“You listened to my prayers?”
“Hope did, and Dan. I heard them laughing about it. So I came in a few times.”
“I can only apologize.”
“No point in it. The damage is done. The Lord will use the information as he sees fit, come Judgment.”
She said, “I’m surprised you remember so much.”
He shrugged. “I lived here, too.”
“All I mean is that when everybody comes home for holidays we go over the old stories again. I doubt that we would remember half of them if we didn’t remind each other three or four times a year.”
“I’ve thought about this place. Sometimes I’ve even talked about it.”
There was a silence. Then he said, “So. Are you going to try to save my soul, little sister?”
“What? Save your soul? Why would I do that?”
“Why not? It seems like a genteel occupation for a pious lady. I thought you might want to do me that kindness. Since you have a little time on your hands.”
She looked at him. He was smiling. She knew him well enough to know that he smiled when he thought he might offend, whether intentionally or unintentionally. He could seem to be laughing at himself, or at her.
She said, “I’d be happy to oblige, but I have no idea how to go about it.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m willing to confess to a certain spiritual hunger. I think that’s usually the first step. So that’s out of the way.”
“And then?”
“Then I think it is usual to ponder great truths. That has been my experience.”
“Such as?”
“The fatherhood of God, for one. The idea being that the splendor of creation and of the human creature testify to a gracious intention lying behind it all, that they manifest divine mercy and love. Which sustains the world in general and is present in the experience of, you know, people whose souls are saved. Or will be.” After a moment he said, “It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them. That’s where the problem lies. In my case.” He looked at her.
She said, “I’m flummoxed. I’ll have to give this some thought.”
“Yes. Well, it is a lot to spring on you, I know. I always nourish the suspicion that pious folk are plotting my rescue. Now and then it has been true. Not so often, really. But you are my sister. So it seemed worthwhile to inquire. Just to save time.” He smiled.
She said, “I think I like your soul the way it is.”
He looked at her and laughed, and his color rose. “Thanks, Glory. That’s no help at all, but I do appreciate it. I really do.”
GLORY MADE UP A BATCH OF BREAD DOUGH. BROWN BREAD was her father’s preference. Something to lift the spirits of the household, she thought. The grocer brought her a roasting hen. She opened the windows to cool the kitchen and air out the dining room a little, and the breezes that came in were mild, earthy, grassy, with a feel of sunlight about them.
Jack came in from the barn, bringing with him a whiff of old straw and sweat and crankcase oil. He took a deep breath. “Ah! Bread!” She lifted the towel so he could see the speckled belly of the rising dough. Then he held up his hands to her, which were oily and grimy, and said, “Don’t touch those potatoes!” He went upstairs. There were sounds of haste and ablution, and then he came back down with his shirt half buttoned and his hair wet. He found a knife. “Blunt as a poker,” he said, but he set to paring. “It is art that keeps the demons at bay!” This was to bring home to her the significance of a long spiral of peeling he had removed intact.
“Amazing,” she said.
He said, “Practice.”
“Were you quoting?”
He nodded. “La Sagesse de Jacques Bouton. Bouton de la Rose, that is. Poète maudit. Poète malgré lui. Roué and — kitchen help. For some reason they didn’t teach the French for that in college.” He held up another spiral of peel. “Pity,” he said. “Things sound so much better in French—pomme de terre, fait-néant, voleur—” He smiled. “My intellectual lady friend was set on keeping up her French. So I summoned what little I could of mine. We read L’Education sentimentale. My enthusiasm for the project was almost unfeigned.”
“Your friends are more interesting than mine.”
“You must know where to find your friends, ma petite.”
“And where is that?”
“If you are very, very good I might tell you. Someday. But you must be exceptionally good.”
She laughed. “God knows I try.”
He said, “That’s a beginning, I suppose. Though not in every case.”
She raised the tea towel and punched the dough, and a great sigh of yeasty air breathed out of it. After a minute he said, “I’ve been into the cash drawer again. I bought some spark plugs and a tire pump. The old one leaked so much it was almost useless. And a fan belt.”
“You don’t have to tell me about these things.”
“And a baseball glove.”
“That money isn’t mine, either, Jack. And Papa doesn’t care about it.”
He nodded, delicately gouging out
