Marilynne Robinson - Lila

They were married in the parlor of Reverend Boughton’s house, with the Boughton children there except for the one. They even brought Mrs. Boughton downstairs in a pretty dress and put her in her chair. The girls bent down to tell her it was a wedding, John’s wedding, and wasn’t that nice? Then they left her to her smiling quiet, since it always upset her to feel that more was wanted of her.

* * *

They went to the old man’s house after the wedding and the dinner Boughton’s daughters had made for them. Lila had never understood the whole business of knives and forks, that there was a way you were supposed to use them. But he sat beside her, close to her, her husband, all their kind feelings toward him now owed to her, too. There was a big white cake with frosting roses on it, and the sisters laughed about how many they had made and how few of them turned out to look at all like the pictures in the magazine. Or anything else. Cauliflowers. Mushroom clouds. Gracie knocked one on the floor and got so frustrated she washed her hands of the whole thing and went for a walk, but Faith got the trick of it, just in time, before people began to arrive. Then there she was with frosting in her hair. There was frosting all over the kitchen. Teddy said he caught Glory licking her fingers. They were all laughing, all so used to each other, so fine-looking, the brothers, too. Lila could hardly wait to leave.

Then there they were in that quiet house. Everything of hers, everything she had been given, had been brought from the hotel and hung in the front closet. There was food in the icebox and the pantry and on the kitchen table, and there were little gifts on the counters, embroidered tea towels and pillowcases and aprons, and a needlework picture of apples and pears and grapes with the words Bless This House . There were flowers in every room. The windows were all opened to let the day in. Everything that could be polished shone. “The church,” he said, and smiled as if to say, I did warn you. She stepped out on the back porch, just to look. They had weeded the garden.

She’d thought, I’ll do this first and think about it afterward. Now afterward had come and she had no idea what to think. I am baptized, I am married, I am Lila Dahl, and Lila Ames. I don’t know what else I should want. Except for the shame to be gone, and it ain’t. I’m in a strange house with a man who can’t even figure out how to talk to me. Anything I could do around here has been done already. If I say something ignorant or crazy he’ll start thinking, Old men can be foolish. He’s thought it already. He’ll ask me to leave and no one will blame him. I won’t blame him. Marriage was supposed to put an end to these miseries. But now whatever happens everybody will know. She saw him standing in the parlor with his beautiful old head bowed down on his beautiful old chest. She thought, He sure better be praying. And then she thought, Praying looks just like grief. Like shame. Like regret.

He showed her the house, where things were to be found. There was a room upstairs he said would be her study if she liked. The carpetbag with the tablet and Bible in it was there on a table by the window, beside a bowl of zinnias. Or she could have another room if there was one she liked better. The house had been built for a big family. The rooms weren’t large, but there were several of them. His own study was just down the hall. If there was anything at all she wanted to change, she should certainly feel free. The house was as it had always been, more or less, at least since his father and mother lived in it. But there was no reason to keep it that way. He said, “It is so wonderful to have you here, in this house. I hope you’ll be very happy. Of course.”

She said, “I expect I will be. Happy enough. It’s yourself I’d be worried about.”

He laughed. “I think I’ll be fine,” he said.

“I seen you praying.”

“A habit of mine. No cause for concern.”

“Well,” she said, “if you decide sometime I’m a bother, you can just tell me.”

He laughed. “Dear Lila, we’re married! For better and for worse!”

“I spose so. We’ll see about that.”

He took her hands and studied them, her big, hard hands. He said, “If you say so, I guess we will.”

She had probably said a mean thing to him. For weeks she wished she could take it back. All it meant was that she still didn’t trust him and he’d be a fool to trust her. And that was only the truth. He might as well know it was her nature to feel that way, nothing she could change. She was just as lonely as she had ever been. The only difference was that now this kind old man was sad and embarrassed about it, still not even sure how to talk to her. If she was quiet for a while he would come down from his study to look for her in the kitchen or the garden — to get a drink of water or to enjoy the weather, he said. If she had walked out to the farm, to the shack, the sight of her coming in the door stung his eyes. It was to comfort him, and herself, that she slipped into his bed that first dark night.

Lila thought once, when she was out walking, what if she saw someone ahead of her on the road and it was Doll. What if she called out her name, and the woman stopped and turned and laughed and held out her arms to her, wrapped her into her shawl. She would tell her, I have married a fine old man. I live in a good house that has plenty of room in it for you, too. You can stay forever, and we’ll work in the garden together. And Doll would laugh and squeeze her hand—“It come out right, after all! I ain’t dead and you ain’t in some shack just struggling to get by! I had to leave for a time, but I’m back now, I’m resurrected! I been looking everywhere for you, child!” She could tell herself what she would tell Doll, things that would help her stay in that life. A married woman with a good husband! It was worth all the trouble, every bit of it.

Doll’s eyes would shine the way they never did when anyone but Lila was there to see. Just that little room in the house in Tammany made her happy for all she was giving her child, her own dresser drawer and a lamp with a ruffled shade and school besides. Then she must have seen someone, or heard that someone was asking after them, and they left as soon as Doll could dry her hands and change her apron. She said she had wearied of Mrs. Marker’s hollering, but they ate the lunch she had made for Lila to take to school as they walked away from Tammany, through the woods, not along the road. Doll had a red stain, like a birthmark, on one side of her brow and on her cheek, and people who saw her didn’t forget her. That was why they couldn’t stay in one place. She never explained any of this to Lila. It was a part of everything they never spoke of. But it was clear enough when she thought back on it. They managed to stay in that town for months, almost a school year, Doll taking the risk so Lila could learn to read. Well, the old man’s house was full of books. She would work on her reading. Doll would want her to.

When she thought this way, she could almost begin to enjoy her life. She was stealing it, almost, to give it to Doll. People might think she liked the old man’s house and the Boughtons’ clothes and all the proprieties and the courtesies. They might think she liked the old man, too. But she just imagined how all of it would seem to Doll — a very good life, a comfortable life that she had because Doll had stolen her, and had taken care of her all those years. She lived for Doll to see. Lila made the old man smile for the pleasure in his eyes, because Doll would have been so happy to see it. When she put her arms around him, when she slipped into his bed, Doll would have smoothed the pillow and whispered to her, “He’s such a kind old man!”