GLORY CAME OUT TO THE KITCHEN AND WAITED, AND after a few minutes Jack came out, too. “Would you mind just staying here with me for a few minutes, Glory?” he said. “Till I’ve had some time to check for broken bones.” He laughed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Ahh. I’m feeling the impulse to do something unwise. You don’t have to sit here until the bars close. Unless you want to.”
She said, “I’m happy to sit here as long as you like.”
“When do the bars close in this town, on a weeknight? It used to be ten.”
“I’m not the one to ask, I’m afraid.”
“It’s not quite eight o’clock now. Two hours, maybe three. That’s a long time.”
“Believe me, I have no plans for the evening.”
He laughed. “Good.”
“Would you like coffee?”
“Coffee? Sure. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Not at all.”
He said, “You should be impressed that I don’t know when the bars close. That means I haven’t even gone near enough to one of them to read the sign on the door.”
She laughed. “I am impressed. Now that you point it out.”
“Yes, I think I should draw up a list of my accomplishments. That would be number one. Then: I am not incarcerated. And: I nearly finished college—”
“I thought you finished. We were all going to come to your graduation.”
“And then the Reverend got a phone call from St. Louis.”
“He said he should have expected that you wouldn’t want to go through the ceremony.”
“Well, there were some other considerations—some problems, shall we say. Omissions, mainly. Does that surprise you?”
“Not at all,” she said.
He shook his head. “I am a monster of consistency, little sister. Though increasingly I realize that the consistency was mostly alcohol. But now I am a changed man, most of the time. For example, I have just told you the truth about something. I owe it all to the influence of a good woman.”
She laughed.
He said, “What? Is that so hard to believe?”
“No, no. That’s a phrase I used to hear a lot, that’s all.” She said, “Should I tell you the truth about something?”
“Sure. But you don’t have to. This doesn’t have to be an exchange of hostages or anything.”
“I am giving you a hostage, though. I’m trusting you with this. You have to take it to your grave.”
“Will do. On my honor, as they say. If you really want to tell me.”
“I think so. I do want to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because you’re my brother, I guess. Because I want to see how it sounds when I say it out loud.”
“How it sounds to me, or to you? There could be a difference.”
“I suppose so. Does that matter?”
“Well, you know, I’m not the ideal sounding board. Especially if there’s moral complexity involved. That was never my strong point. You might reveal some embarrassing deficiency in me. One more deficiency—” He laughed. “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
“All right,” she said. “No secrets, no confidences.” Then, after a minute, she heard herself say, “I was never married.”
“Oh?” and he began to laugh, wearily and uncontrollably. “Is that the secret? I’m really sorry. It’s because I’m tired,” he said, wiping tears from his face.
“My fault,” she said. “You gave me fair warning.”
“I did, didn’t I.” The laughter persisted, somewhere between a sob and a cough. “I’m really sorry. The thing is, you know, I’m not married either.”
“But no one ever thought you were. I mean, you didn’t make people believe that you were.”
He laughed into his hands, miserably. “That’s true. I never did.” Then he said, “I hope you’re not mad at me, Glory. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be. Please don’t be mad.” He was struggling to catch his breath.
“Oh heck,” she said. “I’m going to get you some coffee.”
“Heck, yes! Bring on the coffee!” he said, and he laughed.
“I say ‘hell’ sometimes. If I’m mad. But I’m not mad. I’m just sort of flummoxed.”
He said, “I do that. I flummox people. It’s really about the best I can hope for, in fact.”
“Well, I’ve gotten pretty used to it. It’s actually a little bit interesting, in a way.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Seriously. I know I did the wrong thing, laughing like that.” He shook his head ruefully, and laughed. “You’re a good soul, Glory.”
“I am,” she said.
“I know that what happened to you was bad. I was an idiot to laugh.”
“It was very bad. One midnight I went out and dropped four hundred fifty-two letters down a storm drain.”
He laughed. “Four hundred fifty-two!”
“It was a long engagement. A policeman saw me and came over to ask me what I was doing. I told him I was throwing away four hundred fifty-two love letters and one cheap ring. He said, ‘Well, I sure hope things work out for you.’” They laughed. “I’m all right,” she said. “It was all horrible enough to be funny, I suppose. Now that it’s over.”
“Yes, there’s always that to look forward to.” Then he shrugged and said, “It’s enough to make me hope there’s a minute or two between death and perdition.”
“Oh come on, Jack. I don’t really think you get to believe in perdition unless you believe in all the rest of it.”
“No? But perdition is the one thing that always made sense to me. I mean, it has always seemed plausible. On the basis of my experience. And I don’t think this is a good time to try to talk me out of it. I’m tired. I’m sober—” He laughed, and she glanced at her watch. “Let me guess,” he said. “Eight-twenty-eight.”
“Eight-seventeen.”
“If you tire of my company, I’ll understand.”
“No, not at all. Could I make you some supper?”
“I just had supper.”
“No, you didn’t. I watched. Six bites of potato.”
“I haven’t had much appetite, I guess.”
“Well, I have news for you, Cary Grant. Your pants have begun to bag.”
“Ah. You have mastered the art of persuasion. A scrambled egg then?”
“And toast.”
“And toast.”
Jack sat at the table, twitching his foot. He cleared his throat.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Not a thing.” Then, after a minute, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I have just been told that I am not the only sinner in this family.” And then he laughed and put his hand to his face. “Now, that was probably a mistake. What a fool I am.”
Glory said, “Well then, let’s just say you’re not the only fool in the family.” She broke an egg into the frying pan.
“But you haven’t told the Reverend about this, I take it.”
“How can you even ask?”
He nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
“Stupidity isn’t a sin, so far as I know. But it ought to be one. It feels like one. I can forgive myself all the rest of it.”
“You can forgive yourself.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Interesting.”
She glanced at her watch.
He said, “We’ll change the subject.”
Then he said, as if taking upon himself the effort of sustaining conversation, “That woman in St. Louis I mentioned—she sang in the choir at her church, of course. And sometimes, if the lady who played piano for them couldn’t come to practice, I’d fill in for her. I’d come anyway, just to listen. That old lady could really play, but she was kind. She taught me as much as I could learn. I played for their service a few times. I used to come into the church on weeknights to use the piano, and so long as the music wasn’t too worldly, they didn’t mind. I could have made a decent living playing in bars, but they were—well, they
were bars. So I hung around at her church. It was all right. I mean, I was happy then.” He looked at her, smiled at her. “Why are you laughing? You don’t believe me.”
“Sure, I believe you. I’ve been wondering where you learned to play those hymns so well.”
“There it is. Proof of my veracity. And you’re laughing anyway.”
“It’s because I met, you know, the man I didn’t marry, at a choir rehearsal. He was passing in the street, he said, and he heard the music, and it took him back to the sweetest moments of his childhood. He hoped we would not mind if he stood very quietly and listened for a while.”
“Why, what a cad. ‘Sweetest moments of his childhood.’ I could have warned you. That one phrase would have given him away.”
“Yes, no doubt. But at the time I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. So I couldn’t avail myself of your wisdom.”
“True.” Jack cleared his throat. He cleared it again. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was hovering around choir rehearsals looking for vulnerable women. I met my—the woman I mentioned—as I was walking by her apartment building one day. It was raining and she was coming home from school—she was also an English teacher. She dropped some papers and I helped her gather them up. And so on. I’d found an umbrella on a park bench a couple of days before, and here was a lady needing rescue. We became friends almost without calculation or connivance on my part. It was all very respectable. It was.”
She said, “‘Looking for vulnerable women.’”
“Oh well, that isn’t quite what I meant.”
“That is what he was doing, though. You’re exactly right. It’s only that I had never put it to myself in just those words.”
“Sorry.” He smiled and touched his hand to his face. She thought, Why has he turned pale? Then he said, “You know, by vulnerable I suppose I really meant—religious. Yes. Pious girls have tender hearts. They believe sad stories. So I have heard. All to their credit, of course. And they usually lead sheltered lives. Little real knowledge of the world. They are brought up to think someone ought to love them for that sort of thing, their virtue and so on. And they are ready to believe anyone who tells them about, you know, his angel mother, and how the thought of her piety has been a beacon shining through the darkest storms of life. So I have been told. And often, on a cold night, there will be cake and coffee, absolutely free of charge. That can bring out the hypocrite in a fellow, if he has a thin coat or a hole in his shoe. As I understand.” Then he said, “If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t let her go anywhere near a choir rehearsal.”
She said nothing.
Jack stood up. “Yes,” he said, “well. There’s still a little bit of daylight. I’d better go make myself useful, hadn’t I. Earn my bread in the sweat of my brow, as they say.” He stopped by the door and stood there, watching her. After a long moment he said, “I know I should leave this town. But I can’t leave yet.”
“Sit down, Jack. No one wants you to leave. Papa doesn’t, and I don’t.”
He said, “Well, that’s good of you. Good of you to say.”
“Not really. I appreciate the company.” She laughed. “All my life I’ve wanted your attention. I’ve wanted to talk with you. It’s the curse of the little sister, I suppose. I knew it would be hard. That was always clear enough.”
He shrugged. “I’m glad to know I’m living up to expectations.”
She said, “Papa’s right, of course. Neither one of us would be here if we weren’t in some kind of—difficulty. So there’s not much point in pretending otherwise, at least when he’s asleep. I’d have been afraid of the word ‘vulnerable,’ but it didn’t kill me to hear you say it. So now I know that.”
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Then she said, “She’s the one you write to, the woman you mentioned?”
He smiled. “Why, yes, I write to her. I did just this morning. Dropped a tear where I had signed my name. It was tap water, really, but the thought is what counts. That was letter two hundred eight.”
“All right,” she said. “Sorry I asked.”
“I’m afraid,” he said, very softly, “that sometime you really might be sorry. I mean, if you got to know me well enough, you might not want me around. You might even ask me to leave.” He smiled. “Then what would I do? Who would keep me out of trouble?”
“Well, Jack,” she said, “I don’t think I have to tell you where I’ve heard that before.”
“That, too!” He shrugged. “In my case at least you know there is an element of truth in it. There probably was in his case as well.”
She thought, How very weary he looks. So she said, “Do you remember the time you paid me a dime to stop crying? I was home with the mumps, and I was wretched with boredom. I thought everyone else was at school. But you came out of your room, and you took a dime from your pocket, and you said you would give it to me if I stopped crying. So I did. And then pretty soon you came back and paid me a nickel to stop hiccuping. And then you gave me another nickel after I promised not to tell where I got the money.”
“Well,” he said, “good for me, I suppose. Is that your point?”
“Yes, it is. I was very pleased—I meant to keep those coins, in fact, but I believe I spent them on gum. I’m sure I did keep them for a week or two.”
“So. It sounds as though I bought myself some time. Maybe a little patience.”
“Some loyalty.”
“Excellent. What a bargain.” He laughed. “If you think of anything else that redounds to my credit, let me know.”
“And you taught me the word ‘waft.’”
“Well, don’t tell me everything at once. I wouldn’t want to exhaust my capital.”
“Then sit down,” she said. She gave him the egg and toast and refilled his coffee cup and sat down across the table from him. He ate dutifully and said no thank you when she asked him if he would like more. They were silent for a while. “It’s almost nine,” she said.
Jack washed his plate and cup and put them away, and he sat down again.
Glory said, “How could you think you were the only sinner in the family? We’re Presbyterians!”
“Yes, ‘we have all sinned and fallen short.’” He laughed. “Talk is cheap.” Then he said, “I mean, you have to admit that there is a difference between my tarnished self and, say, Dr. Theodore D. W. Boughton.”
She said, “Teddy’s all right. He means well.”
“Despite his virtues and accomplishments.”
“Yes. In a way, that’s true.”
They laughed.
Jack said, “Maybe there is no justice in the world after all. What a wonderful thought.”
She shrugged. “Depending on circumstances.”
Jack put his hand to his face. “Ah yes. Circumstances. The scene of the crime. The corpus delicti.”
She glanced at her watch.
After a minute Jack said, “I suppose I should look in on the Reverend. I miss the old fellow. Two weeks ago he’d have been out here by now with the checkerboard. And on his way back to bed again.”
She nodded. “I really don’t think we’ll have him much longer.”
“Well. What will you do then?”
“Teach. Somewhere. Not here, I hope. I like teaching.” Then she said, “You’ve seen Teddy since you left home?”
“Oh yes. Once. He came to St. Louis and hunted me down. He walked around the back streets with a couple of photographs until he found someone who recognized me. It took him days. That was a long time ago. He was just out of medical school. And I was—not in very good shape. That may have been my nadir, in fact. We sat on a bench and ate sandwiches together. He asked me to come home with him, but I declined. He offered me some money, and I took it. A miserable experience for both of us. He never talked about it?”
“Not so far as I know.”
“I made him promise he wouldn’t. And wouldn’t come looking for me again. He didn’t do that either. At least he didn’t find me.” He laughed. ??
?Those photographs wouldn’t have been much use after a while.”
“He’s a man of his word.”
Jack nodded. “There’s a lot I could regret,” he said. “If there were any point in it.”
“He’ll be here at Christmas. Thanksgiving, too, if he can get away. With Corinne, who never stops talking. The children are nice.”
Jack shuddered. “So many strangers. People whose names I wouldn’t know.”
“Six in-laws. Twenty-two children. And six of them are married, so six more in-laws. Five grandchildren.”
“All in this house?”
“A good many of them.”
“Whew!” He pondered this. “So you have been coming home all these years?”
“Most of them.”
“With—hmm—with your fiancé?”
She looked at her watch.
He laughed and pushed back his chair. “Yes, I was going to check on the old gent, wasn’t I.”
He got up and went down the hall, and after a few minutes she heard the front door open and, quietly, close. Oh! she thought. Of course. I should have known. Now I sit here and wait till he comes back. No. I sit here for twenty minutes. Why do that? Because he might come back by then, and if I have gone upstairs, he will know what I was thinking, and that would not be good. Still, why would he sneak off like that? But what can it hurt to wait twenty minutes? Half an hour? I will not go looking for him. That would be ridiculous. Especially if he went outside for some other reason. As if there were any other reason, at this time of night. I will give him half an hour.
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.