Home by Marilynne Robinson

when he left for college, having been by that time ignored by him for years. And here she was in middle age feeling the fact of his touchy indifference a judgment on her, so it seemed to her, though he had been so grievously at fault, and her intrusions all those years ago, her excesses, whatever he might have called them, were no such thing—she had defended them in her mind a thousand times andwould defend them to his face if the occasion ever arose, which God forbid, God forbid.
    The thought had occurred to her more than once, even before the gradual catastrophe of her own venture into the world had come to an end, that “despite all” was a dangerous formula, and that the romance of absence was a distraction from more sustaining joys. Those years of her late childhood, when she felt so necessary, when she was so sure things would come right if only enough effort was given to making them come right—those years stayed with her as if they had been the whole of her life. The others hadn’t even known—not Faith, not Teddy. Her father said it was Jack’s choice to tell them or to be silent, since he might feel still less at ease with them if they knew, and not seek them out if the need arose. He might not come home when they came home, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Her father told her with tears in his eyes that the three of them could alleviate Jack’s guilt and also his shame by making the very best of the situation. So she took up knitting. It was a deep secret. They were at work on a great rescue. Her parents talked freely to her or in her hearing about it all, trusted her, and she never breathed a word except to old Ames, whose discretion was perfect. It embarrassed her to remember how happy she had been, those three bitter, urgent years until it all ended. Her brother would never know the thousand things she had done to make life tolerable for him.
    Brothers. When she was a child, attention from any of her brothers was wonderful to her. It was rare, and it was wry, odd, not at all parental. Even Grace, who was older than she was by less than two years, tried sometimes to mother her, and Faith and Hope—such names!—were irksomely mature and responsible. But when any of the brothers noticed her, it was to swing her around by her hands or to carry her on his back or to show her a card trick or the husk of a cicada. When the boys had all gotten their growth, they were within an inch of one another in height, lanky young fellows with angular faces and unruly hair. Luke had left for school whenshe was four, Dan when she was seven. Jack and Teddy left the same year, the year she was thirteen, since Teddy was so good in school that he had skipped two grades. So when they were at home together, in the summer and at holidays, they took a conscious pleasure in it, and this was truer as the younger boys were recruited into the ranks of the fully grown. They joked and sparred and took off together in Luke’s old Ford, sometimes even to Des Moines, Jack with them if he could be cajoled. They were vain of their freedom and their manhood, of their cleverness and their long legs, but gentlemanly all the same, and vain of that, too. Their mother called them the princes of the church, and they did look fine, strolling into the sanctuary together in their jackets and ties, Bibles in hand, the three of them, and then sometimes the fourth. They said things like
volo, nolo
, and
de gustibus
and “Let me not to the marriage of true minds,” and she was in awe of them. Seeing Jack reminded her of those days. She knew the others now, after the manner of adult friendship. And fond as she was of them, it was hard to remember that they had ever seemed marvelous to her. But Jack was as remote from her as he ever had been, and she found herself waiting again for notice and approval, to her own considerable irritation.
    After a little while she went back to the house, thinking her father might be waiting up. But Jack had gotten him to