How to announce the return of comfort and well-being except by cooking something fragrant. That is what her mother always did. After every calamity of any significance she would fill the atmosphere of the house with the smell of cinnamon rolls or brownies, or with chicken and dumplings, and it would mean, This house has a soul that loves us all, no matter what. It would mean peace if they had fought and amnesty if they had been in trouble. It had meant, You can come down to dinner now, and no one will say a thing to bother you, unless you have forgotten to wash your hands. And her father would offer the grace, inevitable with minor variations, thanking the Lord for all the wonderful faces he saw around his table.
She wished it mattered more that the three of them loved one another. Or mattered less, since guilt and disappointment seemed to batten on love. Her father and brother were both laid low by grief, as if it were a sickness, and she had nothing better to offer them than chicken and dumplings. But the thought that she could speak to them in their weary sleep with the memory of comfort lifted her spirits a little. There was a nice young hen in the refrigerator, and there were carrots. There were bay leaves in the cupboard. Baking powder. Lila would send Robby over with whatever she lacked, knowing better than to ask why Glory or Jack didn’t go to the store themselves. Good Lila. She might know some simple, commonplace treatment for hangover, some cool hand on the brow that would wake Jack from his sweaty sleep, as if penance were swept aside by absolution. If there were such a thing, Jack would know and would have asked for it, unless misery was the way he spoke to himself, unless he had meant to recruit his whole body to the work of misery. There would be a rightness in his grieving in every nerve. However slight her experience, she did know that. And she knew he would sleep for hours, and awake vague and somber.
So she bathed the hen and set it in water with the carrots and an onion and the bay leaves. Some salt, of course. And she turned on the heat. Poor little animal. This life on earth is a strange business.
SHE HAD SAT BY THE SPUTTERING RADIO, TRYING TO INterest herself in The High and the Mighty. She went into the kitchen to turn the little hen onto her belly, and she saw that a blue Chevrolet had pulled into the driveway. Teddy. Of course, Teddy would come just now. Glory felt anxiety, and relief, and resentment. If he had come even a week earlier, he’d have found everything much better, another atmosphere in the house. Instead, he was walking in on failure and shame. She should have called him weeks ago, asked him to come while her father was still a little sprightly and Jack was still all right, even, she had thought, healthy. At least not unhealthy, not miserable. She had felt, she knew now, that she was sustaining a familial peace—fragile, certainly, and only more remarkable for that. Jack, who had never trusted any of them, trusted her. Not always, not wholly, not without reservations of a kind he did not divulge and she could not interpret. Still, even Teddy would have envied the talking and joking and the moments of near-candor, the times they were almost at ease with each other. She had been so proud of all that, pleased to believe it was providential that she should be there, having herself just tasted the dregs of experience, having been introduced to something bleaker than ordinary failure—it was a sweet providence that sent her home to that scene of utter and endless probity, where earnest striving so predictably yielded success, and Boughton success at that, the kind amenable to being half-concealed by the rigors of yet more earnest striving. Not that she could entirely forget the bitterness of her chagrin, not that she preferred the course her life had taken to the one she had imagined for it. But she did feel she had been rescued from the shame of mere defeat by the good she was able to do her brother.
Teddy walked into the porch, into the kitchen, threw his arms around her, and kissed her forehead. “Hiya, babe,” he said, making a brief study of her face, noting and ignoring the weariness of it. “Good to see you! How’s it going? Do you mind if I make a few phone calls?”—all this in a very soft voice, since he knew his father was probably asleep. He leaned in the hallway, giving advice and assurance, making three attempts to reach someone who didn’t answer. Then he hung up the phone and came back and hugged her again, comforting her, though he said nothing. Teddy used to be just Jack’s height, a slightly sturdier version of him, without the tentativeness that made Jack always seem to be taking a step back. Now Teddy was taller, she thought, no doubt the effect of quiet purposefulness on the one hand and evasiveness and generalized reluctance on the other. Once again he studied her face. She had been frightened so recently, and she was sad, and so tired, and it was all surely visible to him. “I hope I haven’t come at a bad time,” he said. “It’s been hard to stay away. I finally gave in.”
“This is a good time. As good as any, I suppose.” What excuse was there for keeping him, all of them, away while their father dozed through whatever time remained to him, even though the old man himself did not ask her to send for them? Teddy could have blamed her for letting things get worse without calling him. It was pride, or it was shame that had made her hope Jack would recover himself enough to let the others see that things had been good between them. Though there was their father, too. But she saw nothing of anger or accusation in Teddy’s manner. A calm, affable man who went about his doctoring with scrupulous detachment and a heavy heart, he saw enough misery in the ordinary course of his life to avoid adding to it, except when compelled to on medical grounds.
“Is he here?”
She said, “He’s upstairs.”
“Would he mind if I said hello to him?”
She said, “Why should he mind?” and they laughed, ruefully. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”
JACK WAS LYING ON HIS BACK WITH AN ARM ACROSS HIS face, to shield his eyes from the light that came through the drawn blinds. When he heard her at the door he rolled away from her.
“What,” he said. “What is it.”
“Teddy’s here.”
He laughed. “I wondered when you were going to get around to that. Calling Teddy.”
“I didn’t ask him to come. He just came on his own, as far as I know.”
He turned to look at her. “You’re whispering. So he must be downstairs.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t hear his car. I guess I was asleep.”
“Well, he’d like to see you.”
“Have you told him?”
“No. Should I?”
“Please don’t. Don’t, Glory. It will never happen again, I swear.” He rubbed his face. “I’ll have to wash up. I shouldn’t have slept in this shirt. I could use an aspirin.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “Where did I leave my shoes?” He rubbed his eyes. “Teddy,” he said. “That’s just what I need right now.”
She brought him the bottle of aspirin and a glass of water. Then she brought him a washcloth and a towel.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I’ll tell him you’ll be down in a few minutes. I’ll start some coffee.”
“Yes, coffee,” he said, scrubbing his face and his neck, then his face again. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry about all this.”
She went down to the kitchen. Teddy was standing in the porch looking out at the garden. “You’ve been busy,” he said.
“Jack did most of it.”
He looked at her, to gauge the ratio of truth to loyalty in what she said, ready to be pleased with either of them, just wanting the information. “Then he must be doing all right.”
“He was for a while.”
“I see.” Teddy with his crisp hair and his groomed hands, his soft brown sweater and his tortoiseshell glasses. He was mild and reassuring in every way he could be, by nature, habit, and intention. There was something of the scent of rubbing alcohol about him, so faint that he must have known it suggested illness or emergency and have scrubbed it off as carefully as he could. That would account for the cologne he wore, his only departure from decorous simplicity. After a few minutes he said, “I can leave, if that’s what he wants. I knew he wouldn’t be too happy to s
ee me. You can tell him I won’t stay long.”
“Give him a few more minutes. He’ll be down. He probably wanted to clean up a little.”
Teddy laughed. “And polish his shoes, I suppose. Has he changed a lot?”
“I didn’t know him as well as you did. He’s still Jack.”
“Dad told me you and he get along. He worried about that.”
Jack came down the stairs in his stocking feet, wearing one of his own shirts, still trying to button a sleeve. He stopped by the door, glanced at Glory, and smiled. He folded the cuff over twice, then unbuttoned the other sleeve and rolled it up, too.
His brother said, “Jack.”
Jack said, “Teddy.”
“How are you, Jack? It’s good to see you.”
Jack propped himself against the counter and folded his arms. It was fairly obvious how he was. Still, Glory wished he were not so thin, that he’d put on a better shirt, that it was not so hard for him to raise his eyes. “I’m all right,” he said. He smiled and shrugged. “I’ve been looking for work.”
Teddy drew a breath. He said, “I’m your brother, Jack! Jesus Christ!”
Jack laughed.
“I mean, it’s fine if you’re looking for work. But it’s none of my business, is it.” Then he said, “Hey, Jack. Can we shake hands, at least?”
Jack shrugged. “Of course.”
Teddy went to his brother and took Jack’s hand in both his hands and held it. “So it’s true. You’re really here. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve hardly been able to believe it.”
Jack laughed. “I could show you the wound in my side if you like.” Then, “Sorry.” And his head fell, and it was real regret. He was so tired of himself.
Teddy didn’t study him, exactly, though there was always something of the doctor in his kindest attention. They teased him about it. Once, when he had looked too intently into Hope’s eyes, she pulled down a lower lid to accommodate his scrutiny. Now he could not help but notice Jack’s color, notice how thin his hand was, that it trembled. How could he help but notice these things, and how could Jack not step back from him, with a smile of irritation?
“You’re a good man, Teddy. I remember you said that time I talked with you in St. Louis that you wouldn’t come looking for me again. I appreciated that.”
“Well, the fact is, I did. I just didn’t find you. I came back six times altogether. The last time was about two years ago.” He said, “Once, I thought I’d found your hotel. The fellow at the desk said you were staying there. That was a long time ago. My third trip, I think. I left an envelope with a note in it and some money. I guess it never got to you.”
Jack shook his head. “No.” Then he said, “Did the fellow have a bad eye?” He touched his face.
“Terrible,” Teddy said. “Did he ever see anybody about it?”
Jack smiled. “I wouldn’t know. The bastard evicted me. Sorry.”
“Well, I promised to leave you alone, and then I made a pretty good try at going back on my word. Sometimes I’d just get the feeling I had to see you again, and I’d take off for St. Louis. A couple of times I called home from the road to tell them where I was. I’d think I was going to get a tank of gas and I’d find myself headed for Missouri.”
Jack said, “I’ve put you to a lot of trouble.”
“No, no. Looking for you was sort of the next best thing to finding you. It made me feel like we were still brothers, I suppose.”
Jack said, “If we’re being honest—I saw you there once. You were getting out of your car. It was a black Chevy. You were wearing a brown sweater that day, too. I stepped into a cigar store and waited until you drove away. I had to buy a magazine because I’d read most of it. That didn’t make sense to me, but it did to the clerk. It took my last quarter.”
Teddy laughed. “Okay,” he said, and tears started down his cheeks. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Jack said quietly, “I don’t want you to give a damn about me. Any of you. I never did.” He looked at Glory as if he might apologize, and then there was a silence. He laughed. “What an asinine remark that was. I’m really sorry. It sort of makes a point, though.”
Teddy nodded. “There is clearly a good deal of truth in it.”
“I’m not sure I understand it myself. I don’t know why you’d put up with it. Me.”
Teddy said, “That is an interesting question. For another time.”
Jack laughed. He stood up. When they both looked at him he said, “Getting coffee. Would you like some more, Glory? Teddy? He took up Glory’s cup and saucer, but they chattered in his hand so he put them down. “I’ll get the pot.” When he had finished serving them he propped himself against the counter again.
“I’m doing all right, too,” Teddy said. “Hanging together. No major problems at the moment. So far as I know.”
Jack said, “Glad to hear it.”
Then their father called, “Is that Teddy! I believe I hear Teddy!” His voice was urgent with relief and joy.
Teddy said, “Here I am, Dad. I’m coming.” He went into the old man’s room, sat down on the edge of the bed, and took him up in his arms. The old man put his arms around him, rested his head on his shoulder, and wept. “I’m so glad you’re here, Teddy!” he said. He tried to speak in his reasonable, fatherly voice, but it was broken by sobs. “It’s been hard, Teddy. I knew it would be. But it’s been very hard!” And he wept. “I’m so old!” he said.
Teddy stroked his back and his hair. “It’s all right. It’ll be all right.”
Jack looked at Glory and smiled. He was very pale. “What the hell have I been doing?” He said, “What a fool—” And he went upstairs. She heard his door close.
The old man said, “Glory has been such a help. He doesn’t talk to me, but he talks to her. Sometimes I hear them laughing, and that’s very good, but I don’t think she can reason with him. I know I can’t.”
Teddy said, “I left my bag in the car. I’ll get it and check you over a bit, listen to your chest, and then we can worry about Jack.” He was the only doctor their father would allow anywhere near him, since the local fellow had suggested that brandy might ease his discomfort a little, and then had given him a tonic which the old man swore was concocted of whiskey and prune juice.
“No, no, Teddy, I don’t care about my heart, that’s very kind. What I want is just to see the two of you together. Is Jack here? I hope you find him, because it seems like I never even get a clear look at him. If you could just stand there beside him, I believe that might help me. I rest all the time, but I can’t get my strength up. So I thought you might help me.”
“Sure, Dad.” Teddy came out to the hallway and called up the stairs, “Jack, would you come here for a minute.” When there was no response, he raised his voice. “Hey, Jack, get down here. Dad wants to see you.” A minute passed and Jack came down the stairs. Teddy said, “He wants to see us together.”
Jack said, “You coming, Glory?” and paused to let her go ahead of him. He had that cautious, distant look, absent the calculation she had learned to recognize as hope. Her father seemed to have forgotten her, and Jack wanted her there, as if she could somehow support him or defend him. But there was a respect in the gesture that Teddy noticed, too, and he set the chair for her by her father’s bed, as if to show that he had not meant to slight her.
“Yes,” their father said, “this is wonderful. Could you stand a little closer, Jack?”
He shrugged. “Sure. If you say so.”
“Yes, now I can see all of you.” He glanced at Jack’s face, then glanced away. “I want a picture of you in my mind, together like that.” After a moment he said, “I have thought so often of when you were boys, and sometimes people would ask if you were twins. There was such a resemblance. That changes over time, of course.”
Jack laughed.
Teddy said, “Somehow I got all the gray hair.”
“Responsibility does
that,” the old man said. “You were always the one to take responsibility. Much more than your share.”
“I was always the one to worry,” Teddy said.
“Yes, it comes to the same thing. I’ve worried, myself, the Good Lord knows. That took a great part of my life, I realize, looking back on it.”
Jack rested his hand on the back of Glory’s chair.
“Now I have to put all that aside and stop tormenting myself with the thought that I can do anything about—anything. Yes. But the Lord does work through human beings, through families.” He cleared his throat. “Part of it is giving care and another part is accepting it. That second part is difficult and very important. I know I’ve been a burden to everybody for years and years, and you have all been very good to me. And I’ve enjoyed that, even though I never enjoyed the suffering and the general uselessness that made it necessary. And I hope I have made it clear that I thank God for you, that you have been a great blessing to me. In the time he has been home, Jack has shown great kindness to me. Glory, too, of course. Yes.”
He closed his eyes, and frowned with the carefulness he brought to forming his conclusion.
“That’s what the family is for,” he said. “Calvin says it is the Providence of God that we look after those nearest to us. So it is the will of God that we help our brothers, and it is equally the will of God that we accept their help and receive the blessing of it. As if it came from the Lord Himself. Which it does. So I want you boys to promise me you will help each other.”
Jack laughed.
“And accept help, too. I want you to shake hands and promise me that, too.”
Teddy held out his hand, and Jack took it and released it.
Teddy said, “I promise.”
Jack said, “All right.”