Jack (Gilead #4)(73)

The sister said, “You’re fine,” in that tone of familiarity that is neither wholly dismissive nor, in a word, respectful. Not that he looked for any sign of respect, but he’d have been happy to find one.

Della came across the room, took his hat, took his arm, and rested her cheek against his shoulder. Reprieve. It brought tears to his eyes.

“Oh, Lord!” the sister said. “I’m not staying around for this. I’ve got a letter to mail. I think I saw a mailbox about ten blocks from here. About halfway to Illinois. You two need some time to talk things over. You’d better do that, Della.” She didn’t slam the door behind her when she left, she only closed it very firmly.

Jack said, “That was sort of decent of her.”

“She meant well.”

They sat on the couch. He decided it would be best not to put his arm around her. She pulled the book out of his coat pocket. “Robert Frost.”

“In case there was a lull in the conversation.”

She nodded. “I think we can expect a few of those.” She said, “Thank you for being here. I needed to see you.”

This was something he could have said to her any hour of any day, if she meant that a sort of need or craving was always awake in her that the sight of him could nearly quiet. Hunger increased by what it fed upon. Words to that effect. But she might only mean that she had something to sort out with him, a knot or kink in reality to be dealt with. It could never mean both at once, which was interesting. Of course, he and Della were entirely beset by problems, as many obstacles as the combined efforts of Missouri and Tennessee could contrive for them, if she chose to take that view of things. He could not imagine a sober conversation about their relationship that would not end with him out on the stoop, adjusting his hat. But if she said such a conversation was necessary, then it was.

Clearly he was not there to meet the sister. He still didn’t know her name. His mind was reducing the simplest things to riddles, an evasive tactic that set in when it did him the least possible good. He actually thought of kissing the lobe of Della’s ear before the last opportunity had passed. So deep were his fears. She took his hand in both her hands, closed her eyes, and said nothing. This might mean that she was feeling something like that peace she had mentioned once, or else that she was finding a way to say, as kindly as possible, something very difficult to say. He knew that things were not where he had left them, even where they were when she sent her summons.

After a few minutes, the sister came back. She said, twice, before she had opened the door much more than a crack, “It’s me. I’m just here for a minute. I forgot the letter I was going to mail. I’ll just come in for a minute. Have you told him? You have to do that, Della.”

“I’ll tell him. First I just want to enjoy the fact that he’s sitting here beside me.”

The sister said, to Jack, “The principal of her school came here, right to her house, to tell her that there was talk, that there was some question about whether she was setting a good moral example. He just left an hour ago. You could have come while he was still here!”

Della said, “He told me he didn’t believe the rumors. He was just letting me know that I should be careful of appearances.”

“And I suppose that’s what you’re doing right now,” the sister said. “Being careful!”

Della stood up, went to the window that looked out onto the street, parted the curtain, and raised the shade. She said, “I’m tired to death of worrying about appearances.” Jack went into the kitchen, undercutting her bold gesture by ducking out, a little humiliated, even though he was doing it for her sake. The back door was at the end of the hall, if he should need it. The sister was saying, “You are not thinking clearly! You’re throwing your life away! Della, I’m closing this blind! And it’s going to stay closed! It’ll be the landlady bothering you next,” and then, raising her voice a little, “You can come out of the kitchen now, Jack.” Her tone was mildly derisive, of course.

“Thanks—”

“Julia.”

“Thank you, Julia.”

She said to Della, “Even he knows I’m right!” He had sided against Della. He had always assumed that sooner or later society might put a word in, some stark prohibition too codified and predictable to note the particulars of their situation, their austere and lovely marriage, except as an offense, a provocation. Surely Della knew this as well as he did. She could be careless because she was the one with something to lose. And he would have to be cautious, his least impressive, most wearisome quality in any case, let alone now that his loyalty was being tested, because every risk he took was a threat to her. She might come to his room, where the principal would not know to look for her and the desk clerk would smirk and mutter something about the cops, but where at least no one would be looking to them for a moral example. The long walks there and back at very odd hours—her problem, a threat to her. He thought of the two of them whispering under the covers on that narrow bed, laughing as quietly as they could, talking about Wyoming and the end of the world, he with his arms around her dear body. This would not be perfectly wonderful, it would be very imperfectly wonderful. What anyone at all might say or think would hover around them, a very real threat. To her.

He said, “I shouldn’t be here. I should leave.”