Jack laughed. “That’s fine with me.”
“Whipped!” his father said. “Technicalities aside. It has taken the starch out of me! Glory, I’ve got the board warmed up. Let’s see what you can do with this fellow.”
So she sat down opposite her brother. He smiled at her. “This is very fine popcorn,” he said.
“Extra butter.”
He nodded. They played a polite game, distracted by their father’s palpable hope that they would enjoy it a little. There was no trace in Jack’s expression of anything at all except a readiness to oblige, which was only emphasized by the promptness with which he took his turns. “Oh,” he said, when she triple-jumped him.
Then his father said, “I believe you have an opportunity there, Jack.” And he reached over and made the move himself, a double jump. “Now you have a king, you see.”
Glory said, “No fair,” and Jack laughed.
“Old times, yes! It’s very good, but I can’t deal with all this excitement. I’m off to my room. No, you two finish your game,” he said, when Jack stood up to help him with his chair. “There’s time enough to get me to bed. I’m not going anywhere.”
So they went on with their game. Glory said, “I don’t recall that we ever did play checkers, you and I. I always played with the younger kids.”
Jack began to make his move, but his hand trembled and he dropped it into his lap.
“What is it,” she said.
He cleared his throat and smiled at her. “You never sneaked me upstairs with a bottle of aspirin. You were a little girl.”
“No, I didn’t mean I did it myself. I just meant I knew that it happened.”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize that. I didn’t realize at the time. That you would have been aware of it.” He cleared his throat.
“It was a stupid thing for me to say, Jack. I apologize. I hope you will forget it.”
He said, “It just makes things sound worse than they were. They were bad enough.”
“All right. I will never say it again.”
He considered. “Say what, exactly?”
“Well, you’re right. I didn’t say that I personally was the one who sneaked you upstairs. That’s just what you heard.”
He said, “I wouldn’t mind if we dropped the subject entirely. All that happened a long time ago.”
At that point she lost her temper. She thought, Why am I apologizing to this man for something I did not say, and also for what I did say, which was only the truth?
“Well.” She hoped she was controlling the quaver of anger in her voice. “At just that moment it was not obvious that all that had ended a long time ago.”
He put his hand to his face. Oh, she thought, this is miserable. Dear God, I have made him ashamed. How will we live in the same house now? He will leave, and Papa will die of grief, and the fault will be mine. So she said, “Forgive me.”
“Yes,” he said, “of course.”
Their father called, “Could one of you children come and give me a little help?”
“I’ll go,” Jack said. She put away the checkerboard, and then she looked down the hall, and there was Jack, kneeling to unlace the old man’s shoes. And his father regarding him with such sad tenderness that she wished she could will herself out of existence, herself and every word she had ever said.
THAT WAS THE DAY A PHONE CALL CAME, A WOMAN ASKING to speak to Jack Boughton. Glory said he was in the garden and she would call him, but he wasn’t there, so she went to the barn, where she found him leaning into the engine of the car. “There’s a telephone call for you.”
“Who is it?”
“She didn’t say. A woman.”
“Jesus,” he said, and he stepped past her and ran down the path and up the steps into the house. When she came into the kitchen the phone was back on its hook. “She hung up.” He said, “Sweet Jesus, I’m out of the house twenty minutes—”
“I’m sorry—”
He shook his head. “It’s not your fault. Did she tell you her name? What did she say?”
“She said she was calling from St. Louis. The connection was very bad. There was a lot of noise. She was calling from a phone booth, I think.”
“From St. Louis? She said that?”
“Yes.”
He sat down at the table. “St. Louis! Did she say she would call back?”
“Well, no. I thought I would be able to find you. I guess I thought she’d stay on the line. I should have asked.”
He drew a very deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “None of this is your fault,” he said. His hands were greasy, so he went to the sink and washed them, and washed his face, then he took a dishcloth and wiped down the telephone. “None of this is my fault, either, I suppose. There’s absolutely no comfort in that thought.” He sat down at the table. “I hope I’m not in the way here. I cannot be farther than an arm’s length from the telephone into the indefinite future. Jack Boughton in chains. All I need is an eagle to peck at my liver, such as it is. Ah,” he said, and he laughed. “At least I got a call. That’s something.” The thought seemed to lift his
