Marilynne Robinson - Lila

She said, “Then you’ll be going back where you come from, I guess.”

He said, “Probly not. My pa and me was fighting, and I hit him with a piece of firewood. I don’t know. I think I killed him. If I didn’t, he would have killed me, soon as he woke up. So I just took off.” He looked at her. That dirty, weary child face with a beard stuck on it like a mean joke. “I don’t know where I’ll go. I don’t even know where I am now!” He laughed.

She said, “Well, you’re in Iowa. And the winter here is even worse than it is everyplace else. So you better not try staying on in this shack. You must be freezing already. For sure you won’t last till the spring.”

He shrugged. “Might not anyway. Might not want to. I hated my pa about half the time, but I sure never thought I’d end up killing him.”

“Maybe he ain’t dead.”

“I sure did mean to kill him. I hit him three or four times. Hard as I could. Him laying there.” Tears were running down his cheeks. “I think back on how it was, and I figure I must have killed him. I remember the sound it made when I hit him.” He rested his head on his folded arms and wept.

After a while she said, “Well, you got to get some warm clothes and some good shoes. The preacher keeps things like that in a box somewhere. I can bring them out here tomorrow. Then you spend that money on a bus ticket.”

He said, “After what I done to him, I know he wouldn’t let me come back anyways.”

“Then you figure out where else you want to go.”

“This is the first time I ever been away from home,” he said. “First time. I can’t hardly even sleep nights.”

“I guess you better get used to it.”

He laughed. “Don’t think I will.” He looked at her. His face was a mess of grief, so she gave him the handkerchief.

“You have folks?”

“My pa. That’s all. So.” He shrugged and gazed out at the field again, calm for no reason except that he was done crying. “You ever talk to a killer before?”

“One. That I know of. She really did kill somebody, too. No doubt about it.”

“Why’d she do it?”

“He’d have killed her. That’s as much as I know. She got the jump on him, so they said she murdered him. I keep the knife she used right there on the old man’s kitchen table.”

“Why?”

“She was a friend of mine. About the only one I had. She give it to me.”

“The preacher know about that knife?”

“I told him.”

He nodded. “So you never turned against her after what she done.”

“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.