Gilead - Marilynne Robinson [82]
If I had to choose one word to describe him as he is now, it might be "lonely," though "weary" and "angry" certainly come to mind also. Once during the time I was missing Louisa's picture I went over to Boughton's to borrow a book, and we sat on the porch and talked awhile, and that boy sat on the steps, fiddling with a slingshot, I remember, and listening to every word, and from time to time he would look up at me and smile, as if we were in on a joke together, some interesting conspiracy. I found that extremely irritating. He almost provoked me into mentioning the photograph then and there. I had to leave to stop myself. He said, "Goodbye, Papa!" I went home just trembling. Maybe you can see why, when the business with the young girl came up, I was chiefly struck by the meanness of it.
I don't think I do my heart much good by remembering these things. My point is that he was always a mystery, and that's why I worry about him, and that's why I know I can't judge him as I might another man. That is to say, I can't assign a moral valuation to his behavior. He's just mean. Well, I don't know that that is true of him now. But I do see what he might injure. That is very clear to me. While I was standing there in the pulpit, the thought came to me that I was looking back from the grave and there he was, sitting beside you, grinning up at me This is not doing me any good at all. I'd better pray.
I woke up this morning to the smell of pancakes, which I dearly love. My heart was a sort of clayey lump midway up my esophagus, and that after much earnest prayer. Your mother found me sleeping in my chair and slipped my shoes off and put a quilt over me. I do sometimes sleep better sitting up these days. Breathing is easier. I was careful to put this diary away before I turned the light out last night. I know I still have thinking to do on this matter of Jack Boughton.
It is my birthday, so there were marigolds on the table and my stack of pancakes had candles in it. There were nice little sausages besides. And you recited the Beatitudes with hardly a hitch, two times over, absolutely shining with the magnitude of the accomplishment, as well you might. Your mother gave a sausage to Soapy, who slunk off with the unctuous thing and hid it who knows where. She is beyond doubt the descendant of endless generations of vermin eaters, fat as she is, domesticated as she ought to be.
I hate to think what I would give for a thousand mornings like this. For two or three. You were wearing your red shirt and your mother was wearing her blue dress.
And your mother has found that sermon I was wondering about, that Pentecost sermon, the one I gave the first time I saw her. It was beside my plate, wrapped in tissue paper, with a ribbon on it. "Now, don't you go revising that," she said. "It don't need revising." And she kissed me on the top of the head, which, for her, was downright flamboyant. So now I am seventy-seven.
Yesterday was very fine altogether. Glory came by in her car and took us for a picnic over by the river. Tobias came along, Tobias the good. There were balloons and even firecrackers, and there was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The river was low but pretty, with the first yellow leaves drifting down to it. I was sorry I had not slept better the night before, that there was so much