Jack (Gilead #4)(14)

She said, “No, we’d have to keep the Sabbath. My father couldn’t survive without it.”

“Hmm. I thought the world had ended.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“I have to object, Miss Miles. If we’re going to keep honoring our fathers and our mothers, you know there won’t be any new rules. So we have to let the world really come to an end. Hypothetically. If this is going to be interesting.”

“I guess I don’t want to imagine the world with them gone. It seems like tempting fate.”

“All right. Tempting fate. So even fate can be lured away from its intentions.”

It was true enough, though. The old gent gone, and the pious worry that fretted the edge of every thought he had almost gone as well. You will hurt yourself, why do you make things hard for yourself? You must take care of yourself, say your prayers, Jack. His prayers! What would they be? If I die before I wake. If I wake before I die. Much less likely. But he thought he might go home one last time. Last but one. Pull himself together and get on a bus.

She said, “Hypothetically, then. Let’s say the world has ended, and we don’t have to be loyal to the way things were before. What would we do that was different?”

He laughed. “Not a thing! We’d do just what we’re doing now. If I could get you to go along with me.”

“When morning comes, I mean.”

“Oh. So there’d still be morning?”

“Yes, there would. The evening and the morning. We ended the world. Not the solar system.”

“All right, I guess. But I’m beginning to wonder if ending the world was worth the trouble.”

“How can you know? You won’t try it out. You keep raising objections.”

She said, “You have to relax a little bit. We won’t do any harm just talking about it.”

“Is your father out of the picture?”

“Hypothetically.”

“Mine, too, I suppose.”

“Well yes, he is.”

“Then what?”

“You first.”

“Why me?”

“Because I think maybe you’ve already thought about things this way. More than I have, at least. I don’t think I wondered about it much until tonight. You know, wondered about it in so many words.”

“I’ll give it a try, I guess. What kind of rules are we talking about? Thou shalt not steal or The years of a man’s life are threescore years and ten?”

“I guess you’re right, stealing would be more like gleaning. But the years of a man’s life—most people haven’t lived that long, ever, so far as I know. That’s just the best you can hope for. Generally. So it can’t actually be a rule. My father had a great-aunt who lived to a hundred and one.”

“My great-grandmother died at ninety-two. My father used to say, ‘We who are young will never see so much nor live so long.’ She came over in steerage and blamed us all for it for the rest of her life. We didn’t justify the bother.”

“How old is your father?”

“Sixty-five on the fourth of January. Threescore years and five. There is that exceptional-strength clause. He could make it to fourscore without casting any shadow on Moses. I’m sure he’s aware of that.”

“Is he exceptionally strong?”

“No. Not at all. But he is exceptionally determined.” He said, “He’s waiting for me.”

Quiet. He could see her just well enough to know she had lowered her head, thinking about what he had said, what she might say, considering it all gently, since they were deep into night by then. He said, “I know. I should go home.” Then he laughed. “I’m afraid that might put an end to him.”

“Really? You really think that?”

“He lives on hope,” he said. “He does. He’s always been that way. So I show up, confirm his worst fears, tip my hat, and leave again. I couldn’t stay there. He might not want me to, anyway. Then what would he have to hope for?”

“You have brothers and sisters. They come home, don’t they?”

“Yes, well, we hope for things unseen. Me, in this case.”

“You said you’d stop talking that way.”

“Sorry. It’s true, though. I will go home. COD. I have that address in my pocket. But I have to time it right. I have to outlast him. That may be my primary object in life!” He laughed. “He’s not going to make it easy for me, I know that.” He thought he must have sounded strange, but she didn’t take her hand away. She was considering.

She said, “It’s interesting to think about that. Things unseen. The reality is always different.”

“Worse.”

“Different. Unlike. Not necessarily worse or better.”

He said, “I’m at my best unseen. The Prince of Darkness. The Prince of Absence, for that matter. You won’t answer this, but just to clarify the point—the way you thought of me for the last few months—if you did think of me, but assuming you did. I know that isn’t something I ought to assume. Never mind.”

“Did I remember you as—what?”

“Oh, more presentable, I suppose.”

“I never gave it a thought.”