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“Yes, sir, I will. Is this today’s newspaper?”

His father said, “Yesterday’s, I believe. Not that it makes much difference. I put it aside because I didn’t quite finish the crossword puzzle.”

“Good. I’ll read my horoscope. I’ve sort of forgotten what I did yesterday. Here. It says new enterprises are favored. I guess I missed my chance.”

“That’s the only thing it ever says! That’s probably what mine says!”

“Yes, sir, it is. We have the same sign. And here’s yours, Glory. ‘Curiosity is not always welcome. Consider self-restraint.’” He smiled at her, folded the paper, and tucked it under his arm.

She felt herself blush hotly and, she knew, visibly. But he looked away from her quickly enough, almost, to make her believe he had not meant to embarrass her. Maybe the horoscope was real after all. She decided it was better to assume it was real, because if she took offense she would be confessing, and seeming to confess to worse by far than she had done, not that there was anything wrong with what she had done. And if she found out it was not real, that he was taunting her, everything would only be harder. That was the decision of the moment, and when she considered it afterward, she was grateful to herself for having made it. Consider self-restraint indeed, when she bit her tongue twenty times a day. All she had wanted when she stepped into his room was to know whether she had to begin hinting to her poor old father that Jack was gone again. It was not her fault that so ridiculous a fear was justified. And she did not intend to notice now that nothing suggested he had been drinking.

“I believe I’ll go out for a little walk,” she said. It was late enough to have made her father worry, if he had been paying attention. But he was consulting with Jack about the crossword puzzle.

She was afraid to be angry, and that made her angry. What right did he have to take over the house this way? Granting he had as much claim to it as she did, the only difference being that she had spent some months caring for the house and her father before he arrived. Now he seemed inclined to help with the old man, too, and he did it well, and as if something were communicated in it that made it more a gracious ceremony than the acting
out of duty or obligation. A tacit agreement had formed between the two men that Jack would help his father with the bathing and changing that had been the uneasiest part of her caring for him, and that was a great relief, since he had been reluctant to accept the attention he needed. The fact was that she had taken comfort from the thought that her duty was plain and that a sense of obligation was becoming in anyone and so on. But things were better with Jack in the house.

“Insinuating” is an ugly word, snakey. She’d have thought of a better one if she could. He had resumed his place in his father’s heart, that was clear. She believed that in twenty years there might have been four letters, because when she was newly returned to her father’s house she went to the big Bible with the altogether blameless intention of soothing her mind with a psalm or two, and the Bible opened on four letters, tucked between the Testaments. The envelopes were worn enough to make her think the letters might have some family interest, but when she saw the return addresses, she put them back unread. Whatever had passed between father and son, their father had not seen fit to tell any of the rest of them, at least as far as she knew. Jack had ceased to be spoken of, almost. Now here he was, without a word of explanation, crowding her out of that big, empty house, or so it seemed to her sometimes. I should leave, she told herself once or twice, to savor the thought of their surprise, their regret. What a childish idea. Then Jack would leave, no doubt, so that she would come back, as she would have to do, and her father would be plunged in sorrow of which she was directly the cause, and which would not end in this life.

She was less inclined to pray than she had been once. In her childhood, when her father, a tall man then and graceful, had stepped into the pulpit and bowed his head, silence came over the people. He prayed before the commencement of prayer. May the meditations of our hearts be acceptable. It seemed to her that her own prayers never attained to that level of seriousness. They had been desperate from time to time, which was a different thing altogether.
Her father told his children to pray for patience, for courage, for kindness, for clarity, for trust, for gratitude. Those prayers will be answered, he said. Others may not be. The Lord knows your needs. So she prayed, Lord, give me patience. She knew that was not an honest prayer, and she did not linger over it. The right prayer would have been, Lord, my brother treats me like a hostile stranger, my father seems to have put me aside, I feel I have no place here in what I thought would be my refuge, I am miserable and bitter at heart, and old fears are rising up in me so that everything I do makes everything worse. But it cost her tears to think her situation might actually be that desolate, so she prayed again for patience, for tact, for understanding—for every virtue that might keep her safe from conflicts that would be sure to leave her wounded, every virtue that might at least help her preserve an appearance of dignity, for heaven’s sake. She did wonder what the neighbors thought, if anyone saw her in the street at that hour. Something fairly near the mark, no doubt.

As she considered the prayer she was not yet disconsolate enough to put into words, the unwelcome realization came to her that she loved Jack and yearned for his approval. This was no doubt inevitable, since it was assumed to be true of the whole family, separately and together, excluding in-laws, who might never have met him or even heard his name, and who could only be a little amazed by the potency of this collective sentiment if by some means they became aware of it. He was the black sheep, the ne’er-do-well, unremarkable in photographs. None of the very few stories that mentioned him suggested the loss of him could have been wholly regrettable. It was the sad privilege of blood relations to love him despite all. Glory was thirteen when he left for college, having been by that time ignored by him for years. And here she was in middle age feeling the fact of his touchy indifference a judgment on her, so it seemed to her, though he had been so grievously at fault, and her intrusions all those years ago, her excesses, whatever he might have called them, were no such thing—she had defended them in her mind a thousand times and
would defend them to his face if the occasion ever arose, which God forbid, God forbid.

The thought had occurred to her more than once, even before the gradual catastrophe of her own venture into the world had come to an end, that “despite all” was a dangerous formula, and that the romance of absence was a distraction from more sustaining joys. Those years of her late childhood, when she felt so necessary, when she was so sure things would come right if only enough effort was given to making them come right—those years stayed with her as if they had been the whole of her life. The others hadn’t even known—not Faith, not Teddy. Her father said it was Jack’s choice to tell them or to be silent, since he might feel still less at ease with them if they knew, and not seek them out if the need arose. He might not come home when they came home, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Her father told her with tears in his eyes that the three of them could alleviate Jack’s guilt and also his shame by making the very best of the situation. So she took up knitting. It was a deep secret. They were at work on a great rescue. Her parents talked freely to her or in her hearing about it all, trusted her, and she never breathed a word except to old Ames, whose discretion was perfect. It embarrassed her to remember how happy she had been, those three bitter, urgent years until it all ended. Her brother would never know the thousand things she had done to make life tolerable for him.

Brothers. When she was a child, attention from any of her brothers was wonderful to her. It was rare, and it was wry, odd, not at all parental. Even Grace, who was older than she was by less than two years, tried sometimes to mother her, and Faith and Hope—such names!—were irksomely mature and responsible. But when any of the brothers noticed her, it was to swing her around by her hands or to carry her on his back or to show her a card trick or the husk of a cicada. When the boys had all gotten their growth, they were within an inch of one another in height, lanky young fellows with angular faces and unruly hair. Luke had left for school when
she was four, Dan when she was seven. Jack and Teddy left the same year, the year she was thirteen, since Teddy was so good in school that he had skipped two grades. So when they were at home together, in the summer and at holidays, they took a conscious pleasure in it, and this was truer as the younger boys were recruited into the ranks of the fully grown. They joked and sparred and took off together in Luke’s old Ford, sometimes even to Des Moines, Jack with them if he could be cajoled. They were vain of their freedom and their manhood, of their cleverness and their long legs, but gentlemanly all the same, and vain of that, too. Their mother called them the princes of the church, and they did look fine, strolling into the sanctuary together in their jackets and ties, Bibles in hand, the three of them, and then sometimes the fourth. They said things like
volo, nolo
, and
de gustibus
and “Let me not to the marriage of true minds,” and she was in awe of them. Seeing Jack reminded her of those days. She knew the others now, after the manner of adult friendship. And fond as she was of them, it was hard to remember that they had ever seemed marvelous to her. But Jack was as remote from her as he ever had been, and she found herself waiting again for notice and approval, to her own considerable irritation.

After a little while she went back to the house, thinking her father might be waiting up. But Jack had gotten him to bed and had gone upstairs to his room. The porch light was left on for her.

T
HE NEXT MORNING SHE ROSE EARLY, EARLY ENOUGH THAT
she could assume Jack was still sleeping, and she went downstairs to the kitchen, measured out coffee and made pancake batter, and then waited to hear her father stir, as he always did well before dawn, though it was his custom to wait to rouse himself until she came downstairs an hour or two later. Mornings were worst for him, and the tedium of lying awake wore on him, she knew. This morning and from now on she would do better by him. He loved pancakes. She would make them often.

So when she heard him stirring, she started the coffeepot and the griddle, then she went into his room and helped him up, held his arm while he stepped into his slippers, bundled him into his robe. She brought a washcloth for his face and hands, and combed his hair.

“Ready to greet the day, more or less,” he said.

She said, “Pancakes.”

“Yes, that’s wonderful. I heard you out there and I thought it was part of a dream I was having. I don’t remember the dream, but it had footsteps in it.”

It had not occurred to her to look at the clock, assuming that, since she awoke feeling purposeful, with a highly formed intention in her mind, it must be the dark of the morning. The clock on her father’s dresser said 3:10. He saw her look at it.

“Pancakes are always welcome!” he said, mustering himself.

“I can let you sleep for a couple more hours, Papa.”

“Not at all! The smell of coffee,” he said, “has put all thought of sleep behind me! Yes!” and he moved with halting resolution toward the kitchen, and took his chair, and sat looking alertly at nothing in particular. So she gave him a plate and a knife and fork.

“I’m afraid you children might not be getting along,” he said. This remark was so apt and abrupt it brought tears to her eyes. She turned to the business of making pancakes and said, when she could trust her voice, “It is hard, you know, after so many years—I was young when he left for school, and we were never close—” and she put a pancake on his plate. He took up his fork. She poured another pancake. “And I do think he feels uneasy with me. I’m not at ease with him, that’s a fact, and I might as well be honest about it—”

She set the second pancake on the first, and her father said, “If you’ll put my foot on the stove there,” and something else, and she realized he was asleep. He was asleep with his fork in his hand and a sociable expression on his face. She couldn’t find it in her heart to wake him again, so she turned off the coffee and the
griddle and the ceiling light and sat down at the table, too. And when she found she couldn’t hold up her head, she rested it on her arms, and wept a little, and drowsed a little. And then she heard Jack on the stairs.

It was still long before dawn, so he switched on the light and as quickly switched it off again. He whispered, “What’s wrong?”

She said, “Nothing, really.”

“You’re crying.”

“That’s true.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s sound asleep. You can turn the light on.”

The light came on, and Jack stood in the doorway taking in the situation. “I did smell coffee,” he said.

His father stirred in his chair, and Jack slipped the fork out of his hand. “It’d be a shame to waste those pancakes,” he said.

“They’re cold.”

“They’re still pancakes. Do you mind?”

“I don’t mind. And there’s the cold coffee, too.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Thank you.” He took his father’s plate and cup, filled the cup with coffee, and sat down to the pancakes. “This is nice in its way. But it’s a little strange. I don’t mean that as criticism.” Then he said, “You’re really not going to explain this, are you.”

“No, it doesn’t matter. I don’t feel like it.”

“Okay.” He laughed. “I’m always willing to play by the house rules.” Then he said, “When we finish our breakfast, can we go back to bed?”

“No.”

“I suppose I should have guessed that.”

“He almost never sleeps this soundly. I’m not going to disturb him. But I don’t want him to be confused when he wakes up. I’ll stay here. You can go back to bed.”

Jack watched his father for a moment. Then he stood up, put one arm under his knees and the other around his shoulders, and
lifted him out of his chair. The old man murmured, and he said, “You’re fine, sir. It’s Jack.” A hand floated up to touch his face, his cheek and ear. Jack carried him into his room and tucked him into his bed. Then he came back to the kitchen.