Marilynne Robinson - Lila

She was sitting on the stoop in the sun, just for a minute, thinking about things. How good the sunlight felt on a chilly morning, and how familiar that old parched wood smell was, and how strange it seemed to be at peace where she had been so lonesome before, to be more at peace than in the old man’s house, kind as he always was. She opened her coat to the sun so the baby could feel it warming her lap. She might even have fallen asleep, because there was a boy standing at a distance watching her, there for a while at least without her noticing him, she could tell by the way he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, shifting a little bundle he had from one hand to the other. When she saw him he looked away. She said, “Morning.”

He said, “That there’s my shack. I been using it. Got my stuff in it.” He was small, but he had hair on his face. He looked like something that came up in a drought and bloomed the best it could and never got its growth. There was a crack of sadness in his voice, or worry, and that made it seem like a boy’s voice, younger than the rest of him. Still, you never know. He looked pretty desperate. Best let him have the money.

She said, “I was just sitting here for a minute, catching my breath. I was going down to the river to look at them birds.” She stood up and found her little bag of groceries. “I’ll be going. Didn’t mean to trouble you.”

He said, “Mainly folks don’t come here.”

“I know. I was using this shack most of the summer.”

“Oh. You was using it. Why’d you come back? Maybe you left something here?”

“This,” she said. She took the handkerchief out of her pocket. “I know it don’t look like much. But since I was walking by.”

He glanced at the shape of her now that she was standing, and then he looked away. “Maybe you ain’t done resting. Don’t matter to me. Nothing here I need. I was going to be doing something else anyways.” He took a few steps back.

“Well, I was tired a little while ago, so I rested. And now I’m hungry. I got some cheese and crackers here. Plenty for both of us, if you’d like to join me.”

“No,” he said, “I best not.”

Maybe he thought it was all she had. She said, “I’m real hungry, and I never could eat in front of folks. So I guess you’re just going to let me starve.”

He laughed, and he came a few steps closer to her. She could tell he hoped she would persuade him.

She said, “Sit here on the stoop. The sun is nice.” No point saying he looked cold. She flattened out the paper bag and put the cheese on it and unwrapped it and opened a packet of crackers. She broke off a piece of cheese, and he came close enough to take it from her fingers. His hands were as dirty as could be, too big for him and brown with callus. His pants didn’t reach his ankles and his shoes were all broken down. He was the kind of people Doane used to tell them they were not, the kind that didn’t wash. Doll was after her with a wet rag all the time so she wouldn’t slip away into that tribe, the ones who never touched a comb to their hair and who always had shadows of grime on their necks and wore unmended clothes till they were falling off them. They probably were her tribe, and that was why Doll kept such a close eye on her and never even told her where she came from. They ain’t people you want hanging around. That’s what she’d have said about a boy like this. No matter. Here he was licking his grimy fingers. She said, “Take some more.”

And he said, “Don’t mind if I do.” He was happier than he wanted to be, with the food and the kindness. He sat down on the lowest step and put his little bundle on the ground beside him.

He had wandered there from somewhere south, probably Missouri, maybe Kansas. “I guess I’m heading the wrong way, this time of year. I shoulda thought about that, I guess.” He laughed and glanced at her, shy of her. “I don’t want to go back the way I come, that’s for sure. So, I don’t know. I’ll do something.” He laughed. He said, “There was some trouble down there, so I guess I won’t be going back.” He shook his head, but he looked up at her as if he wouldn’t entirely mind her asking him about it. Maybe he was just surprised by it, lonely with it, not used to the idea that any important thing could be true of him. She thought, He should be careful. She was a stranger, and in his mind she was like someone who would listen and not blame him too much. His mother, maybe.

She said, “Well, sounds like you better keep it to yourself, whatever it was.”

“Yeah,” he said, and laughed. “I better.” After a minute he said, “You ever had a dog? I did once. Then he took off after a rabbit or something and he never come back. So how you come to be living here?”

“Same as you. Drifting.” She said, “Then this man wanted to marry me. So I said all right.”

“Sounds like you making that up.”

“I spose it does. And he’s a preacher.”

The boy laughed. He could tell things by looking at her, too.

“I ain’t joking. He’s a big old preacher.”

“Well,” he said, “maybe so. That his child you got there?”

“You bet it is.”

“So you’re all right.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Because,” he said, “I was thinking you was maybe back here looking for that money I found. Was you the one hid it there?”

“That was my money.”

“Then how much was it?”

“It was almost forty-five dollars. Three fives, a lot of ones, and change. I had it in that canning jar, with the handkerchief. You can keep it.”

He nodded. “That’s about the most money I ever seen in my life.”

“I was saving up. Thinking about California.”

“If I give you half, that would still mean I had about twenty bucks.”

“That’s all right. You can keep it all. I was just going to buy some kind of a present for my old preacher. But he don’t need nothing. He’d be the first to say. Better you keep it.”

“I got it hid away in a good spot.”

“Figured you might.”

“Well, it would be safe there, if somebody was meaning to steal it.” He looked up at her. Kindness was something he didn’t even know he wanted, and here it was. It made him teary and restless, and he was trying to seem to repay it by pretending he’d hid the money partly for her sake.

She said, “Can’t be too careful.”

“First thing I done when I seen that board was loose was I looked under it. First thing anybody’s going to do.” She thought, It comes with the whiskers, that idea that they know how things are. They get a lot of happiness out of it.

He was looking out over the field, as if there were something to see out there. “Yeah,” he said. “I knew a fellow had a hunting dog. It’d do any damn thing he said. A hundred things.”

She said, “You planning on getting a dog?” He had never cut that beard, never shaved. It was reddish and curly at the edges, and then it was straight and brown, what there was of it. And his hair was reddish, matted like sheep’s wool. He’d scratch at it. And his skin was milky white. She’d seen that before. Like the sun just didn’t shine on him the way it did on most people. His big hands were lying on his knees, palms up, and he was looking at them as if he’d never really gotten used to them.

He glanced up at her. He might have been about to say, The way I am ain’t your business. It was you told me to sit down here. And that was true enough. So she looked away. He shrugged. “Thought about getting one.” Then he said, “I been thinking I might give that money to my pa. He’d be glad to see me then, that’s for sure.” He laughed. “He was always telling me I was too puny to be worth keeping. Well, he’d think I stole it, anyhow. He’d tan me for it, too. Like he never done any stealing. But he’d be glad to have the money.”