Marilynne Robinson - Home

When his father began to weary with the effort of talk—“Yes, yes,” he said, “yes”—Jack cleared away the dishes and then he said, “Sir,” and took his father’s arm and helped him up from the table, a thing the old man never let Glory do, and he took him to the chair in his room where he napped. He helped him out of his jacket and opened his collar and loosened his tie. Then he knelt and removed his shoes. “That old quilt—” his father said, and Jack took it from the foot of the bed and spread it over him. The manner of his doing all these things, things she had done every day for months, suggested courtesy rather than kindness, as if it were a tribute to his father’s age rather than a concession to it. And she could see how her father was soothed by these attentions, as if pain were an appetite for comforting of just this kind.

She did her best.

THE BOYS CALLED THEIR FATHER SIR, BUT THE GIRLS never did. Behind his back the boys called him the Reverend, or the Old Gent, but the girls always said Papa. Jack, can you tell me why you have done whatever you did, acted however you did? No, sir. You can’t explain it, Jack? No, sir. That courtesy was his shield and concealment. It was his courage. His father would never raise a hand against it, would seldom raise his voice. You do understand that what you did was wrong. Yes, sir, I understand that. Will you pray for a better conscience, better judgment, Jack? No, sir, I doubt that I will. Well, I’ll pray for you then. Thank you, sir.

When Jack helped his father from his chair, it was with that same courtesy, and she could see that his father’s pleasure was partly in the surprise of recognition, as of an old promise kept, an old debt remembered. Mama had said, “That boy has you wrapped around his finger!” And her father had said, “I just don’t want us to lose him.” That was before her parents realized she listened and, after a fashion, understood. Hearing words like these between her parents had nerved her to say to him, “What right do you have—” and had given her that glimpse of fear she still remembered. He must have thought he knew where she had learned that question, that inflection. She remembered standing there feet planted, arms akimbo. Poor, stupid child. Because she was the youngest, they forgot she was too old to be allowed to overhear. Then whenever he was gone she knew they might have lost him. “Go away, Glory,” he would say if she tried to tag after him. “Please just go away.”

While Jack settled his father for his nap, Glory stood in the hall, watching. It was beautiful to see, the old man making not one sound of discomfort, soothed by the gracefulness of Jack’s attention, tucked in like a weary child.

AT DUSK JACK CAME DOWNSTAIRS IN HIS SUIT AND TIE. “Back in a bit,” he said. He paused on the steps to put his hat on and adjust it, and then he walked down the road toward town. Her father stirred when he heard the door closing. He called, “Did Jack go out?”

“He said he’d be right back.” After an hour Glory went up to his room, just to see if by some means he had gathered his few effects and slipped them out of the house, but they were there where he had put them, shirts in the closet, books on the dresser. Of course she did not turn on the light, since he might see it from the road. And of course she heard the front door open as she stood there. She crept down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the water. He came up the stairs and paused in the hallway. Then she heard him flip on the light in his room. The door had been standing ajar, she remembered. And had she left it open? Did he look for signs that someone had come into his room? He did that when they were children. Someone! Who could it be but me, she thought.

All those years ago her father had said, “I’m afraid we might lose him.” And here he is again, leaving the house for an hour, and by the end of it the old man is too anxious to sit still and she is prowling in his room, intruding on his privacy — when if there was one thing on earth she was eager to concede to him or to anyone it was privacy! It was amazing. Her whole life long that house was either where Jack might not be or where he was not. Why did he leave? Where had he gone? Those questions had hung in the air for twenty years while everyone tried to ignore them, had tried to act as if their own lives were of sufficient interest to distract them from the fact that few letters came, that at Christmas there was again no phone call, that their father seemed bent under the weight of an anxiety time only increased. They were so afraid they would lose him, and then they had lost him, and that was the story of their family, no matter how warm and fruitful and robust it might have appeared to the outside world.

What had she thought? That he had dropped his suitcase out the window, absconding like someone trying to cheat the landlord? Why would he do that? But why did he do anything — come home, for example? She heard him go downstairs again, and she heard her father say, “Yes, yes, we were beginning to miss you, Jack! Glory’s around here somewhere—” So she went down to the kitchen and there he was, studying the wound in his hand.

“How is it?” she asked.

“Mending nicely, thanks.” His glance was mild, unreadable. “I was out looking the place over. What do people do for work around here?”

“Well, that’s a good question,” she said. “Aside from farming, there’s the grocery store and the dry-goods store and the barbershop and the gas station and the bank.”

“Teachers are always needed!” the old man shouted from his chair, and Jack said, “I guess I’d better bring him in here, hadn’t I.”

His father was already halfway down the hall, but he let Jack take his arm. He even handed him his cane, as if all caution and struggle ended when he had Jack to lean on. “Yes!” he said. “I have never known it to be true that an educated man could not find work as a schoolteacher! There are more children every day! I notice them everywhere!” Jack helped him into his place at the table. “They pass by in the street!” he said, as if he thought he might have weakened his case by overstating it.

Jack gave him a glass of water. “I don’t really think I’m cut out to be a schoolteacher,” he said.

“Well, I hope you’ll give it some thought!”

“Yes, sir, I will. Is this today’s newspaper?”

His father said, “Yesterday’s, I believe. Not that it makes much difference. I put it aside because I didn’t quite finish the crossword puzzle.”

“Good. I’ll read my horoscope. I’ve sort of forgotten what I did yesterday. Here. It says new enterprises are favored. I guess I missed my chance.”

“That’s the only thing it ever says! That’s probably what mine says!”

“Yes, sir, it is. We have the same sign. And here’s yours, Glory. ‘Curiosity is not always welcome. Consider self-restraint.’” He smiled at her, folded the paper, and tucked it under his arm.

She felt herself blush hotly and, she knew, visibly. But he looked away from her quickly enough, almost, to make her believe he had not meant to embarrass her. Maybe the horoscope was real after all. She decided it was better to assume it was real, because if she took offense she would be confessing, and seeming to confess to worse by far than she had done, not that there was anything wrong with what she had done. And if she found out it was not real, that he was taunting her, everything would only be harder. That was the decision of the moment, and when she considered it afterward, she was grateful to herself for having made it. Consider self-restraint indeed, when she bit her tongue twenty times a day. All she had wanted when she stepped into his room was to know whether she had to begin hinting to her poor old father that Jack was gone again. It was not her fault that so ridiculous a fear was justified. And she did not intend to notice now that nothing suggested he had been drinking.