Excerpt from Jack by Marilynne Robinson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She said, "Those books you borrowed."

"They'll be on your porch step tomorrow. Or soon after. With that money I owe you."

"I don't want them back. No, maybe I do. I suppose you wrote in them."

"Pencil only. I'll erase it."

"No, don't do that. I'll do it."

"Yes, I can see that there might be satisfactions involved."

"Well," she said, "I told you goodbye. You told me goodbye. Now walk away."

"And you go inside."

"As soon as you're gone."

They laughed.

After a minute, he said, "You just watch. I can do this." And he lifted his hat to her and strolled off with his hands in his pockets. If he did look back, it was after she had closed the door behind her.

* * *

A week later, when she came home from school, she found her Hamlet lying on the porch step. There were two dollars in it, and there was something written in pencil on the inside cover.

Had I a blessing, even one,

Its grace would light on you alone.

Had I a single living prayer

It would attend you, mild as air.

Had my heart an unbroken string

ring sing sting cling thing

Oh, I am ill at these numbers!

IOU a dollar. And a book.

Long Farewell!

* * *

Embarrassing. Absolutely the last person in the world. Unbelievable. After almost a year. He snuffed out his cigarette against the headstone. A little carefully, it was only half gone. And what was the point. The smell of smoke must have been what made her stop and look around, look up at him. If he tried to slip back out of sight, that would only frighten her more, so there was nothing left to do but speak to her. Della. There she was, standing in the road on the verge of the lamplight, looking up at him. He could see in her stillness the kind of hesitation that meant she was held there by uncertainty, about whether she did know him or was only seeing a resemblance, and, in any case, whether to walk away, suppressing the impulse to run away if whoever he was, even he himself, seemed threatening or strange. Well, let's be honest, he was strange, loitering in a cemetery in the dark of night, no doubt about it. But she might be pausing there actually hoping she did know him, ready for anything at all like reassurance, so he lifted his hat and said, "Good evening. Miss Miles, if I'm not mistaken." She put her hand to her face as if to compose herself.

"Yes," she said. "Good evening." There were tears in her voice.

So he said, "Jack Boughton."

She laughed, tears in her laughter. "Of course. I mean, I thought I recognized you. It's so dark I couldn't be sure. Looking into the dark makes it darker. Harder to see anything. I didn't realize they locked the gates. I just didn't think of it."

"Yes. It depends where you're standing, how dark it is. It's relative. My eyes are adjusted to it. So I guess that makes light relative, doesn't it." Embarrassing. He meant to sound intelligent, since he hadn't shaved that morning and his tie was rolled up in his pocket.

She nodded, and looked down the road ahead of her, still deciding.

How had he recognized her? He had spent actual months noticing women who were in any way like her, until he thought he had lost the memory of her in all that seeming resemblance. A coat like hers, a hat like hers. Sometimes the sound of a voice made him think he might see her if he turned. A bad idea. Her laughing meant she must be with someone. She might not want to show that she knew him. He would walk on, a little slower than the crowd, with the thought that as she passed she would speak to him if she wanted to, ignore him if she wanted to. Once or twice he stopped to look in a store window to let her reflection go by, and there were only the usual strangers, that endless stream of them. Cautious as he was, sometimes women took his notice as a familiarity they did not welcome. A useful reminder. A look like that would smart, he thought, coming from her. Still, all this waiting, if that's what it was, helped him stay sober and usually reminded him to shave. It might really be her, sometime, and if he tipped his hat, shaven and sober, she would be more likely to smile.

Excerpted from Jack by Marilynne Robinson. Copyright © 2020 by Marilynne Robinson. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.