Glory had begun to despise this Della. The woman had to have a fairly good idea of the misery she was causing, if she knew Jack at all. Granted that she had no obligation to be in love with him, simply because he was in love with her. Granted that his persistence must seem irksome, unwelcome as it was — by now she had certainly made that clear. But she had read French novels with him, and had embroidered his sleeve with flowers, for heaven’s sake. Don’t laugh while you’re smoking, he had said, if you’re carrying a birthday cake. He had showered himself with ashes. Then all that whimsical, meticulous embroidery, not mending but commemoration. What was it that had made them laugh? Whoever Della was, she knew him too well to treat him this way. She could ignore his letters if she wanted to. But this was cruelty.
Since Glory had seen the letters, she would have to tell him they had been returned. She thought of putting them back in the box and letting him find them himself. But what was the point of that? He might think he could keep them a secret from her, since that was always his first impulse, and then she couldn’t speak with him about them, which she thought she should do, at least to offer him comfort, if she could think of any comfort to offer. Four letters! If any more came back like that, she would burn them. The point was made. She thought she might take three of these, or two, and hide them somewhere and burn them when she had the chance, since two would be sufficient for this Della’s purposes. Two would be unambiguous but not quite so insulting.
She might say, How do you know it was Della who sent them back? It might have been her father. The printing was very bold, even allowing for the emphasis intended. Her impression of Della had been of someone with a lighter touch, a kind of delicacy she would not depart from if only because she herself was not quite aware of it. But what did she know about Della, except that Jack had courted her as if she were the virtuous lady in an old book? Poetry. Flowers, no doubt. All with a fresh shave and polished shoes and that air of mild irony he assumed whenever his sincerity embarrassed him.
Jack came down the stairs and went out to the mailbox, then came back in again. She went into the hallway. He found the letters lying where she had put them. His back was turned to her, but she could see the shock travel up his body. His weight on his heels, the setting of his knees, and then the recoil in his shoulders. He turned the letters over in his hands. He knew she was watching, and he said, “Have any more of these come back?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t keep it from me if they did.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. I wish I could.”
He nodded.
She said, “I wanted to think a little before I gave them to you.”
He nodded. “Any ideas?”
“Well,” she said, “you haven’t told me much about all this, but from what you have told me, I thought it might not be Della who sent them back. I thought it might be her father or someone else in her family. You said she’s living with her family. This doesn’t really seem like her, my impression of her, anyway.”
He shook his head. “Mine either.” He dropped the letters on the table again. He turned around and smiled at her. “Not much to do, is there.”
Glory said, “I was wondering if you had a mutual friend you could write to. Maybe the friend could send a letter from you, and she would read it. I mean, if her father or someone is keeping her from reading your letters, that might be a way to reach her. It could be worth a try.”
He nodded. “I’ll give it some thought.” He said, “I don’t blame her, though. I don’t blame her father, if he did it. I understand it. They’re good people. I should just — respect her judgment. Or his. I’m pretty used to the idea by now.” He said, “I’ve sent a couple more letters. I suppose they’ll come back, too. If you’d burn them, I’d be grateful.”
“Should I burn these?”
He nodded. He touched the table as if it reminded him of something that had mattered once, and then he shrugged. “I don’t really know what to do with myself. Any suggestions?”
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS THREE MORE LETTERS CAME back. She made careful fires of small kindling in the fireplace and tended them until each of the letters was burned to ashes. Jack saw her kneeling there, Jack who had taken to wearing his suit again, jacket open and tie loose to acknowledge the late-summer heat. He watched from the door, smiled and nodded to her, and stepped away when she tried to speak to him. There was still courtesy, taken back to what was for him its essence, the dread and certainty of being unwelcome, a bother, out of place. He had fallen back on estrangement, his oldest habit. As if he knew his unease made him seem aloof, he left the house in the morning and stayed away until evening, too late for supper but in time to spare his father his darkest fears. She left biscuits on the counter with the thought that he might pocket a few of them, and he did. She set out oatmeal cookies and hard-boiled eggs. She left coffee for him in a thermos bottle and a cup beside it, which he washed and put away. While he was gone she was very careful to see to everything he might have helped her with, so that he would not have to choose between the embarrassment of imposing on her and the forced familiarity of her company. And she prayed for him and prayed for him, she and her father, in long, silent graces that were grateful in anticipation of their relief at hearing him come through the door.
At supper the third night her father said, “I don’t know what it is, Glory. I don’t know what has happened.”
She said, “He is in love with a woman he knew in St. Louis.”
“Well, I figured out that much. All those letters.”
“Yes. The last week she’s been returning his letters.”
“Oh.” He took off his glasses and blotted his face with his napkin. After a moment he said gruffly, “I thought that might happen. Something like that. He doesn’t have a job. I don’t believe he ever graduated from college. He’s not a young man, not likely to change his life, and I don’t think it’s been a very good life. I can see why a woman might—” He cleared his throat. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“He’s known her for years. Those ten good years he talks about. He says she has helped him.”
Her father looked at her. “And they were never married at all?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Her father looked somber. A failed lie meant his suspicions were correct, and she had probably never lied to him successfully. In fact, lying in that family almost always meant only that the liar would appreciate discretion. So the transparency of a falsehood was very much to the point. She had cordoned off her own embarrassments from inquiry by means of a few explanations that were false on their face and never tested or returned to for that reason. As a matter of courtesy they treated one another’s deceptions like truth, which was a different thing from deceiving or being deceived. In fact, it was a great part of the fabric of mutual understanding that made their family close.
She told some truth in this case because she was offended for Jack’s sake by the suggestion that he had simply thrown himself at a woman and been rejected, as if he were not ruefully aware as anyone could be of his utter ineligibility. It must have been this Della who kept him safe despite everything they feared, who may have kept him alive, and in any case who had made the world a tolerable place for him for a while, as they had somehow never managed to do. Jack had said that he worried about the casting of aspersions on Della and on their relationship, told her about trying to defend her honor, and Glory knew even as she did it that she should not have mentioned those ten years. Still, Jack should not be made to seem like a fool. And Della, whoever she was, had not reckoned his worth in terms of his prospects, for heaven’s sake. That much had to be said for her.