Marilynne Robinson - Home

“Sit down, Jack. No one wants you to leave. Papa doesn’t, and I don’t.”

He said, “Well, that’s good of you. Good of you to say.”

“Not really. I appreciate the company.” She laughed. “All my life I’ve wanted your attention. I’ve wanted to talk with you. It’s the curse of the little sister, I suppose. I knew it would be hard. That was always clear enough.”

He shrugged. “I’m glad to know I’m living up to expectations.”

She said, “Papa’s right, of course. Neither one of us would be here if we weren’t in some kind of — difficulty. So there’s not much point in pretending otherwise, at least when he’s asleep. I’d have been afraid of the word ‘vulnerable,’ but it didn’t kill me to hear you say it. So now I know that.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Then she said, “She’s the one you write to, the woman you mentioned?”

He smiled. “Why, yes, I write to her. I did just this morning. Dropped a tear where I had signed my name. It was tap water, really, but the thought is what counts. That was letter two hundred eight.”

“All right,” she said. “Sorry I asked.”

“I’m afraid,” he said, very softly, “that sometime you really might be sorry. I mean, if you got to know me well enough, you might not want me around. You might even ask me to leave.” He smiled. “Then what would I do? Who would keep me out of trouble?”

“Well, Jack,” she said, “I don’t think I have to tell you where I’ve heard that before.”

“That, too!” He shrugged. “In my case at least you know there is an element of truth in it. There probably was in his case as well.”

She thought, How very weary he looks. So she said, “Do you remember the time you paid me a dime to stop crying? I was home with the mumps, and I was wretched with boredom. I thought everyone else was at school. But you came out of your room, and you took a dime from your pocket, and you said you would give it to me if I stopped crying. So I did. And then pretty soon you came back and paid me a nickel to stop hiccuping. And then you gave me another nickel after I promised not to tell where I got the money.”

“Well,” he said, “good for me, I suppose. Is that your point?”

“Yes, it is. I was very pleased — I meant to keep those coins, in fact, but I believe I spent them on gum. I’m sure I did keep them for a week or two.”

“So. It sounds as though I bought myself some time. Maybe a little patience.”

“Some loyalty.”

“Excellent. What a bargain.” He laughed. “If you think of anything else that redounds to my credit, let me know.”

“And you taught me the word ‘waft.’”

“Well, don’t tell me everything at once. I wouldn’t want to exhaust my capital.”

“Then sit down,” she said. She gave him the egg and toast and refilled his coffee cup and sat down across the table from him. He ate dutifully and said no thank you when she asked him if he would like more. They were silent for a while. “It’s almost nine,” she said.

Jack washed his plate and cup and put them away, and he sat down again.

Glory said, “How could you think you were the only sinner in the family? We’re Presbyterians!”

“Yes, ‘we have all sinned and fallen short.’” He laughed. “Talk is cheap.” Then he said, “I mean, you have to admit that there is a difference between my tarnished self and, say, Dr. Theodore D. W. Boughton.”

She said, “Teddy’s all right. He means well.”

“Despite his virtues and accomplishments.”

“Yes. In a way, that’s true.”

They laughed.

Jack said, “Maybe there is no justice in the world after all. What a wonderful thought.”

She shrugged. “Depending on circumstances.”

Jack put his hand to his face. “Ah yes. Circumstances. The scene of the crime. The corpus delicti.”

She glanced at her watch.

After a minute Jack said, “I suppose I should look in on the Reverend. I miss the old fellow. Two weeks ago he’d have been out here by now with the checkerboard. And on his way back to bed again.”

She nodded. “I really don’t think we’ll have him much longer.”

“Well. What will you do then?”

“Teach. Somewhere. Not here, I hope. I like teaching.” Then she said, “You’ve seen Teddy since you left home?”

“Oh yes. Once. He came to St. Louis and hunted me down. He walked around the back streets with a couple of photographs until he found someone who recognized me. It took him days. That was a long time ago. He was just out of medical school. And I was — not in very good shape. That may have been my nadir, in fact. We sat on a bench and ate sandwiches together. He asked me to come home with him, but I declined. He offered me some money, and I took it. A miserable experience for both of us. He never talked about it?”

“Not so far as I know.”

“I made him promise he wouldn’t. And wouldn’t come looking for me again. He didn’t do that either. At least he didn’t find me.” He laughed. “Those photographs wouldn’t have been much use after a while.”

“He’s a man of his word.”

Jack nodded. “There’s a lot I could regret,” he said. “If there were any point in it.”

“He’ll be here at Christmas. Thanksgiving, too, if he can get away. With Corinne, who never stops talking. The children are nice.”

Jack shuddered. “So many strangers. People whose names I wouldn’t know.”

“Six in-laws. Twenty-two children. And six of them are married, so six more in-laws. Five grandchildren.”

“All in this house?”

“A good many of them.”

“Whew!” He pondered this. “So you have been coming home all these years?”

“Most of them.”

“With — hmm — with your fiancé?”

She looked at her watch.

He laughed and pushed back his chair. “Yes, I was going to check on the old gent, wasn’t I.”

He got up and went down the hall, and after a few minutes she heard the front door open and, quietly, close. Oh! she thought. Of course. I should have known. Now I sit here and wait till he comes back. No. I sit here for twenty minutes. Why do that? Because he might come back by then, and if I have gone upstairs, he will know what I was thinking, and that would not be good. Still, why would he sneak off like that? But what can it hurt to wait twenty minutes? Half an hour? I will not go looking for him. That would be ridiculous. Especially if he went outside for some other reason. As if there were any other reason, at this time of night. I will give him half an hour.

In twenty minutes she heard the door open and close. He came in and sat down, smiled, shrugged. “I stepped out for a smoke,” he said.

“I don’t mind if you smoke in the house. Papa wouldn’t mind.”

He said, “I stepped out for a stroll.”

“Fine.”

He said, “I stepped out for a drink. But I never actually left the porch.”

“Good for you.”

“Yes,” he said. “Good for me.” He smiled.

“And how is the old gent?”

He shook his head. “Well, you know, he’s old. I don’t know why, but I can’t quite get used to it. When we were kids, he was taller than Ames, wasn’t he? He was very impressive. He used to seem to me to loom over everybody. And he had that big laugh. I was proud of him, I really was.”

“We were all proud of him.”

“Of course.”

“And we were proud of you.”

He looked at her. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“No, really. Not always. And it got a little harder over time.” He laughed. “But we thought you were, I don’t know, chimerical, piratical, mercurial—”

He said, “I was a nuisance and a brat. I was a scoundrel.”