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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.

“And how is the old gent?”

He shook his head. “Well, you know, he’s old. I don’t know why, but I can’t quite get used to it. When we were kids, he was taller than Ames, wasn’t he? He was very impressive. He used to seem to me to loom over everybody. And he had that big laugh. I was proud of him, I really was.”

“We were all proud of him.”

“Of course.”

“And we were proud of you.”

He looked at her. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“No, really. Not always. And it got a little harder over time.” He laughed. “But we thought you were, I don’t know, chimerical, piratical, mercurial—”

He said, “I was a nuisance and a brat. I was a scoundrel.”

“Well,” she said, “you know more than I do about the particulars. I’m just telling you how you seemed to the rest of us.”

He smiled. “What a pleasant surprise.” Then he said, “Ames always saw right through me. And when he looks at me he still sees a scoundrel. The other day I had the terrible feeling that maybe he wasn’t quite wrong. So I began to be charming, you
know. A little oily.” He laughed. “I called him Papa. He deserved it, too. He hadn’t even mentioned to the wife that my father had honored him with a namesake. Can you imagine?”

“You did bring out the crotchety side in him.”

“The poor old devil.” Jack shook his head. “I tried his patience. Like I would have teased a cat or stirred an anthill. Once I blew up his mailbox. He was walking up the street from Bible study. He just put his books down on the porch step and went and got the garden hose. I don’t believe he ever told anybody a thing about it.” He laughed. “It really was quite a spectacle. It was dark. I’d had to climb through my window to be out so late.”

“You know, they moved you into that room, with the porch roof under the window, so that you could make your escape without killing yourself. You remember that time the trellis broke and Mama thought you were dead because you’d gotten the wind knocked out of you.”

“I thought they’d just moved me away from the trellis.”

“That, too, of course. They thought of telling you that you could leave through the door if you were so intent on leaving. But they were afraid that might seem like encouragement.”

He looked at her. “What right did I have to be so strange? A good question. I’ve lost my watch. It must be ten o’clock by now.”

“Yes, five after. I was a child when I said that to you. I hoped you had forgotten it. It didn’t mean anything.”

He laughed. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Good night, now.”

She went up to her room and sat down at the dresser to brush out her hair. She heard the front door open and, quietly, close.

J
ACK CAME DOWNSTAIRS LATE THE NEXT MORNING AND
asked if he could borrow an envelope.

“Do you need a stamp?”

“Yes. Thank you.” He took a folded letter from his jacket
pocket and slipped it into the envelope and sealed it, affixed the stamp, and then went into the dining room to write the address. When he came back into the kitchen, he picked up the coffeepot. “All gone.”

“I’ll have a fresh pot for you when you come back.”

“Thanks, Glory.” Then he said, “I’m sorry if I kept you awake last night. I was restless. I needed to take a walk.”

“No, I went right to sleep,” she said, which was not true. “I tried to be quiet.”