Lila

by Marilynne Robinson

  “I did regret it.”

  He was quiet for a while, and then he said, “I tell you what happened. My pa was drunk, and he was yelling at me about nothing, some little thing I done, so I said I was going to run off and leave him. He followed me out to the road, and he was saying ‘Git!’ and throwing sticks and rocks at me, the way you’d chase off a dog. I come back to the house later and he was laying there asleep, and I took a piece of firewood, about yay big.” He made a circle with his hands. “It just come over me.”

  “I can see how it might.”

  He looked at her. “So now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Well,” she said, “you stay here tonight, and then tomorrow I bring you some clothes, and you get yourself a ticket somewhere. And you better start telling yourself you don’t know if you killed him, ’cause you don’t. No point making it worse than it has to be. And you sure better stop talking to strangers about it.”

  He shook his head, and he said, very softly, calmly, “I think I’ll just go back there. Tell ’em what I done.” He said, “I’d like to take that money, if you’re sure you don’t mind. Some of it, anyways. At least I’d have something to give him. If he’s still alive. I’d have that.” Then he said, “They hang that friend of yours?”

  “No. They might’ve been thinking about it, but she got away.”

  “You know, I’m kind of hoping they hang me. Then I’d just be done with it.”

  She said, “You shouldn’t be talking that way. You ain’t half grown. That’s no way for you to talk.” She put her hand on his shoulder.

  He smiled up at her. “I figure, if my own pa got no use for me—” Then he said, “I’m growed. This is all there’s going to be. Nothing much.”

  “I don’t know about that. You look like you been working. I bet you been doing your share.”

  He shrugged. “I guess I tried.” He smiled at her kindness, and looked at his hands again. “You know, I just wish I’d stayed there with him. Maybe I could’ve helped him somehow. I don’t even know why I bothered running off. Didn’t have no place to go. I knew that right along. I was always thinking about leaving, all them years. Never did. Sure wisht I had now. Scared to, I guess.”

  The wind was coming up, bringing cold with it. That would happen for good one day soon. The cold would set in, and there it would be for months and months. The boy crouched over his folded arms. The coat he was wearing was no use at all, and his poor, filthy ankles were bare.

  She said, “How long you been here?”

  “I come here, to this place, a couple days ago.”

  “Well, it ain’t sposed to be this warm. It might change any time. It could snow tomorrow.”

  He nodded. “I feel it at night.”

  She said, “That’s probably why you ain’t sleeping.”

  “It’s a fair part of it.”

  “Well then, I think you best come to my old man’s house. Just for the night. He’ll find some clothes for you and get you some breakfast. He’s got a couple spare rooms.”

  He shook his head. “He ain’t going to want me in his house. You know that.”

  “He does whatever I ask him. Hasn’t said no to me yet anyway.”

  “What you ever ask him for?”

  “You’re right. Nothing much.” She laughed. “I did ask him to marry me.”

  “’Cause you got that baby?”

  “Nope. I wasn’t even thinking about no baby. At the time.”

  “Well,” he said, and he glanced up, hoping he wouldn’t have to offend her, “I guess I just rather stay here.”

  That’s how it is, she thought. Keep to yourself. So long as you can do that, you’re all right. Then somebody finds you in a corner somewhere, and you ain’t even there to hear them say, What a pity. And that seems better than asking for help. She said, “I understand that. I do. I know how you feel around strangers. I feel the same way. So you can trust me.”

  “No,” he said. “I mean, I trust you. Still.”

  “Then I guess you better keep my coat.”

  He looked at her, startled and hurt, and laughing. “What? I can’t wear no woman’s coat!”

  She said, “I don’t mean you should wear it. I mean you should use it like a blanket. Sleep under it. Nobody’s going to see.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. I’d probly spoil it. You going to need it yourself anyways.”

  “I’ll get it tomorrow.”

  He picked up the little bundle. “You best be going along now. It’s getting cold. And I best get out of this wind.”

  She said, “That’s where you keep the money. Tied up in a rag.”

  “I like to keep it by me.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “You sure you don’t want some of it?”

  “I’m sure.” He stood there, waiting for her to be gone, skinny and dirty, and a good child all the same. Nobody’s good child. “I don’t want the rest of them crackers, either,” she said.

  “All right. Well, good talking with you.” He nodded and stepped away from her, and then he watched her out to the road.

  * * *

  She buttoned her coat and turned up the collar, because by now the wind was bitter, and she walked about halfway to Gilead. Then she said, “This won’t do.” So she went back to the cabin. It was barely warmer in there than the weather outside. The boy was curled up in the corner where she had slept, the one that was intact enough to give some shelter, and he was wrapped in that sad old scrap of a blanket, the little bundle under his head. He looked at her, but he didn’t move. She took off her coat and draped it over him. “Just for tonight,” she said. “So maybe you can get some sleep.” He didn’t say anything, he just settled himself under it. She pulled the collar up around his ears. She said, “Feels good, don’t it?” And he laughed.

  And then there was the walk back to Gilead, through the bright day and the sharp wind. The stiff leaves of the cornstalks rustled and stirred, and a few pelicans were sailing and turning overhead, though she could hardly bear to look up at them, with that wind at her throat. She wondered if she might get so cold even the child would feel it. She felt it stir. She said, “Don’t worry about it. You ain’t going to have this kind of life. Once we’re home we’ll be fine.” But she thought to herself, This might not be the smartest thing anybody ever did. Best think of something else. But not that. Not looking for Doll in the snow. Not getting lost in that cornfield. She had followed footprints into it, so why couldn’t she just follow them back out again? But they ended where the snow ended, at the edge of the field, and farther in, there was just frozen ground. Anybody knew how lost you could get in a cornfield, and there she was, thrashing around, scared to death, the stalks so close and so high over her head that she couldn’t tell where she was, and it was only luck that she got back to the road finally. Covered in dust and sweat. She couldn’t have been in her right mind then, while she was looking for Doll. And what did she mean to do if she found her? She had some thought of covering her up, to keep her warm. As if anything could keep her warm. And then the next day there was real snow, hours of it, and no point trying to find her after that.

  There was the time they were sitting by the fire, their faces hot and their backs freezing and the fire sizzling and popping and smoking because it was damp, sappy pine branches mostly. Lila had a bowl of fried mush, scraps of it, dark the way she liked them, because when Doll was doing the cooking she kept the crispy pieces for her. Mellie was right there beside her, close as she could get, watching that mush, and Lila was eating it a bit at a time. Mellie said, “I seen something go crawling into that bowl. I did. Its legs was all”—and she did a spidery thing with her fingers that made gooseflesh pass over Lila’s arms and across her scalp. Lila said, “Wasn’t no spider,” and Mellie said, “Not saying it was. Just saying what I seen,” and she did the thing with her fingers again.

  Lila said, “I’m telling Doane.”

  “Why? What you going to tell him?”

&nbs
p; “That you trying to get me to throw my supper in the fire.”

  Mellie said, “No need for that. I never mind a spider. You can always spit it out. They taste funny, so you’ll know to do it. And you feel them little legs. I swallowed one once and I ain’t dead. I’ll eat that mush for you if you don’t want it.”

  So Lila just sat there with the bowl in her lap, thinking about spiders, and Mellie sat there beside her, watching, breathing on her. Doll saw that Lila hadn’t eaten her supper and told her she would thrash her if she didn’t, which was just to let Mellie know there was no use trying to talk her out of it. Lila felt Doll’s hand on her shoulder. That meant, Mellie’s the clever one, but you’ve got me here looking out for you.

  Mellie whispered, “She always saying she going to thrash somebody. She ain’t going to, though.”

  And Doll said, “Most likely I’m going to thrash you.” But it was true, she never would do it. She was a kind, quiet woman as far as anybody ever knew. That knife was a secret she kept, not easily, not always, like the mark on her face. She just forgot to hide them both from Lila because she knew the girl loved her. One time Doane saw her cutting Lila’s hair with that knife, and he stopped and watched the strands fall, whiff whiff whiff, and he said, “Well, I’ll be danged.”

  Lila was halfway to Gilead by now. The sky was gray and the wind was acting like it owned the place, tossing the trees, and the trees all moaning. Somehow there was always the notion that one day would lead to the next, mild today meant mild tomorrow, a sunny morning meant a decent afternoon. And then winter would take over everything before you knew what was happening. It would be there like the world after sleep, a surprise and no surprise. Whatever happened to Mellie? She could be anywhere doing anything. She could be in jail. Lila had heard there were women who flew bombers across the ocean so they could be used in the war, and she had thought of Mellie. Wherever she was, even in jail, she’d be better at it than anybody ever had been, and all wrapped up in herself, twice as interested as anybody else in whatever notion she had just come up with. She was probably all right. But Lila had seen plenty of times how a bird will hatch or a calf will be born, and pretty soon they know things they couldn’t be taught, they’re up on their legs scratching or suckling, and their eyes are all bright with it. The world is so fine. That’s when children can play with them, because their eyes are bright, too, and they’re finding out how clever they are. Then pretty soon the critters are just critters, livestock. And the children are just folks trying to get by. Could be even Mellie is just some woman somewhere, with that look in her eyes that says, I don’t want to talk about it. Lila told the child, “Don’t worry yourself. I’m going to do the best I can. Just like Doll done for me,” she said, and she laughed. Poor old Doll. Then she was thinking about that man-boy, crouching under her woman’s coat and sure to be wretched with cold anyway. He’d have frozen right to death before he’d let anyone see him wearing it. She should have made him come with her. Somehow. No. His pride was going to kill him. Well, she thought, worse things can happen.

  If she had some of that money she’d get a ticket to the matinee, and maybe a box of popcorn. She could warm up there in the dark, watching The Treasure of the Sierra Madre again, but warm, at least. Then she could go on home. She didn’t want to walk into his office at the church looking as miserable as she was, knowing it would worry the old man. She’d seen that movie with him. He’d read the book, and he’d read about the movie in one of his magazines, so he’d been waiting for it. In the theater, in the dark, he’d held her hand. That was the best part about it. She was thinking, I don’t need to watch raggedy-looking men eating beans. I seen that plenty of times. Nice as it was to be sitting there with him, she was sort of glad when the men started shooting each other, so the movie would have to end. She liked movies where people wore nice clothes and tap-danced, but they were never the ones he’d read about in his magazines.

  If she had some of that money, she’d go into the diner and have a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie. If she had some of that money, she’d go into the dime store and look at dress patterns or something. She could do that anyway, but she thought people had begun to notice her, out in the cold that way, when anybody in her right mind would at least have a coat on. She had almost forgotten the dread that someone might speak to her, and here it was again. She wouldn’t let that happen if she could help it. It was like old times. No money and nothing to do about it, and people watching her. But there was the church. That was like old times, too. Stepping in out of the weather. She could just sit in a pew and wait till she stopped shivering and her fingers stopped aching. Then she’d find him in his office, and he’d say, Oh, my dear, and put his coat over her shoulders, and they’d walk to the house, and make some supper, and she would tell him she was fine, fine. She’d just gone for a walk.

  She was too cold to stop trembling yet, so she put her hands between her knees and waited. Her toes ached. No point thinking about it. It always was quiet in there. You could hear any shift or creak anywhere in the building, and when the wind was blowing the way it was then, the church strained against itself like some old barn. You could practically hear nails pulling loose. And still it was quiet somehow. It was drafty, too, but that boy could have stretched out on a pew under a blanket or two and slept right through the storm, and who would have minded. If she’d had any idea how bad it was going to be, she’d have made him come with her.

  It took her that long to realize the old man could ask somebody with a car to drive out there and bring him to town. She never got used to that. He could just say a word and whatever needed to be done got done, most of the time anyway. Even if it meant Boughton starting up his DeSoto. But when she did go to his office he wasn’t there. Of course he wouldn’t be hiding from her, but that was the first thought she had. The room just felt like he should be in it. The whole church felt that way. People who live in rooms and houses don’t know about that. It seems natural to them. You might pick up something belonging to somebody and feel for a minute how theirs it is, particularly if you hate them enough. But a whole roomful of somebody’s days and thoughts and breath, things that are faded and they don’t see it, ugly and they don’t care, things worn by their habits, it seems strange to walk in on that when you’re almost nothing more than a cold wind. She did wish she could at least find a way to tell him how hard it was, the ache you feel walking out of a cold day into a warm room. And here she was angry at him for being somewhere else, almost crying about it. Because here was his whole long life and it had nothing to do with her unless he was there with her to say, This is Lila, Lila Ames, my wife.

  Well, she thought, standing here worrying about it doesn’t make much sense. He’ll be at the house. And the thought she wouldn’t let herself have was How long has it been since I felt the child stirring? Every woman she ever knew had stories about some child that was lost or didn’t come out right because its mother ate too much of something, or took a fright, or took a chill. But there was nothing else to do but go on to the house. She said, “It’s just a few blocks. Then we’re home.”

  He wasn’t there, either. The house was empty. Probably someone had died, or was about to die. Plenty of times he was called away to do what he could where comforting was needed. The last time it happened he came in the door after midnight, grumbling to himself. He said, “Asking a man to apologize on his deathbed for the abject and total disappointment he was in life! That does beat all.” He took off his hat. “So I took them aside, the family. And I said, If you’re not Christian people, then what am I doing here? And if you are, you’d better start acting like it. Words to that effect.” He looked at her. “I know I was harsh. But the poor old devil could hardly get his breath, let alone give his side of things. There were tears in his eyes!” He hung up his coat. “I’ve known him my whole life. He wasn’t worse than average. Wouldn’t matter if he was.” And then he said, “You shouldn’t have waited up for me, Lila. The two of you need your sleep,” and he
kissed her cheek and went up to his study to pray over the regret he felt because he’d lost his temper. Anger was his besetting sin, he said. He was always praying about it. She had thought, If that’s the worst of it, I’ll be all right.

  She wasn’t warm yet, so she decided to go upstairs and lie down in his bed until she heard him at the door. She’d just slip off her shoes and pull up the covers and wait. She thought it would comfort the child. But the cold of her body filled the space it made under the blankets, a hollow of cold. Maybe that’s how she felt to the child. Winter nights Doll would pull her against her, into her own shape, and she would pull the quilt up over her, and her arm would be around her, and Lila would only feel warmer for the cold that was everywhere else in the world. She was probably thinking of this when she gave that boy her coat, tucked him in. And then he laughed just the way she might have laughed all those years ago, for pleasure that seemed like a piece of luck, a trick played on misery and trouble. Now here she had this child of her own, and maybe it felt the cold. Maybe it feared it was being born to a woman who couldn’t be trusted to give it comfort. Maybe it would have the look that boy had, as if the life in him had decided to cut its losses when it had just begun to make him a man’s body. She thought, Then I’ll steal you, and I’ll take you away where nobody knows us, and I’ll make up all the difference between what you are and what you could have been by loving you so much. Mellie said, “Her legs is all rickety,” and Doll just kept her closer and seen to her all the more. Even Doll said, “If there was just something about you,” looking at her the way other people did because she couldn’t go on protecting her from other people. But Doll always made up the difference the best she could. Lila would, too. And there’d be no old man to say, I see what you’ve done to my child. No old man. It would happen sometime anyway. She pulled up her knees and hugged her belly, and she felt it moving.

  The sound of the front door woke her. Boughton was talking with him, and she could hear worry in their voices. Boughton always came along when there might be something difficult to deal with, on a cane now half the time, but still as willing as could be to help out a little. He was there when Mrs. Ames died and the Reverend was off somewhere doing something. Once, after Boughton had gone on through a long evening about the Rural Electrification Act and its implications, the old man said, “He prayed with her. He closed her eyes.” We wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief. We because Boughton was there, just trying to help out. She heard him saying, “I’ll wait down here a minute, John,” and the old man starting up the stairs alone. What did they think had happened? No, better ask what had happened. She’d done something she shouldn’t. She knew half of it and he would probably tell her the rest. She stood up and slipped on her shoes and smoothed her hair and her dress.