But she began to think about getting herself baptized. She thought there might be something about that water on her forehead that would cool her mind. She had to get through her life one way or another. No reason not to take any comfort the world seemed to offer her. If none of it made sense to her now, that might change if she let it. If none of it meant anything, after all, no harm done. Then he told her that they would be having a class, and she would be very welcome to join them. She was still making up her mind, just walking past the church because she thought she might be early or she had come the wrong evening, because she had walked past twice before and had not seen anyone going in. She never really knew the time, and she could lose track of the days. But then there was the preacher coming along the street toward her, so she just stood there where she was and waited. Nothing else to do. He had taken off his hat when he saw her, so he probably meant to speak to her. She had not thought what she might say to him, had not expected to speak to him at all, only to sit in the row farthest from him and listen and keep her questions to herself.
He said, “Good evening. I’m happy to see you here.”
And she said, “I figure I better get myself baptized. No one seen to it for me when I was a child.” Realizing as she heard herself say the words that after all her thinking she felt almost in the habit of speaking her mind to him. Didn’t she know better than to let herself think like that? Hadn’t she told herself a hundred times? This is what was bound to come of it. He didn’t even look quite the way he looked to her in her thoughts, and still she had spoken to him as if she knew him. That’s what came of living the way she did.
“Well,” he said. “Yes. We’ll take care of that. Certainly.”
Everything she said seemed to surprise him a little. No wonder, when it surprised her, too. She thought, How do I know what I’ll be saying with all them church people watching me? She said, “I can’t come tonight. I got to work.” And she turned and walked away, instantly embarrassed to realize how strange she must look, hurrying off for no real reason into the dark of the evening. The lonely dark, where she could only expect to go crazier, in that shack where she still lived because it was hard for her to be with people. It would be truer to say hid than lived, since about the only comfort she had in it was being by herself. If she didn’t go back now, before the full ache of shame set in, she knew she would never set foot in that church again. The best thing about church was that when she sat in the last pew there was no one looking at her. She could come a little late and leave a little early, when she wanted to. She could listen to the sermon and the singing. People might wonder why she was there, but they never asked. And it was just interesting to hear the old man talk about being born and dying and the rest of it, things most folks are pretty quiet about. Not much else was keeping her in that town. So she decided she would go back to the church and walk in the door the way she meant to do in the first place. But when she did walk in, he stood up, so she left, and those ladies followed her out into the street. They must have been talking about her. So what? They could have let her go if they’d wanted to. If she felt like a fool, so what? He stood up like he did before, and he smiled and said, “I’m glad you could be here, after all.” She said, “Thank you.” And after that it was easier. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. At least she was beginning to learn a little.
If she thought about the preacher so she wouldn’t think about other things, she could just as well be remembering the old times, when she had Doll. No point wondering about that cabin Doll took her from, or who it was that had kept her alive when she was newborn and helpless. She had picked up the Bible and read at the place it fell open, and she found this: In the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to cleanse thee … No eye pitied thee. And she fell to thinking that somebody had to have pitied her, or any child that lives. I passed by thee, and saw thee weltering in thy blood. Lila had seen children born. They were just as naked and strange as some bug you would dig up out of the ground. You would want to wash the child and wrap it up in something to hide it, out of pity. Hard as she tried, all she could remember were skirts brushing against her, hands not so rough as other hands. That might have been the one who made her live.
