They found Doane and the others again. It was evening, after supper, and there was a fat, soft, embery fire in the middle of the clearing. Doll picked up the skillet and tossed it into the fire. Flame roared up and embers flew. “How could you do that!” she said. “Leave my child sitting on the steps of some church! I might never a found her! I told you I was coming back!” She was yelling at Doane mainly, but there was no one there she didn’t glare at. Only Mellie glared back.
Doane said, “You was gone a while. We sorta gave up on you.”
“Now, why would you do that! I keep my word! Has there ever been a time I didn’t, in all the years?”
Doane said, “Well, Doll, you can hold your grudge or you can come along. If you’re going to be around, I don’t want to hear another word about this. None of it.”
Marcelle said, “We kept your stuff.”
“I just bet you did!” Doll said, and Doane gave her a look.
He said, “We thought about dropping it in the fire. But Marcelle wouldn’t stand for it. It mighta been the best thing.” He walked over and picked up Lila’s bedroll. That shawl was wrapped around it. He pulled it loose, and he smiled, and he went over and sort of dangled it over the fire, and the flames climbed right up it toward his hand. So that was gone. They stayed with Doane’s people, Doll having no better idea what to do. They never said another word about what had happened. It was just like before, and everything was different. You best keep to yourself, except you never can.
* * *
Mrs. Graham wanted help with her wash. She was a cheerful woman. Friendly. She enjoyed talking. She never seemed to notice that Lila didn’t enjoy talking, or listening, and that was all right. They’d worked together times enough that Lila knew how she wanted things done, and that seemed to make the day go faster. Mrs. Graham made them a nice lunch of tuna-fish sandwiches with chocolate cake for dessert. She had a nice house. There were white curtains in the kitchen with strawberries along the hem. Little green stitches to look like seeds. The washing machine was on the back porch. It was a good machine, electric, you didn’t even have to crank the wringer. Lila didn’t let herself look into the parlor, at the piano and the sofa and the rest, which reminded her a little of St. Louis except that none of it was so big and fine, and the drapes were open.
At the end of the day she had a five-dollar bill and a waterproof coat with a hood. Lila said, “The Reverend told you to give me this,” and Mrs. Graham said, “Well, he worries about you, dear. He’s a good-hearted man. And it was just hanging in the closet, no use to anybody.” She smiled shyly, kindly. Lila didn’t ask whose closet it had been hanging in, how many women in the church or in Gilead had been asked if they could spare a coat before this one turned up, or how there could be no one else but her who could use it. Maybe no one was as broke as she was, but there were some people who must come pretty close. He should be worrying about them, too. Well, all right, she thought, so all I got to do now is save up for that bus ticket, save up a little traveling money. I can’t wait to get out of this town. She folded the coat and put it into her carpetbag, the five-dollar bill in a pocket, and then she walked up to the cemetery. The roses on the grave were blooming, and the weeds were, too. She said, “Well, I’m sorry, Mrs. Ames. I been staying away too long. I never meant to let this happen.” She loved them. The likeness of a woman, and in her arms the likeness of a child.
It was evening when she opened the gate to the preacher’s garden. She picked some beans and groped under the plants for some potatoes. There was light from an upstairs window and no other light in the house. Let him be — all right. That seemed like a decent prayer. Let him stop making me feel so damn broke all the time. That was a good one. Better to tell him that one herself. She could do it right now if she wanted. Maybe she hadn’t been as quiet as she thought, because he knew she was there. He opened the front door as she was walking to the gate. He said, “I’ve written you a note. I thought I might give it to you. Well, of course I will give it to you. There wouldn’t be much point—” He laughed. “I hope — well, obviously. I mean, if there is anything in it you find disagreeable, that will be despite my best efforts. To the contrary. If you see—” He handed her an envelope. “Good evening. It’s a fine evening.” He went back into the house. The envelope wasn’t sealed, and when she was out of sight of his house she opened it just enough to see that there was no money in it, only the note. She had to laugh at a pinch of something like disappointment. She was close now to having enough money to be able to leave. Maybe it was more than enough. A couple of weeks ago she’d have thought it was. The more you have, the more you want. If he had given her money, there’d have been anger and shame to get her on that bus. She could have stopped thinking about it.
One other time she had been given a note, for Doll from that teacher. Lila read it to her because, Doll said, her hands was all wet and soapy. It said that she was a smart girl and would benefit from further schooling, and that the teacher would be happy to do whatever she could to help make this possible. “Lila is an unusually bright child.” Doll said, “Benefit,” and Lila told her it meant that it would do her good to stay in school another year. Doll said, “I already knew you was bright. I could’ve told you that.” That was all she said. It was so easy for Lila to forget that Doll had broken the law when she carried her away, and had set off a grudge, too, which was a good deal worse. And for a long time she hadn’t realized that the life they lived with Doane was one that would make them hard to find. Because people like them don’t talk to outsiders. And they all know that if somebody is on your trail, you can just slip into a cornfield. Once, Doll must have thought she saw somebody from the old place. She’d kept Lila with her a whole day in a hayloft, quiet as could be. That was before the corn was high. But to spend almost a year in a town was dangerous if anyone happened to be looking for them. Doll knew those people and Lila didn’t, so if Doll thought they might try to catch her for the sheer devilment of it, Lila guessed they really might have tried. But that was nothing the two of them mentioned even between themselves.
She has made remarkable progress. Lila knew that note by heart. No point reading Doll the parts she wouldn’t understand. She was glad that teacher couldn’t see her now. What was this old man going to tell her in his note? Don’t matter. A letter makes ordinary things seem important. He was wearing a necktie. Expecting her, maybe, because she’d been at Mrs. Graham’s and might be wanting to thank him for the coat. Or maybe he waited for her every evening. She found herself sometimes listening for his steps in the road. People talk themselves into these things, and then nothing comes of it. They don’t even want to remember there was a time when it mattered to them. They hate you for mentioning it. Those women in St. Louis, the young ones, there was always somebody they were waiting for, or trying to get over. And the older ones would just laugh at them. They’d be laughing at her now. He probably had a meeting at the church, so he was wearing a necktie. You fool, Lila. Whatever it said, it would be kind. And if it wasn’t, he’d have found the kindest way to say it.
St. Louis. Much better to be there in the shack by herself. In the evening, with her potatoes roasting outside. Doane used to push a spud out of the fire with a stick, and they’d toss it one to another until one of them could stand to hold on to it, and then it was his. One of Arthur’s boys, always. They’d just go to sleep when it got dark. She should buy some candles, maybe even a kerosene lamp, so she could read and practice her writing if she felt like it. But light did draw bugs. And it was better if no one saw the shack at night. Not that people passing by wouldn’t notice her fire. But light made you blind in the dark and there might be something you really needed to see out there. The evening was peaceful. But she couldn’t stop wondering about that letter. She might just light a cigarette. She might strike another match to read the first few words. They were: Dear Lila (if I may), You asked me once why things happen the way they do. Well, she wasn’t really expecting that. I have felt considerable regret over my failure to respond to your question. She shook out the match. He wasn’t asking for his umbrella back anyway.