Marilynne Robinson - Home

“It’s your brother Jack,” he said. “Your brother Jack without his disguise.”

“Oh dear Lord! Oh dear Lord in heaven!” she said.

He said gently, “No reason to cry about it. Just a little joke. A kind of joke.”

“Oh, what are we going to do?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. He can’t see me like this. I know that much.”

“Well, where is your shirt?”

“I believe it’s with my socks. I seem to have stuffed them into the tailpipe. The shirt is hanging out of it, the sleeves. Not much good to me now.”

She said, “I have to sit down.” She could hear herself sobbing, and she couldn’t get her breath. She leaned against the car with her arms folded and resting on the roof and wept, so hard that she could only give herself over to it, though it kept her even from thinking what to do next. Jack hovered unsteadily at a distance from her, full of drunken regret.

“You see, I was right to give you the key,” he said. “I guess I tried to start the car without it.” He gestured toward the open hood. “It looks like I did some damage. But I’m glad I didn’t bother you for the key. I’m not always thoughtful. When I’m drinking.”

She said, “I’m going to put you in the backseat, and then I’m going to get some soap and water and a change of clothes, so we can get you back into the house. You can lie down here and wait for me. Stay here now. I’ll be right back.”

He was docile with embarrassment and weariness and relief. He lay down on the seat and pulled up his knees so she could close the door.

When she went into the house her father called to her, “Is Jack here?”

“Yes, Papa, he’s here.” She could not quite control her voice.

There was a silence. “Then I suppose we’ll see him for supper tonight.”

“Yes, I think we will.” Another silence. The old man was giving them time, a reprieve, restraining curiosity and worry and anger and relief, too, while she tended to whatever the situation required. She took a sheet and a blanket and a washcloth and towel from the linen closet at the top of the stairs, and she took a pail from the broom closet, rinsed it out, and filled it with hot water. She had worried about her father’s hearing all this haste and urgency, but clearly he had mustered the courage of patience — yet again, dear Lord, she thought. She dropped the bar of laundry soap into the water and carried the things she had gathered out to the porch step.

Now what. She dragged an Adirondack chair from the side yard to the back of the barn. It was concealed from the neighbors by the lilac bushes. The sunlight was full there, but it was mild enough. She took the sheet with her into the barn through the side door.

“Jack,” she said, “Jack, I want you to take off your clothes and wrap yourself in this sheet and come outside. We’re going to get you clean. Did you hear what I said?”

He moaned and roused himself and squinted up at her.

She said, “I’ll help you. I’ll get you a change of clothes. You’ll feel so much better.”

He shook his head. “I think I ruined my clothes.”

“I’ll take care of that. But you have to give them to me. Then I can try to clean them up.”

He looked at her. “You’re still crying.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry. Terribly sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She took his arm and helped him up, leaned him against the side of the car. “Give me your coat.” Under his coat he was bare-chested. He crossed his arms and laughed with a bitter sort of embarrassment.

“Maybe I should get a little more sleep.” He started to open the car door.

She pushed it shut again. “I don’t have all day. I have Papa to think about. He’s worried half to death. Hold this.” She gave him a corner of the sheet and bundled the rest around him, just under his arms. “Now, I’ll wait for you outside. I have a chair for you out there where no one will see you.”

“I managed to smell like death, at least,” he said. “This seems a little too — appropriate. What is it called? A winding sheet.”

“Oh!” she said. “What should I do with you? Tell me what to do!”

“I wish you wouldn’t cry,” he said. “Give me a minute here. I know you want to help me, Glory.”

She went outside and waited, and in a little while he emerged, barefoot, wincing, abashed by daylight, startlingly white and thin. He lowered himself into the chair and she brought the bucket and the soapy water and the cloth and began to wash him down, starting with his hair and face and neck and shoulders, wringing out the cloth again and again, scrubbing his arms and his hands, which were soiled with grease and were injured, marred. Her father would notice that.

“Lavender,” he said.

She leaned him forward to wash his back. His head lolled on her shoulder. He said, “I once worked in a — mortuary. Briefly.”

“That’s fine,” she said.

“Yes. I didn’t mind. It was quiet.”

“You don’t have to talk.”

“Then a citizen came in. Wrapped in a sheet. Complete stranger. There was a piece of paper tied to his toe, tied on with a red ribbon. It was an IOU with my name on it. My — signature. People sell those for a — fraction of their value.” He looked at her. “Have you ever heard of that? Someone else has your note. You don’t know who to be afraid of.”

“That’s a shame,” she said, since he seemed to hope she would share his sense of injury.

He laughed. “I never even knew how much I owed. On those notes. I never wrote one when I was sober. Couldn’t have been much. I wasn’t, you know, a good risk.”

“Probably not.” She would have to try to shave him. His beard made his face look pallid, and his pallor made his beard look dingy.

“I think they just liked to see me jump,” he said. “I’m highstrung. Never let people know that about you. They figure it out anyway.”

She said, “You should have come home.”

He laughed. “Maybe.” He said, “I failed as a lowlife. But not for want of — application.”

“I’m sure,” she said.

She settled him back against the chair and toweled him down and bundled the blanket around him. She put one of his feet and then the other into the soapy bucket. “That’s the best I can do for now. Are you comfortable? Does the light bother you?”

“I’m all right. Much better. Maybe a glass of water?”

“Yes. I’ll find some clothes for you. I’ll have to go into your room. Is that all right?”

He seemed to drift off and then to startle awake. “My jacket—” he said.

“It’s right here.” She brought it out and hung it on the back of the chair. Then she took the slim leather case out of the breast pocket and, being careful first to dry the place very thoroughly, put it down on the arm of the chair.

“Thank you, Glory,” he said, and he covered it with his hand and closed his eyes again.

“I’ll just get some clothes out of your room. If you don’t mind.”

He said, “You might notice a bottle or two in there.” He laughed. “I’ve been getting into the piano bench lately.”

“You stay right here. I’ll be back.”

She had stopped crying, but she had to sit down in the porch. She put her head on her knees. She imagined him in that bleak old barn in the middle of the night, stuffing his poor socks into the DeSoto’s exhaust pipe, and then, to make a good job of it, his shirt. He’d been wearing his favorite shirt, the one with the beautiful mending on its sleeve. All the drunken ineptitude and frustration, his filthy hands, everything he could reach in the engine pried at, pulled loose. She couldn’t leave him alone for more than a few minutes, but her father needed her, too. She might call Lila. Not yet. Her family was slower to forgive a failure of discretion than they were to forgive most things actually prohibited in Scripture. If Jack’s notions of privacy were generally indistinguishable from furtiveness, there was only more reason to be cautious about offending them.