Robby nodded. “My dad was a pitcher.”
“A very fine pitcher, too,” Boughton said. “I don’t think people play that game as much as they used to anymore. They’re home watching it on television.”
“My dad taught me all those pitches,” Robby said. “With an orange!” He laughed.
Ames said, “We were just talking baseball over lunch the other day. I thought I’d show him a few things.”
“He’s a quick study,” Jack said.
Ames nodded. “I’m a little surprised he remembered all that.”
Robby said, “We have a real baseball, but it’s up in the attic somewhere. My dad hates to go up in the attic.”
“Well,” Ames said. “I see I have been remiss.”
Jack put the baseball beside Robby’s plate. “This one is for you. It’s a present. I knew you probably had one of your own, since your dad was a pitcher. But an extra one can come in handy.”
Robby looked at his mother. She nodded.
“Thanks,” he said. He took up the ball, shyly, tentatively.
“It’s brand new, so you’ll have to take care of it. Do you know how to take care of a new baseball?”
“No, but my dad’ll tell me.”
Jack said, “It’s pretty simple. You just rub dirt all over it. Scruff it up a little.”
“Rub dirt on it—” the boy said, doubtful. “I guess I’ll ask my dad, anyway.”
Jack laughed. “That’s always a good idea.” And he glanced at his own father. “My dad and I used to play a little ball.”
The old man nodded. “Yes, we did. We had some good times, too, didn’t we?” He looked at his hand. “Hard to believe it now, when I can’t even tie my own shoes! I think back to those times, when I was just an ordinary man, not even a young man, and it’s like remembering that I used to be the sun and the wind! Taking the steps two at a time—!”
Ames laughed.
“Well, it all just seemed so natural, like it could never end. Your mother would be there in the kitchen, cooking supper, singing to herself. And she’d have a cup of coffee for me, and we’d talk a little. And I could tell just by hearing all the voices who was in the house. Except for Jack, of course. He was so quiet.”
Ames said, “The sun and the wind!”
“Oh yes, you can laugh. A big brute like you wouldn’t even know what I’m talking about. It seems to me I’ve gotten old for both of us.”
“I beg to differ, Reverend. I feel I’ve done my share of getting old.”
Robby said, “He told me he’s too old to play catch.”
Ames nodded. “And so I am. It’s a sad fact.”
Glory saw her brother glance at her, as if an intention had begun to form, and then he looked away again and smiled to himself.
THEY ATE THEIR PIE. “I SUPERVISED,” HER FATHER SAID. “Jack pared the apples and Glory made the pastry, and I made sure it was all up to my specifications.” He laughed. “Jack put my chair out there in the kitchen, right in the middle of everything. It was very nice. We’ve had some good times, we three. I told you that he’s almost got the old DeSoto running. Yes. Good times. And he plays the piano! I must say, that came as a surprise.”
“Yes,” Jack said, “I could play a little now, if you’d like.” And he excused himself. They heard him from the next room, trying one hymn and then another—“‘I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses,’ then ‘Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer! that calls me from a world of care.’” Glory brought him a cup of coffee. “Thanks,” he said. “‘If I have uttered idle words or vain, if I have turned aside from want or pain.’” He laughed. “If only I knew how you do that!” Then “‘Love divine, all loves excelling’—they’re all waltzes! Have you noticed that?” Lila and Robby came to listen, then Ames, who had stayed behind a little to offer Boughton help, should he admit to needing it.
Lila said, “I like waltzes.” So Jack plunged into a brief and distinctly Viennese “There’s a Garden Where Jesus Is Waiting.”
Ames looked on without expression. Her father’s expression was statesmanlike.
And then Jack played, “‘I want a Sunday kind of love, a love that lasts past Saturday night.’ I’ve forgotten the words. ‘I’m on a lonely road that leads to nowhere. I want a Sunday kind of love.’”
Lila said, almost sang, “‘I do my Sunday dreaming, and all my Sunday scheming, every hour, every minute, every day. I’m hoping to discover a certain kind of lover who will show me the way.’”
Jack said, “Why, thank you, Mrs. Ames!” and she smiled.
His father said, “I thought we might enjoy something a little more in keeping with the Sabbath.”
Lila said, “That’s a good song, though.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Jack.”
He nodded. He played “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” and “Faith of Our Fathers” with a kind of exuberant solemnity, and they sang, and then Ames said he was weary after a long day and it must be after Robby’s bedtime, too. The boy had climbed up on the piano bench beside Jack and was shyly touching the keys. Jack went to see the guests to the door, but Robby stayed behind, plinking tentatively. When his mother called him and he climbed down from the bench, he noticed that the seat could be lifted, and he opened it. He said, “There’s money in here!”
Ames reflexively took Boughton’s arm. Glory said, “Oh, I put it there,” but her father crept toward the bench to peer into it as if it were a chasm opening. Glory said, “It’s just leftover money from the household allowance. I take it out of the other drawer so I can keep track of what I’m spending,” but her father, with Ames holding his arm, continued to stare at it. Jack looked in at it, too, and then he started to laugh. “Good try, Glory. A likely tale!” He said, “If there are thirty-eight dollars in there I will have to believe in — something.” And he put his hands to his face and laughed.
His father was bewildered to the point of indignation. “Now that,” he said, “is a remark I simply do not understand!”
Robby said, “Well, it is kind of funny to have all those dollar bills in there!”
Ames smoothed the boy’s hair. “Yes, it is. You’re right about that. Now, you go home with your mother. I’ll be along pretty soon.”
When Lila and the boy were out the door, Glory slammed the piano shut, so hard that the strings rang. “Everyone is ignoring me!” she said. Her anger startled all of them. “Wait.” She went into the parlor and came back with the big Bible. She closed the bench and set the Bible on it. “Now watch. Everyone watch.” And she knelt and put her right hand on the Bible. “I solemnly swear, so help me, God, that I personally put that money in the piano bench. It looks as if I were hiding it, but it was just a lazy kind of bookkeeping. That’s all it was. And I did it. No one else. If I’m lying, may God strike me dead.”
Her father said, “That kind of language isn’t really necessary, dear,” but he was clearly impressed, and also relieved. “You’re good to your brother,” he said, and Jack laughed. “I only meant—” he said, and looked so weary that Ames took him into his room and helped him lie down. Before he left, Reverend Ames said goodbye to them both, and shook Jack’s hand again. His cordiality seemed heavily compounded with regret, with suppressed irritation. Still, Jack was clearly grateful for it.
When he was gone Jack said, “That thing you did with the Bible was great. I’m going to have to remember that.” And he laughed. Then, “If you hadn’t rescued it, the whole thing would have been a disaster, but as it was, I thought, well, I didn’t think it was a disaster, all in all.” He looked at her as though he had asked her a question.