then ushering him toward the door. When they were out on the steps, she said, “You’d be the great-grandson, I guess. This might not be as painless as I hoped, but it will be all right. We don’t forget our friends, even very old friends.” He’d meant to clarify that, if it ever seemed to matter.

  * * *

  He’d decided he should reconsider his life again. He was sitting on a bench by the river watching ducks and gulls and pigeons and the occasional squirrel. They were watching him, eyeing him, as if he owed them something. He had never departed by more than a cigarette butt from his refusal to be coerced, but there they were, like expectation gone sour, every time he came to the bench he thought of as his, the one just beyond the shadow of the great bridge, season and hour obliging. Now that he had Mrs. Beverly to consider, he came only on Sundays. He stayed from the time the clangor of bells, that dread summons, stopped shuddering in the air, to the arrival of the droves of kempt and restless children, running through and beyond the procession of strolling parents, then rejoining it, the adults with that fleeting atmosphere of church about them, of having been schooled again as to some aspect of the meaning of life. He was wearing his tie, and his shoes were polished. Some impulse to blend in. His father would say, You are not good for your own sake. That probably isn’t even possible. You are good as a courtesy to everyone around you. Keeping a promise or breaking it, telling the truth or lying, matters to those around you. So there is good you can do and can always do again. You do not have to believe you are good in order to act well in any specific case. You never lose that option.