Marilynne Robinson - Home

Then there was a knock at the kitchen door, and Ames came in, carrying the little case he brought with him when he visited the sick. Their father’s eyes found it and remained on it while Ames said his hellos and remarked on the weather. Glory knew they were conspicuously miserable, the three of them, and that Ames would acknowledge this only by the gentleness of his voice. Her father tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, as he did when he was impatient. Ames said to him, “Robert, I was hoping I might share communion with you,” and the old man nodded. So he put the little case on the mantel and opened it and took out a silver cup. He filled the cup from a flask, and then he asked Glory for a bit of bread. She brought him a roll from their Sunday dinner on a linen napkin. He set the elements on the broad arm of Boughton’s chair. He was silent for a while, and then he said, “‘The Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you, this do in remembrance of me.’” Boughton said, “Yes. ‘In like manner the cup.’ Yes. ‘You proclaim the Lord’s death until he come.’” And the two old men fell silent. They had said those words so many times. Ames broke the bread and gave a piece of it to Boughton, and to Glory, and offered it to Jack, who smiled and stepped away. Then he held the cup to Boughton’s lips, gave it to Glory, drank from it himself. The two old men were silent together for some time.

When Boughton nodded off, Ames came into the kitchen. There seemed to be nothing he wanted to say to them, but he took a chair at the table when it was offered to him and he accepted a cup of coffee. His care of their father, bringing the Sacrament, would have been an enhancement of the sad quiet of the day. But he stayed, and he attempted conversation. Jack leaned back in his chair with his arms folded and watched him, too weary to help sustain it. Glory went to see that her father was comfortable, and brought his quilt, and when she came back, Ames was letting himself out the door, looking a little embarrassed and dejected.

She said, “What happened?”

“Well, he tried to give me money. To leave. I told him I was leaving anyway, he needn’t bother.”

“Ah, Jack.”

“You know he wants me out of here. He can see what I’ve done. To my father.”

“Did he say that?”

“Good Reverend Ames? Of course not. He said he thought I might want to go to Memphis.”

“Well, why wouldn’t he think that? You and I have talked about going to Memphis.”

He reflected a moment, and then he laughed. “We did, didn’t we. That seems like a million years ago. Another life.” He said, “You’re right. Poor old blighter. Trying to give away money he doesn’t have. What a fool I am.” He rubbed his eyes. “That was friendliness, wasn’t it. I should have thought of that. He was starting to like me, I suppose.”

The day passed. Glory wanted to value it, though of course she could not enjoy it. She would probably never see her brother again — in this life, as Teddy had said. Sweet Jesus, she thought, love this thief, too. After a while Jack roused himself and went about the work he had set for himself, putting things in order. He nailed a loose plank in the shed wall, and he cut some dead canes out of the lilac hedge. He split a pile of kindling. Then he came in and asked her for the car keys. He said, “I think I’ve got it back together well enough. I’ll try to start it.” She went to the porch and heard the engine start and idle. Jack opened the barn doors, and then he backed the DeSoto into afternoon light. He pushed the door on the passenger side open. “I was thinking we might go for a spin, take the old gent along.” So they went into the house and Jack took their father up in his arms and carried him out to the car. And then he drove them past the church, which was, to their father’s mind, the place where the old church had stood. And he drove them past the house where Mrs. Sweet had lived, and past the Trotskys’ old house, and past the high school and the baseball field, and then out to the peripheries, where town gave way to countryside and the shadows of late day were blue between the rows of corn and on the evening side of trees and the swells of pasture and in the clefts of creek. The smell of ripe fields and water and cattle and evening came in on the wind. “Yes,” their father said. “It was wonderful. I remember now.”

When they came back to the house again, Jack smiled and handed her the keys. They settled their father for the night, sat together in the kitchen trying to read, then trying to play Scrabble. It was a habit of hers to stay up as long as Jack did, thinking he would be more reluctant to leave the house if he knew she was aware of his leaving. Finally he went upstairs, and in half an hour she did, too. She spent the night listening and worrying, dreading his absence, because the thought of it made her life seem intolerably long. She thought, If I or my father or any Boughton has ever stirred the Lord’s compassion, then Jack will be all right. Because perdition for him would be perdition for every one of us.

She came downstairs at dawn and Jack was in the kitchen already, in his suit and tie, with his suitcase by the door. He said, “I hope I haven’t been too much trouble. There’s a lot I regret.” He said it the minute she came into the room, as if it were the one thing he was determined to have said, the one thing he wanted her to know.

She said, “Ah, Jack,” and he laughed.

“Well, I haven’t been the perfect houseguest. You have to grant me that.”

“All I regret is that you’re leaving.”

He nodded. “Thank God,” he said. “I could have given you a lot more to regret. And myself. You’ve really helped me.”

“Now you know where to come when you need help.”

“Yes. Ye who are weary, come home.”

“Very sound advice.”

He said, “I’m not sure you should stay here, Glory. Promise me you won’t let anyone talk you into it. Don’t do it for my sake. I shouldn’t have talked to you about it the way I did.”

“Don’t worry. If you ever need to come home, I’ll be here. Call first, just to be sure. No, you won’t have to do that. I’ll be here.”

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

He helped her bathe their father and dress him and feed him, and then it was eight o’clock and the phone rang. Teddy had driven the whole night to make up for an emergency call and a late start. He was in Fremont, where he had stopped for coffee. Jack said, “I’m going to have to ask you for some traveling money. Not enough to get me in trouble. Just enough to get me out of town.” She had set aside Teddy’s envelope and put into it the ten-dollar bill Jack gave her when he had just arrived, and the money hidden in the Edinburgh books.

Jack hefted the envelope and handed it back to her. “Too much. You know how much liquor this would buy me? Perdition for sure. Unless I got lucky and somebody rolled me for it.”

“Oh dear God in heaven, Jack. How much can I give you, then? Sixty? It’s all your money. You won’t owe me a dime.”

“Forty will do. No need to worry. There are always more dishes to be washed, more potatoes to be peeled. Except in Gilead.”

“I’ll keep the rest for you. Call me. Or write to me.”

“Will do.” He picked up his suitcase, and then he set it down again and went into the parlor, where his father was sitting in the Morris chair. He stood there, hat in hand. The old man looked at him, stern with the effort of attention, or with wordless anger.

Jack shrugged. “I have to go now. I wanted to say goodbye.” He went to his father and held out his hand.

The old man drew his own hand into his lap and turned away. “Tired of it!” he said.