Jack (Gilead #4)(85)

Another night, then the long trudge to the bus station. As he was leaving, the desk clerk said, “It’s going to be pretty dull around here.” This made no sense at all. Jack was quite sure he had never even screamed in his sleep, though that would have been perfectly acceptable behavior. He knew he had never assaulted another tenant despite provocations enough. He had never once been arrested in the entire time he had lived there. In general, he had been careful to add no interest at all to their collective life. He took pride in the thought.

He said, “You’ll manage.”

The clerk shrugged. “So far so good,” which wasn’t true either. No one under that rotten roof, no one in that heartbroken street, could say those words and mean them. Jack paused in the doorway to consider a reply. The clerk half smiled the way he did when he knew he’d gotten under Jack’s skin. So he left, done with all that.

He bought a one-way ticket to Chicago. None of his associations with the place were positive, but at least he had been there before. Youth in Gilead, Iowa, had not exactly made a worldling of him, and since then he had kept his expectations low enough to assure himself a very simple life. He had no reasons to prefer Chicago to Indianapolis or Minneapolis except for his slight, unhappy acquaintance with it. That was at least something.

He took a seat toward the rear of the bus, by a window. In the waiting room he had noticed a young woman struggling to quiet a child who appeared to be restless with fever. Sure enough, they took the seat next to his. The woman was wearily apologetic. Jack said, “I know how it is, don’t give it a thought,” implying that he knew something about children in order to lessen her embarrassment. In fact, he was surprised by the strength of the creature, the weight of its lolling head, the impact of those hard little shoes kicking against his leg. The woman tried to hold the little girl’s legs and set off an eruption of shifting and striving that Jack, a patient man, thought might make the trip unendurable. He could get off at the next stop and hope for better luck whenever he had the price of another ticket. But the buses were still crowded with the effects of repatriation. He was lucky, in a manner of speaking, to get the seat he had.

The woman said, “I’m Margaret. She’s Lucy.”

“John,” he said.

Lucy bucked against her mother’s embrace and cried loudly. “This just started yesterday. She was fine before that. I wouldn’t have left home if I’d known this was going to happen.” The baby lolled her big head, wet face, damp hair, and looked appealingly at Jack, as if there were anything he could do for her. She reached out a wet hand toward him.

Margaret tried again to bundle the child against her. “So you have kids?”

“Yes. A girl. And a boy.” Why not? He was only elaborating on the first lie, which was innocent, kindly meant.

“How old?” How long ago was she born? Or how old was she when she died?

“Two and a half,” he said. “The girl. The boy is seven.”

“So he can help his mama keep an eye on her. Lucy’s two and a half. She runs me ragged.”

He was trapped in this conversation, hearing himself lie for no reason, really, except that he couldn’t see how any harm could come from it, which never meant harm didn’t lurk. The woman stood up to adjust the hold she had on the baby, who whimpered and squirmed and, when they sat down, thrust out her legs against Jack’s thigh. He said, “You have to get her to a doctor.”

“Doctors cost money. Besides, she’s just coming down with a cold or something. She’ll be fine.”

“I have money!”

She leaned forward to look at his face. “So do I,” she said. “Because I don’t spend it when there’s no need.”

He said, “You don’t know. An infection can take hold very quickly.” Words his mother had written, regretful that they had not reached him earlier so he could have come home in time. As if he’d have done that. He said, “We could get off at the next town. I could help you find a doctor.”

She said, “You just relax, mister. I can take care of my baby.” Then, after a few minutes, she said, “You lost your own little girl, didn’t you? I am so sorry!”

He set his hat over his eyes and leaned back. He could feel the embarrassed restlessness of the woman beside him, a compassionating gaze with nowhere to rest, no one to see it. Like what? Like that letter from his mother.

He got off at the next stop, bought a bottle of orange pop, and brought it back. “I thought she might like this,” he said.

“You’re real kind.”

He leaned back, hat over his eyes, and pretended to sleep. In a while the fussing and pummeling stopped. The baby was asleep on the breast of her sleeping mother. He actually touched the baby’s plump, sticky cheek, just to be sure. It was cool. The baby murmured and turned away from his touch. They two had spent any number of hours wrestling each other and now they were lovingly asleep. There wasn’t light enough for him to read. He could hardly stir without waking this Margaret and Lucy, whose quiet was a great relief to him. Towns and farms and rail yards. Once at a stop he contrived with much care and long-leggedness to extricate himself, to walk out into the chanting night for a smoke, then to insinuate himself again. So far so good.

He would have left the bus that morning in the fringe of the city that was clearly hospitable to low expectations, but the woman and baby were still asleep; the baby’s head was pillowed on his arm. Two more stops and Margaret woke up. The shops now had a flourishing look, the hotels a certain polish, a certain urbanity. Supposing things could only get worse, that is, more genteel and expensive, Jack took down his valise. When he stepped into the aisle, Margaret said, “Wait! My aunt has a boardinghouse not too far from here. I can give you her address.” He gave her a book he had meant to return, Robert Frost, and she wrote an address on the inside cover and a note. Dear Auntie, this gentleman has been very kind and helpful to me! Margaret.