In twenty minutes she heard the door open and close. He came in and sat down, smiled, shrugged. “I stepped out for a smoke,” he said.
“I don’t mind if you smoke in the house. Papa wouldn’t mind.”
He said, “I stepped out for a stroll.”
“Fine.”
He said, “I stepped out for a drink. But I never actually left the porch.”
“Good for you.”
“Yes,” he said. “Good for me.” He smiled.
“And how is the old gent?”
He shook his head. “Well, you know, he’s old. I don’t know why, but I can’t quite get used to it. When we were kids, he was taller than Ames, wasn’t he? He was very impressive. He used to seem to me to loom over everybody. And he had that big laugh. I was proud of him, I really was.”
“We were all proud of him.”
“Of course.”
“And we were proud of you.”
He looked at her. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“No, really. Not always. And it got a little harder over time.” He laughed. “But we thought you were, I don’t know, chimerical, piratical, mercurial—”
He said, “I was a nuisance and a brat. I was a scoundrel.”
“Well,” she said, “you know more than I do about the particulars. I’m just telling you how you seemed to the rest of us.”
He smiled. “What a pleasant surprise.” Then he said, “Ames always saw right through me. And when he looks at me he still sees a scoundrel. The other day I had the terrible feeling that maybe he wasn’t quite wrong. So I began to be charming, you know. A little oily.” He laughed. “I called him Papa. He deserved it, too. He hadn’t even mentioned to the wife that my father had honored him with a namesake. Can you imagine?”
“You did bring out the crotchety side in him.”
“The poor old devil.” Jack shook his head. “I tried his patience. Like I would have teased a cat or stirred an anthill. Once I blew up his mailbox. He was walking up the street from Bible study. He just put his books down on the porch step and went and got the garden hose. I don’t believe he ever told anybody a thing about it.” He laughed. “It really was quite a spectacle. It was dark. I’d had to climb through my window to be out so late.”
“You know, they moved you into that room, with the porch roof under the window, so that you could make your escape without killing yourself. You remember that time the trellis broke and Mama thought you were dead because you’d gotten the wind knocked out of you.”
“I thought they’d just moved me away from the trellis.”
“That, too, of course. They thought of telling you that you could leave through the door if you were so intent on leaving. But they were afraid that might seem like encouragement.”
He looked at her. “What right did I have to be so strange? A good question. I’ve lost my watch. It must be ten o’clock by now.”
“Yes, five after. I was a child when I said that to you. I hoped you had forgotten it. It didn’t mean anything.”
He laughed. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Good night, now.”
She went up to her room and sat down at the dresser to brush out her hair. She heard the front door open and, quietly, close.
JACK CAME DOWNSTAIRS LATE THE NEXT MORNING AND asked if he could borrow an envelope.
“Do you need a stamp?”
“Yes. Thank you.” He took a folded letter from his jacket pocket and slipped it into the envelope and sealed it, affixed the stamp, and then went into the dining room to write the address. When he came back into the kitchen, he picked up the coffeepot. “All gone.”
“I’ll have a fresh pot for you when you come back.”
“Thanks, Glory.” Then he said, “I’m sorry if I kept you awake last night. I was restless. I needed to take a walk.”
“No, I went right to sleep,” she said, which was not true. “I tried to be quiet.”
“I didn’t hear a thing.” That also was not true. She had heard him come through the door at a little after three. A five-hour walk. Well, he was always a mystery.
Her father had been grave that morning, having heard the furtive opening and closing of the door, she supposed, and again, the opening and closing of it and the cautious steps on the stairs. “No Jack for breakfast this morning, I see,” he said. “Things don’t change, I guess. People don’t. So it seems.” He picked up the newspaper, looked at it for a minute or two, and put it down again. “I guess I’m off to my room, Glory, if you don’t mind helping me here.”
“You haven’t touched your cereal, Papa.”
“That’s a fact. I just don’t feel up to it. If you don’t mind.” So she took him to his room and helped him into bed again. She would speak to Jack, when the time seemed right, and when she could think of a tactful way to broach the subject. There was no knowing what the old man heard, or what he knew, but it was clearly
