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by Marilynne Robinson

  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 use
d 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.