If she had some of that money, she’d go into the diner and have a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie. If she had some of that money, she’d go into the dime store and look at dress patterns or something. She could do that anyway, but she thought people had begun to notice her, out in the cold that way, when anybody in her right mind would at least have a coat on. She had almost forgotten the dread that someone might speak to her, and here it was again. She wouldn’t let that happen if she could help it. It was like old times. No money and nothing to do about it, and people watching her. But there was the church. That was like old times, too. Stepping in out of the weather. She could just sit in a pew and wait till she stopped shivering and her fingers stopped aching. Then she’d find him in his office, and he’d say, Oh, my dear, and put his coat over her shoulders, and they’d walk to the house, and make some supper, and she would tell him she was fine, fine. She’d just gone for a walk.
She was too cold to stop trembling yet, so she put her hands between her knees and waited. Her toes ached. No point thinking about it. It always was quiet in there. You could hear any shift or creak anywhere in the building, and when the wind was blowing the way it was then, the church strained against itself like some old barn. You could practically hear nails pulling loose. And still it was quiet somehow. It was drafty, too, but that boy could have stretched out on a pew under a blanket or two and slept right through the storm, and who would have minded. If she’d had any idea how bad it was going to be, she’d have made him come with her.
It took her that long to realize the old man could ask somebody with a car to drive out there and bring him to town. She never got used to that. He could just say a word and whatever needed to be done got done, most of the time anyway. Even if it meant Boughton starting up his DeSoto. But when she did go to his office he wasn’t there. Of course he wouldn’t be hiding from her, but that was the first thought she had. The room just felt like he should be in it. The whole church felt that way. People who live in rooms and houses don’t know about that. It seems natural to them. You might pick up something belonging to somebody and feel for a minute how theirs it is, particularly if you hate them enough. But a whole roomful of somebody’s days and thoughts and breath, things that are faded and they don’t see it, ugly and they don’t care, things worn by their habits, it seems strange to walk in on that when you’re almost nothing more than a cold wind. She did wish she could at least find a way to tell him how hard it was, the ache you feel walking out of a cold day into a warm room. And here she was angry at him for being somewhere else, almost crying about it. Because here was his whole long life and it had nothing to do with her unless he was there with her to say, This is Lila, Lila Ames, my wife.
Well, she thought, standing here worrying about it doesn’t make much sense. He’ll be at the house. And the thought she wouldn’t let herself have was How long has it been since I felt the child stirring? Every woman she ever knew had stories about some child that was lost or didn’t come out right because its mother ate too much of something, or took a fright, or took a chill. But there was nothing else to do but go on to the house. She said, “It’s just a few blocks. Then we’re home.”
He wasn’t there, either. The house was empty. Probably someone had died, or was about to die. Plenty of times he was called away to do what he could where comforting was needed. The last time it happened he came in the door after midnight, grumbling to himself. He said, “Asking a man to apologize on his deathbed for the abject and total disappointment he was in life! That does beat all.” He took off his hat. “So I took them aside, the family. And I said, If you’re not Christian people, then what am I doing here? And if you are, you’d better start acting like it. Words to that effect.” He looked at her. “I know I was harsh. But the poor old devil could hardly get his breath, let alone give his side of things. There were tears in his eyes!” He hung up his coat. “I’ve known him my whole life. He wasn’t worse than average. Wouldn’t matter if he was.” And then he said, “You shouldn’t have waited up for me, Lila. The two of you need your sleep,” and he kissed her cheek and went up to his study to pray over the regret he felt because he’d lost his temper. Anger was his besetting sin, he said. He was always praying about it. She had thought, If that’s the worst of it, I’ll be all right.
She wasn’t warm yet, so she decided to go upstairs and lie down in his bed until she heard him at the door. She’d just slip off her shoes and pull up the covers and wait. She thought it would comfort the child. But the cold of her body filled the space it made under the blankets, a hollow of cold. Maybe that’s how she felt to the child. Winter nights Doll would pull her against her, into her own shape, and she would pull the quilt up over her, and her arm would be around her, and Lila would only feel warmer for the cold that was everywhere else in the world. She was probably thinking of this when she gave that boy her coat, tucked him in. And then he laughed just the way she might have laughed all those years ago, for pleasure that seemed like a piece of luck, a trick played on misery and trouble. Now here she had this child of her own, and maybe it felt the cold. Maybe it feared it was being born to a woman who couldn’t be trusted to give it comfort. Maybe it would have the look that boy had, as if the life in him had decided to cut its losses when it had just begun to make him a man’s body. She thought, Then I’ll steal you, and I’ll take you away where nobody knows us, and I’ll make up all the difference between what you are and what you could have been by loving you so much. Mellie said, “Her legs is all rickety,” and Doll just kept her closer and seen to her all the more. Even Doll said, “If there was just something about you,” looking at her the way other people did because she couldn’t go on protecting her from other people. But Doll always made up the difference the best she could. Lila would, too. And there’d be no old man to say, I see what you’ve done to my child. No old man. It would happen sometime anyway. She pulled up her knees and hugged her belly, and she felt it moving.
The sound of the front door woke her. Boughton was talking with him, and she could hear worry in their voices. Boughton always came along when there might be something difficult to deal with, on a cane now half the time, but still as willing as could be to help out a little. He was there when Mrs. Ames died and the Reverend was off somewhere doing something. Once, after Boughton had gone on through a long evening about the Rural Electrification Act and its implications, the old man said, “He prayed with her. He closed her eyes.” We wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief. We because Boughton was there, just trying to help out. She heard him saying, “I’ll wait down here a minute, John,” and the old man starting up the stairs alone. What did they think had happened? No, better ask what had happened. She’d done something she shouldn’t. She knew half of it and he would probably tell her the rest. She stood up and slipped on her shoes and smoothed her hair and her dress.
When he came into the room, she felt a surge of relief at the sight of him that made it harder for her to do what she meant to do, which was nothing. Stand there and hear him out. She couldn’t leave, now that she’d given her money to that boy. Well, she’d figure a way if she had to. She was thinking, I’m gone the minute he talks down to me, no matter what. And just that morning she’d been feeling so safe.
He spoke down the stairs, “She’s here. She’s fine,” and Boughton said, “Tomorrow, then,” and let himself out. Then the old man said, “That’s true, isn’t it? You are fine?”