Jack (Gilead #4)(9)

I promise I won’t think less of you. That is what he almost said. But he caught himself.

He laughed. “Sorry. Anyway, I can barely see you at all. You could, you know, take off—”

“Don’t, please.”

“Take off your hat. And borrow mine. That’s all I was going to say! Since yours wouldn’t keep off the rain.”

Silence. All right, then.

Finally she said, “Did you ever wonder why no one except Hamlet seems sorry that the old King Hamlet is dead? He’s hardly cold in his grave.”

“I’m afraid I can’t claim to know the play well, Miss Miles. My father cut it up with scissors and taped the pieces into a loose-leaf scrapbook, so we could act it out. So they could. What was left of it didn’t make much sense. It wouldn’t have, anyway. Our Ophelia, my sister Glory, was six or seven. She’d give all her flowers to the ghost— She was always wandering in on the wrong scenes, even after she should have been dead. Sharing out the popcorn. My father wouldn’t say a word to her about it. He said it was an improvement. She sang ‘Jesus Loves Me’ in her mad scene because the actual song didn’t survive the scissors. So my sense of it all is likely to be misinformed. I was interested to read the thing whole. That’s why I borrowed your book.”

Then he said, “I believe this is the kind of conversation you were hoping for? Scenes of domestic life?”

She said, “It’s strange no one thinks Hamlet should be king. It seems as though there were stories behind the play we only get glimpses of. But nothing is done to hide them, either, I mean the gaps they leave.”

“Yes, now that you mention it. One time our Ophelia got into the tub with all her clothes on, to rehearse her death scene. My brother Teddy caught her at it, and they talked about the dangers of playing at drowning in a bathtub. He said she didn’t have to rehearse, because no one sees it happen. Otherwise somebody would have told Ophelia to get out of the water, probably her brother. She said, They did see! Somebody just stood there and watched me drown! Mermaid-like to muddy death, you know—she had a point, it would have taken a while. She came down the stairs trailing bathwater, shouting, Who let me drown! They decided it had to have been Gertrude, since she knew all about it. And nothing made sense, anyway, so no harm done.”

She said, “My father never had much time to spend at home. He’s sort of a leader in the community, I guess. He gets called away constantly. He spends lots of time with lots of people, trying to sort things out for them. It comes with serving a big church in a city. Especially a colored church, I think. He always made us show him our homework and our report cards, but he says he has a thousand children to look after, and that’s true. We understood that. And then there are always people in the house, uncles and cousins and strangers of one kind and another. It’s not such a peaceful life.”

“One time my father was late to a funeral because Teddy and I had a game that went into extra innings. The widow dressed him down a little, I guess. He told her and anyone who ever reminded him of it that it was an exceptional game. We almost won.”

She stopped, her head lowered. “Oh.”

“Let me guess. Your father’s favorite daughter is wandering the night with a disreputable white man. Barefoot. In a cemetery. If she’s caught at it, the scandal will echo down the ages, into the farthest reaches of Tennessee, all its strange particulars scrutinized. Forever. And he was once so proud of you.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

“I’d like to sit down.”

“We’ll find a bench.”

“No, here. Just for a minute.” And she sank down on the grass. “Let me think.”

“There’s not much to think about, except how much worse your clothes are going to look if you keep sitting there in the damp like that. I’m trying to spare you added regret. We lost souls have to wander till the cock crows, nothing to be done. Maybe keep ourselves a little presentable if we can.” He held out his hand to her and she took it and he helped her up. He didn’t hold her hand a second longer than he should have.

She said, “You shouldn’t call yourself that. ‘Disreputable.’”

“I’m looking at the situation the way your father would. Loitering at night in a cemetery. Just that one fact would finish me off. Then there’s all the rest. Actual years of it, I’m afraid. Hardly a day goes by.”

“Well, what would your father say if he saw you here in the middle of the night, arm in arm with a colored gal?”

“He’d say, Thank God he’s not alone. He’d thank Jesus with his eyes closed. He’s not a man of the world, my father, and he might start fretting about particulars. But that would be his first thought. And we aren’t arm in arm. Not that that would make any difference.”

“It wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” She put her hand in the crook of his elbow. “Oh!”

“What?”

“I forgot my shoes! I left them back there, wherever we were! I’ll probably never find them. Everything just gets worse and worse.”

“Well, maybe, but I have them right here, your shoes. I picked them up.”

She shook her head. “I’m walking along barefoot in the dark and you’re carrying my shoes. And I don’t even know you. This is the strangest situation I’ve ever been in in my life. You better give them to me.”