Lila thought, The dream, again. Seems like I can’t even close my eyes. Well, but she had this old man now, lying here beside her, and he didn’t give any sign at all that he was getting tired of having her around. And men don’t last so well. A woman said once that when men get a few years on them they’re harder to keep than a child. She said, They can look all right and then one day they’ll just drop in their tracks. Lila had seen it herself, out harvesting. And wouldn’t she feel like a fool if all she’d been thinking about was Doll, when here she was with this warm, breathing man beside her, for now at least. He was always worrying that she might be tired or cold. Or sad. He brought her a dictionary, and it was very interesting. She’d never even have known to want it. She could put her hand on his chest right now and feel his heart beating. Hair on his chest, all soft and silvery. She was going to put some thought to being kinder to him. He liked seeing them geraniums. “The woman’s touch,” he said. Well, she thought, I guess so. She didn’t know much about that.
That money of hers was still out there at the shack, most likely. She could buy him something with it. Wouldn’t have to spend it all. She’d just want the money in her hand to make sure somebody hadn’t come along and settled into the place and found where she hid it. It would be a hard life now with the cold coming on, but you never knew. If they’d found the money, they’d think it was theirs for sure and they might not want to give it up. She thought she could bring that knife along, and then she thought no. If he saw it was gone, he’d start wondering. Just showing a knife can be trouble, and here she was pregnant. What was she thinking about. She had no business at all carrying a knife. She wasn’t even supposed to be biting her nails. But the money was so much on her mind that she couldn’t go back to sleep. She remembered that the Sears catalogue was on the shelf in the kitchen, and then she had to get up and look through it. There was everything you could think of in there.
When she heard him stirring the way he did when he was waking up, she put the catalogue back on the shelf and set the table. Ham and eggs and a pot of coffee. Nothing hard about that. Toast and jam. He came downstairs whistling, scrubbed and shaved and combed. “Ah,” he said, “wonderful! And how are you two this morning?”
She said, “I guess this child of yours don’t want me to sleep. Maybe he don’t like my dreams or something.”
He helped her with her chair. “You’re having bad dreams? Here, I’ll get the coffee.” He poured her a cup. “Do you want to tell me about them?”
“They’re just dreams. You must have bad dreams sometimes. Maybe you don’t, being a preacher.”
He laughed. “I have had more than my share, it seems to me.” And he said, in that low, gentle voice he used to speak to widows, and knew that he did, “Sometimes it does feel better to talk about them.”
“Who you been talking to about them all these years? Old Boughton, I suppose.”
He nodded. “Boughton.”
“Jesus, I suppose.”
“Jesus.”
“You never told me nothing about your dreams. Anything.”
“I guess it’s been a while since I had any dreams worth talking about. Something’s chasing me and I don’t know which way to run. Then I wake up. That’s all most of them amount to. I’m just running like the devil. I haven’t really run like that since I was ten years old. And then I wake up with my heart pounding.”
“And that’s what you tell Jesus.”
He laughed. “The Lord is very patient. Something I learned from my grandfather. Well, from watching my grandfather. I used to wonder when I was a boy how the Lord could just listen to him going on the way he did. I suspected sooner or later He might stop coming around. I sort of hoped He would. I was a little scared of Him.”
“Maybe He’s what you was running away from. In your dream.” Now, why did she say that?
He shrugged. “What a thought. Now, wouldn’t that be something.” He toyed with his fork, considering.
She said, “I’ll tell you the truth, I’m scared of Him. I’m always dreaming that Doll’s trying to hide from Him. That’s why she don’t want no grave, so He can’t find her.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s a very sad dream. I’m sorry about it. You probably never would have dreamed such a thing before you came here and started listening to me. And Boughton.”
“Don’t worry about it. My dreams was already bad enough. It would have just been something else. There’s nothing good about her dying the way she did, Lord or no Lord.”
He looked at her, and he nodded.
“I didn’t mean nothing by that. No offense.”
