Jack (Gilead #4)(55)

It was a Tuesday. But he thought this plan would have its best effect if he carried it out promptly, before he lost the last of his resolve, before his motives began to shift into self-protectiveness—Your daughter and I were never close, nothing to worry about there, nothing at all—this with a worldly smile. He might have paused to light a cigarette. A hard man, probably not the type to trifle with a schoolteacher.

There was a light on in the church on the second floor, no doubt the minister’s study. It was one of those big urban churches built in a spirit of optimism that passing years and eminent domain had failed to justify, a hulk trimmed with wooden fretwork losing its paint to the rain. He tried three doors before he found one that opened and stepped into the darker evening of a hallway and a stairway. There was a smell of recent popcorn in the air that aroused memories of youth, but the building was quiet now. He walked up the stairs, scuffing his shoes enough, he thought, to seem not at all furtive. Still, when he stepped through the half-open study door, the minister startled and dropped his book. Another plan he had not thought through.

But the minister was laughing. “Mr. Ames, isn’t it? Come in, come in. I guess I was just lost in my reading.” Convincing affability, and at the same time that tactful glance of appraisal, reasonable in the circumstances, since Jack could be deranged, for all he knew. “Take a seat,” he said. “Please.”

Jack the potential suicide. That was where matters had been left the previous Sunday. Sometimes his father would come back from some urgent conversation, plainly exasperated that someone’s sanity or survival was thrust into his hands, suddenly a problem he should solve, comfort and assurance ready at the shortest possible notice. These attempts at rescue would keep him awake the whole night, thinking what he really should have said and how he might have been misinterpreted. “They keep doing it!” he said. That was the year a hailstorm stove the corn crop. But so much despair must have more than one cause. “If this was growing on him, he could at least have given some sort of warning!” Jack’s mother would say, “He’ll be down at the store, shooting the breeze with all the other suicides.” And this was almost always true.

And here was this poor Hutchins, trying to figure out whom or what he was dealing with. The study was a small room, mustard yellow, furnished with the scantest odds and ends, no doubt in deference to a thousand higher claims on the church’s resources. Books were stacked on the desk and floor. The room was lit by a single bulb hanging by its cord from the ceiling, the kind of light that brings out the full pallor of a pallid man and makes shadows of his eyes. I should leave, Jack thought, but his only hope of seeming rational was to muster a little conversation first. Short of that, he would be embarrassed to show up for beans and rice and “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” though he knew he would do it, anyway.

“I’m sorry I’ve disturbed you, Reverend. I saw your light.”

“Sit down, please, Mr. Ames. I have three grandbabies at my house just now, so I’m here for the quiet.”

“I’ve disturbed you.”

“No, that’s all right. And since you’re here, you might as well tell me what you have on your mind.”

“Well, I’m not quite sure.”

“All right. Think about it. There’s no rush.” After a minute spent fiddling with a pencil, he said, “You did mention a problem you have telling the difference between faith and presumption.”

“Yes, I did. Mention that. I do have that problem.”

“But that isn’t why you came here this evening.”

“No. In fact, sir, there’s a woman.” He had actually said it.

“I see.”

“I hardly know her. We spent one night wandering around Bellefontaine. The cemetery. Just talking together. That was months ago. I have seen her a few times since then. It’s very difficult.”

Did the minister know that the lenses of his glasses were as opaque as two moons? A little backward tilt of his head and his eyes vanished. It was an odd thing to say, that they had passed a night in the cemetery. He almost said, “She’s all right, she’s fine,” since the mention of the cemetery sounded sinister. That thing was happening again, when the cherished thought withers in the light of the slightest attention. “I should go,” he said, and stood up. Then he said, “No matter what you might think of me, Reverend, you must understand that my relationship—friendship—with this woman was entirely honorable. Her family despise me, so I couldn’t persuade them if I tried, but I worry that they might think less of her because of me. I’ll never see her again. For her sake. But her family won’t know how to interpret that. They’ll think I didn’t really care about her, when she may be the only thing I’ve ever cared about. So I was very careful, how I acted toward her. When I met her, I was just out of prison, which is, you know, a very emotional time, but it was much more— I’ve never told her I’ve been in prison. There are some other things she doesn’t know—why frighten her?” Jack thought, Sweet Jesus, listen to me. I am crazy.

The minister nodded. “The way things stand, there wouldn’t be much point. You said you’re not planning to speak with her again, anyway.”

Embarrassing. He never did quite remember that intention, that vow. It’s true, the Old Gent was right, it helps to talk to someone sometimes, to keep your thinking straight. The minister leaned toward him, and his eyes appeared again, still tact fully appraising. He said, “It’s an excellent thing to be able to say you have been honorable. If you leave things as they are, stop trying to see her, you will always be able to say that, for the rest of your life. You will know it, she will know it, the Lord will know it. So you can feel good about that. Her family—that’s a problem that might get worse if you try to solve it.”