Then he looked at her, his face pale and grave and regretful, and she knew there was no more to be said, that she should not have said what she did say, because the grief he always carried with him was as much as he could bear. He said, “I took care of him. I made oatmeal and fed it to him. I cleaned him up and changed his sheets and turned him over, and I think he went back to sleep. Last night was too hard for him. My fault.”
“No. You were trying to comfort him. And this was coming. We all knew it would happen.”
He nodded. “I suppose so. Thanks. Thank you, Glory. I’m going to go take care of that thing in the loft. It won’t take long.”
Glory went to look in on her father. He lay on his right side, his face composed, intent on sleep. His hair had been brushed into a soft white cloud, like harmless aspiration, like a mist given off by the endless work of dreaming.
SHE WENT TO SPEAK WITH AMES, TO TELL HIM THE FAMily was being asked to come home. He hugged her and gave her his handkerchief and said, “I see, I see, yes. I’ll be by to look in on him when he’s had his sleep. I have a few things to take care of at the church first. And how is Jack?” So she told him, though she had not meant to, that Jack was leaving. She said it was so hard for her that he should leave just then, and she said it with all the passion of her worry and grief, but she did not let herself violate the secrecy she had been sworn to, more or less. She did not mention his dread of doing something unsightly. Ah, Jack.
“Yes,” Ames said, “his father would want him there with his family. It would be a pity for him to leave now.”
“It would,” she said.
There are very few comforts to be had from half-confiding, and Glory thanked him and went away before she could find herself giving in to habit and sadness and divulging her fears about Jack, the thing most offensive to him that they had done all through their childhood and his. That her father had done once again no doubt on his last visit to Ames’s kitchen. She had left Ames with the impression, she knew to her deep chagrin, that Jack was just behaving badly, a scoundrel disappointing the standards of civility. Ah well. Nothing to do but go home and start preparing for the brothers and sisters.
She came into the kitchen and found Jack there, wearing his suit and tie, brushing at a smudge on the brim of his hat. He said, by way of explanation, “I have one last glimmer of hope, a merest spark of optimism. I want to make sure it is extinguished before I leave this town.” He laughed. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I mean, I doubt that there’s any life in it, but I thought, you know, I’d inquire, just to be sure. I’m going to go speak with Reverend Ames again. I thought I’d give it one last try.” He shrugged.
Glory said, “Yes, fine. I just saw him. I told him about Papa. He said he would be at the church this morning, and then he would come by here. So you could wait and talk to him then.”
“No, I think I’ll stroll up to the church,” he said. “That’s more or less as I imagined it. It will be that kind of conversation. There will be a certain element of confession in it. I can do that.” He smiled. “Don’t look so worried. I won’t let him hurt my feelings this time. I mean, at least he won’t catch me off guard. For what that’s worth.”
Oh, she thought, dear God, let that be true! How to warn him. How to warn either of them. Jack would be walking into an embarrassment she had prepared for him. When Ames said to her, It would be a pity, his voice had a hint of that taut patience with which he had always heard out tales of Jack’s scoundrelism. And Jack had a way of conceding ground he could not defend, taking on a manner of evasive deference when he felt he might be seen as a shady character, which meant that he certainly would be seen that way, however bright the shine on his shoes. That weary smile of his, as if he knew that between him and anyone he spoke to there was none of the trust that sustained the most ordinary conversation, as if between them there was an uneasy mutual understanding that almost obviated words. The jaded intimacy in his assuming so much seemed to startle people. Still, he had to assure himself that his last spark of hope was extinguished, so he checked the knot of his tie and tipped his hat, and went off to find Ames at his church.
Glory looked in on her father, and finding him still asleep, she went up to her room, got down on her knees, and prayed fervently in the only words that came to her—“Dear God in heaven, help him. Dear God in heaven, protect him. Please don’t let him suffer for my stupidity, dear God, please.” Then she lay on her bed and thought. More precisely, she fell to remembering something she had almost forbidden herself to remember. Something it seemed she had now fully and finally given up, though it had never been hers. A modest sunlit house, everything
