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by Marilynne Robinson

  “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. I
t 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 sh
ow 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.