“It comes up fairly often. Among people I know. People living at close quarters, with time on their hands—” He laughed.
There was a silence. Boughton had closed his eyes again. His head fell. After a moment Glory said, “I think Papa must be getting tired.”
“I’m right here. You can ask me. I still exist in the first person.”
“Are you tired?”
“Yes, I am. I will want to go home soon. Not just yet.” No one said anything for a minute, and then the old man lifted his head. “Yes, we should be going home.”
Glory would have expected Jack to come with her, hoped he would, but he stayed where he was, as if at ease in his chair, and did not meet her eyes. She walked her father to the car and helped him into it, with Lila, who went along to help him out of the car and up the steps of his own house. After she had settled the old man for a nap, Glory phoned Ames to tell him that Lila would stay and help her make dinner. Robby was having supper with Tobias. Dinner would be ready in an hour or so, but he and Jack could walk over whenever they felt like it. In half an hour Ames came in by himself. He said Jack would be along in a little while, and they waited dinner until it was slightly ruined, and ate in silence.
Her father asked, “Did you and Jack have any kind of talk, the two of you?”
Ames said, “Not really. I think he wanted to talk, but he couldn’t bring himself to say what he had on his mind. He only stayed for a few minutes after you went home.”
“He didn’t give any indication where he might be going?”
“He said he might be late.”
GLORY LISTENED ALL NIGHT FOR THE SOUND OF THE DOOR opening. Twice she put on her robe and shoes and went outside to look in the barn, in the car, the shed, the porch, but her father heard her and called out, called to Jack, thinking, no doubt, that it was Jack he heard. Better to let him think so. She crept upstairs and stayed in her room until morning.
Her father told her not to bother with breakfast, but she made coffee for him and put toast and jam on the lamp table next to his chair. And the newspaper, as if this were an ordinary morning. She did what she could to make him comfortable. He was irritated by the delay.
“I’ll be gone a little while,” she said, and he nodded. He asked nothing, which meant he knew everything.
He said, “You’d better go.”
She dressed and brushed her hair. Then she looked into Jack’s room. The bed was neatly made, his books and clothes were still there, and his suitcase. She found the car keys where she had left them, on the windowsill in the kitchen.
She thought Jack might have found his way out of town somehow, hitched a ride with someone passing through, and if she did not find him in Gilead, she would drive to Fremont to look for him, just to see if he might be on the street. If she was delayed, she would telephone Lila and ask her to look in on her father. Two hours there and back, at best. Her father would be as patient as he could, knowing as he clearly did why she had to leave him.
She put the keys in her pocket and walked out to the barn. She opened the door and stepped into the humid half-darkness. And there he was, propped against the car, with the brim of his hat bent down, holding his lapels closed with one hand. He held the other out to her, discreetly, just at the level of his waist, and said, “Spare a dime, lady?” He was smiling, a look of raffish, haggard charm, hard, humiliated charm, that stunned her.
“It’s your brother Jack,” he said. “Your brother Jack without his disguise.”
“Oh dear Lord! Oh dear Lord in heaven!” she said.
He said gently, “No reason to cry about it. Just a little joke. A kind of joke.”
“Oh, what are we going to do?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. He can’t see me like this. I know that much.”
“Well, where is your shirt?”
“I believe it’s with my socks. I seem to have stuffed them into the tailpipe. The shirt is hanging out of it, the sleeves. Not much good to me now.”
She said, “I have to sit down.” She could hear herself sobbing, and she couldn’t get her breath. She leaned against the car with her arms folded and resting on the roof and wept, so hard that she could only give herself over to it, though it kept her even from thinking what to do next. Jack hovered unsteadily at a distance from her, full of drunken regret.
“You see, I was right to give you the key,” he said. “I guess I tried to start the car without it.” He gestured toward the open hood. “It looks like I did some damage. But I’m glad I didn’t bother you for the key. I’m not always thoughtful. When I’m drinking.”
She said, “I’m going to put you in the backseat, and then I’m going to get some soap and water and a change of clothes, so we can get you back into the house. You can lie down here and wait for me. Stay here now.
