She had put on her own dress, not one of the nice ones from the Boughtons’ attic or the new ones from the Sears, Roebuck catalogue, and her own shoes. No need to worry she might dirty them. When she stepped out the door she felt that good chill, the dark of the morning she used to wake up to every day. The trees stirred in the darkness, and birds made those startled sounds they do when the stars are gone and there is still no sunrise. The river smelled like any river, fishy and mossy and shadowy, and the smell seemed stronger in the dark, with the chink and plosh of all the small life. She eased herself down to the edge of the water and put her hands in it. She took it up in her cupped hands, poured it over her brow, rubbed it into her face and into her hair. Then she did the same thing again, wetting the front of her dress. And again. Her hands were so cold she felt them against her face as if they weren’t hers at all. The river was like the old life, just itself. Nothing more to it. She thought, It has washed the baptism off me. So that’s done with. That must be what I wanted. Now, if I ever found Doll out there lost and wandering, at least she would recognize me. If there could be no joy for her in whatever was not life, at least she might remember for one second what joy had felt like. Lila thought about that for a while, seeing Doll walking ahead on some old dusty road, nothing on every side of her, and calling out her name so she would turn, and then running into her arms. No, Lila would be sitting on those steps, after it was dark, long after, and then Doll would be there, all out of breath, saying, “Child, child, I thought I was never going to find you!” When the sun had been up a little while she decided she could go back to the Reverend’s house. Maybe no one would see her. They would all be in church.
She put on the blue dress she had found in the mail order catalogue he gave her. It was the first time she had taken the dress out of the box it came in. And she put on the white sandals, and she brushed her hair. In St. Louis one of the girls had said to her, Just pretend you’re pretty so they can pretend you’re pretty. The old man would come home, or stay in his study at the church. Someone might invite him to dinner, which they ate in the middle of the day on Sunday. And he might say yes rather than come back to his own house, which would still be empty, or where he would find her and have to think of a way to speak to her. When she did something wrong, something that made him unhappy, he was embarrassed by it, and he would smile and say, “Perhaps you could help me understand … you are so quiet…” But she would not know how to explain, and if she told him how strange and alone she felt, and wanted to feel, he would wonder why she stayed with him at all. Now that there might be a child she’d best try to act like she belonged there, at least for a while. Her hands still smelled like river water, and her hair. She still felt a little more like who she was. That was a help.
She could read. Doll had seen to that. She might sit on the porch with a magazine and wait for him there. Then he could ask her what she was reading, or she could tell him that there was a word she didn’t understand, as there certainly would be. So she was sitting with a copy of The Nation in her lap, when, hours after church would have ended, she saw the Reverend walking up the road, Boughton beside him, the two of them talking together as they always did, and listening to each other, as if, so far into their lives, some new thing might still be said, something not to be missed. Boughton saw her first and said a word to the Reverend, who glanced up, and then they stopped in the road to say goodbye and the old man came on alone. His body still had the habits of largeness and strength, as if he had learned to be a little slow when he moved, out of consideration for whatever might be around him, whatever he might bump or displace. Still, he was slower than usual, taking his time, approaching his own door with a reluctance she saw and regretted, since this time might be the time that he would not forgive her, or at least the time that he would have decided he did not want her to stay.
He took off his hat as he came up the steps. Then he stood there a moment, turning the brim of it in his hands, just taking her in. “The Nation,” he said, as if that was as strange as anything else that had happened to him lately.
So she said, “I got to do more reading. It’s something I been meaning to do for a while now.”
After a moment he said, “Yes, well, that’s always worthwhile, I guess.” His voice was mild, almost amused. He shifted his weight, the way he did when something surprised him a little.
So she said, “Seems like I’m carrying a child.” She had not meant to tell him then, but she couldn’t very well wait until he decided to be angry to tell
