They worked quietly in the sunshine, heaving up irises and separating them. Jack was very earnest about the work, and very preoccupied, reflective. Glory replanted the best of the corms, setting a few aside for Lila. “You’re a friend of hers?” Jack asked.
“We get along. She’s a nice woman. You haven’t stopped by the Ameses’ yet, have you.”
“Too busy,” he said, and laughed. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“She keeps a big garden herself, and she’s offered to help me with this one, but I don’t want to take her away from her husband. Time’s wingèd chariot and so on.”
“How is old Ames?”
“Papa’s worried about him. He really does worry about everything. But he says, ‘Ames just isn’t quite right!’ He says, ‘I’ve known him all my life, and I can tell there’s something the matter!’” She looked toward the porch and whispered, “He’s supposed to be deaf, but he seems to hear whatever I’d rather he didn’t. I’d better be careful.”
Jack said, “I’d have thought Ames would come by. No wonder the old fellow misses him. I didn’t know forty-eight hours could pass without a quarrel, or at least a checker game.”
“I suppose he’s giving Papa time to enjoy having you here.”
“Ah yes. Who better than Reverend Ames to understand that special joy I bring with me wherever I go—”
“No, seriously. You don’t realize what this has meant.”
“What it meant until I actually showed up.” He said, “The hangover was a mistake, that’s for sure.” He took the cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lighted one.
“Children!” the old man shouted. “I think that’s enough for one day!”
She said, “Ames has mellowed a little. At least he’s not as abstracted as he used to be. So much of that was loneliness, I think. And it would please Papa if you paid a call on him.”
Jack looked at her. “I know. Of course. I intend to.” They were walking back to the house. He flicked his cigarette away and pushed the hair off his brow, and he held the door for her. Then he stood there just inside the door, like a stranger unsure of his welcome.
THEIR FATHER HAD PUT THE CHECKERBOARD ON THE kitchen table. He said, “Jack, I like a good game of checkers. But Glory lets me win.”
“No, I don’t.”
“She does. And I know it’s kindly meant.”
“I don’t let you win.”
“She doesn’t really enjoy the game, so half the time she more or less concedes by the third move. It’s frustrating. I can’t hone my skills!”
Glory said, “I win about as often as you do.”
Her father said, “That is my point! Half the time she is just letting me win!” And he laughed roguishly and winked at Jack, who smiled. He opened the box. “Black is my preference. Glory, you sit down here and watch. You might want to pick up some pointers. This fellow may have acquired strategies unheard of in Gilead!”
“No, sir, “ Jack said. “Not where checkers are concerned.” He came to the table and took a seat. He placed the red checkers on their squares.
Glory said, “I’ll make popcorn.”
“Yes, like the old times—” Her father made a move.
She thought, Yes, a little like the old times. Graying children, ancient father. If they could have looked forward from those old times, when even a game of checkers around that table was so rambunctious it would have driven her father off to parse his Hebrew in the stricken quiet of Ames’s house — if they could now look in the door of the kitchen at the three of them there, would they believe what they saw? No matter — her father was hunched over his side of the board, mock-intent, and Jack was reclined, legs crossed at the ankles, as if it were possible to relax in a straight-backed chair. The corn popped.
After a while her father said, “Best two out of three! I know when I am outflanked.”
“Are you sure?” Jack asked.
“‘Sure’? If I do this, you do that. And if I do this, you do that,” he said, tapping the board with his finger. “It seems odd, in the circumstances, that I should be the one to point it out!”
“If you hadn’t, I might not have thought of it.”
“Well, then, we’ll call it a
