Benediction

  After a while Mary stood up and buttoned her coat and hugged Frank.

  You know that money was your dad’s idea. It was from him even more than me. I want you to know that.

  I appreciate it, Mom. I know that.

  Can I tell him?

  Whatever you want.

  But are you all right here, honey? I need to know. I never hear anything from you.

  Yes, I’m all right.

  You’re telling me the truth.

  Of course.

  You know that every time I call you, Dad wants to know what you said. He wants to know how you are too.

  I’m doing the best I can, Mom. That’s all I can say. I’m getting along the best I can. You can tell Dad that much too.

  She went out to the hallway and down the stairs. Frank followed her and she hugged him again on the sidewalk, holding him tight, and went on to the car at the curb. She got in and looked at him standing there without a coat. She rolled the window down.

  Go back in, honey, she told him. It’s cold out here.

  They drove out of Denver and out onto the plains going east toward Holt County.

  I wish I was a drinker, she said. She was peering out the side window at the country going by, at the dark clear sky.

  What?

  I wish I drank. I wish I was a drinker. I never cared for it though.

  Are you sick? You want me to stop?

  This would be a good time for it.

  To start drinking.

  Yes.

  What’s wrong? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.

  What did you think would happen today? she said.

  I didn’t think much of anything would happen today.

  You were right about that. It didn’t.

  You sound upset.

  I am upset. I’m disappointed that we don’t have anything to do with him. Anything more than this. Than what happened back there. You give me money to give him and I put it in an envelope for Christmas and he hasn’t even thought to have anything to give us in return. We see him working at the café and we follow him up to his dirty little apartment room in a dirty old house and we drink tea and we talk for five minutes, then you go outside to warm up the car and that’s it.

  What did you expect?

  I wanted it to be nice. I told you that. Something present there between us and our son. We’re going to lose him, she said. Don’t you know that?

  We lost him a long time ago.

  You lost him. I didn’t.

  Dad pulled out on the highway to pass the truck ahead of them and they went around its long high length in the night and sped on faster. He looked at her. You wish I was a drinker too?

  No, I wouldn’t wish that on us, she said. We have enough already.

  She dozed the rest of the way, until Dad pulled up in front of the house and stopped the car. The house was all dark, Lorraine was not home yet. She was still out somewhere in town with her friends. It was almost midnight, the latest they’d been awake for a long time. They sat for a while looking at the unlighted house and then Dad shut the engine off and they went inside and fell to sleep beside each other in their familiar downstairs bedroom at the back of the house.

  27

  THE HOSPICE NURSE had come and gone. The same small quick efficient woman with the beautiful smile. It was late morning now on a hot July day toward the end of the month. She had arrived just after nine o’clock and Dad was back in bed when she came. He had gotten up for breakfast, had drunk his morning coffee and eaten a little piece of buttered toast, dunking it in the coffee, and afterward he had sat for an hour at the window in the living room looking out at the green lawn and the shade tree, then he had gone back to lie down in bed in the back room. The nurse had attended him there.

  She checked his blood pressure and pulse and temperature and asked how he was and he said he was a little worse maybe, he couldn’t tell but felt he might be slipping faster now, and she asked about his pain, and if he was taking the medication regularly, and he said it was all right, he could live with it, and again she told him he didn’t have to just live with it but could have relief, and he looked away and said he knew that, he understood that, then she checked his pills, to see if he had enough, and asked was there anything else, and he said he couldn’t think of anything, but he wanted to thank her for coming and looked at Mary and Lorraine who were standing at the foot of the bed watching and listening to it all, and then the nurse leaned forward and took his hand and pressed it warmly and said she’d be back, to call her if he needed anything, anytime day or night, and then she packed up and left.

  Mary and Lorraine walked her outside and stood in the shade of the silver poplar trees. How long do you think now? Lorraine asked her.

  Two weeks maybe. Sometimes they surprise us. Maybe ten days.

  Is there anything more we should be doing?

  No, I don’t think so. He’s lucky to have such good care. A lot of people don’t. But you need to be sure to take care of yourselves too. You must know that.

  We can rest later, Mary said.

  Yes, the nurse said.

  She got in the car and drove off up the street. The street looked hot and dry. A dust rose up behind her.

  When they went back into the house Dad was asleep again. Later in the morning they woke him when Rudy and Bob came to show him the store accounts, knowing he’d be disappointed if they didn’t.

  The window was open in the bedroom and there was a warm breeze blowing in but even so Dad lay in the bed with the blanket pulled up over him. Now he propped himself on the pillows and Rudy and Bob carried two chairs into the bedroom and Lorraine followed them and sat in the big chair that was always in the corner. Dad looked at the two men.

  Lorraine’s going to join us here, he said. I mentioned that the last time.

  We know, Dad, said Rudy.

  Okay. I didn’t know if you remembered.

  Yeah. We remembered.

  Well. How you doing? How’s it going these days?

  We’re doing good. And you, Dad, that’s what we want to know.

  I’m going down, I guess, he said. I can feel it.

  Are you hurting?

  Not very much.

  He is, Lorraine said. But he won’t take all his pain pills.

  You ought to take your pills there, Dad, said Bob.

  I will when it gets bad enough. I want to be awake as much as I can. I don’t want to faze out.

  Yeah, but if you’re in a lot of pain, Dad. We wouldn’t want to think you was hurting too much.

  I appreciate that. That’s what they keep saying too.

  He won’t listen to us, Lorraine said.

  No, he always had his own mind, didn’t he, Bob said.

  And I still got it, Dad said. What’s left of it. You sound like I’m not here already. I don’t want no pity either. You remember that. He looked at the two men and looked at Lorraine. All right, will you show me the accounts? You better do it soon. I seem to sleep all the time now. I seem to want to sleep.

  Rudy stood and laid the store accounts in their folder on the bed beside Dad and he picked them up. Hand me my glasses there will you, honey? he said. Lorraine gave him his glasses and he looked briefly at the papers and then pushed the folder across the bed to her. You look at them, he said.

  I will. Can they be left here?

  We have other copies, Bob said.

  I’ll look at them later.

  So, Dad said. Everything’s all right down there?

  Yes sir. No problems to talk about this week.

  I don’t guess I’d much care if there was. I’m too tired.

  You need to rest. That’s the best thing. Leave this to us.

  He studied them for a while. I was thinking about that old spinster lady again after you left the last time. She come to my mind. When I was laying here. What’s her name?

  Miss Sprague, Rudy said. The old lady with the freezer, you’re talking about.

  Yes, her.

&nb
sp; Did you change your mind? You want us to repossess it?

  No. But she’s all alone, isn’t she.

  There’s nobody over there except her, that I know of. Never has been. So far as anybody else knows either.

  I want you boys to help her.

  How do you mean?

  I don’t know. But I want you to find some kind of help for her. Somebody to look in on her.

  You mean hire somebody.

  Something like that. You figure it out. Lorraine can help you. I don’t want her left alone over there in that house of hers.

  Yes, we can do that, Lorraine said.

  You can pay for it out of the store. Get some kind of caretaker for her. Some older woman or somebody. But it needs to be taken care of.

  We will, Rudy said.

  And another thing. I was remembering that fellow Floyd down there in Oklahoma.

  About his story, you mean?

  The one that drowned, Dad said. That’s not funny no more. The man went over the side of that boat into the lake and didn’t come up. He was alive, then he died and his life has to mean more than just a story some guy that comes up here from Texas tells us that’s on some combine crew.

  You want us to do something there too? Rudy said. I don’t see what we can do about that.

  No. I’m just saying. Telling you what I’ve been thinking about while I’m laying here. It’s not funny to me no more. Not this morning, anyway.

  If that’s how you feel, Bob said.

  That’s how I feel.

  Then we don’t have to mention it again.

  Dad lifted one hand from the bedsheet and inspected it front and back and let it fall back down. I don’t know if I’m going to see you fellows again, he said. I got a idea this might be it. But I want both of you to know how much I appreciate all the days and years we’ve been together at the store. I trusted you. I believed in you. You two fellows—you’ve been more to me than somebody I just hired. You were friends to me. I want you to know that. Dad’s eyes welled up as he was talking.

  Thank you, Dad, Bob said. We feel the same way.

  Well, I wanted you to know. I wanted to have it said out.

  The two men were teary eyed now too. They sat side by side, tall and short, on the two hard wooden chairs in the hot room, their hands in their laps.

  So, Dad said. All right. Lorraine’s going to be the store manager. Like we talked about. For a while anyhow. And you two fellows are going to still be assistant managers together.

  They didn’t say anything.

  You understand me, don’t you.

  We understood this was coming from what you was saying before, yes sir.

  And I want you to get along with each other. Put aside any bad feelings.

  We don’t have no bad feelings, Rudy said.

  Good. Then I’m going to say one more thing. I want you to pay yourselves a ten-thousand-dollar bonus, each one of you.

  What’s this, Dad? We don’t expect nothing like that.

  Now don’t interrupt me. You don’t need to say nothing about it. I’ve been laying here thinking and that’s what I want. He paused to study them. Now I’m wore out. Come over here, if you would.

  The two men looked at him.

  Come over here, please. I’m asking you to come closer. They slowly rose from the chairs and stepped up beside the bed. Dad reached and shook Rudy’s hand and then Bob’s. I thank you for all these years, he said, for what you done for me. Good-bye, you fellows.

  Good-bye, Dad. We’ll be thinking of you.

  They glanced across the bed at Lorraine, sitting on her chair in the corner crying quietly. They went out to the living room and stood looking toward the kitchen. Mary noticed them and came out.

  Would you let us know if we can do anything? Rudy said sadly.

  Was he able to talk a little?

  Yes. He was able to talk a little. He said some things to us. We’re sure going to miss him. That’s all there is to it.

  In the bedroom Lorraine moved onto the bed and lay beside Dad.

  Are you all right, Daddy?

  Yeah, I am.

  She took his hand.

  That went pretty good, don’t you think it did? he said.

  Yes. You know how much they think of you.

  Well, I think a lot of them too. But they never say much, do they. They never say much to me.

  You don’t let people, Daddy. You never have.

  You think that’s what it is?

  Yes, I do.

  Well. I don’t know about that. I couldn’t say.

  28

  IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING the sermon Lyle began to wander in the town. After supper with his wife and son, he’d put on a jacket and cap and begin to walk—after the sun was down. It was usually nine or ten before he began.

  He stayed away from the center of Holt and the bright streetlights. When it happened that he had to cross Main, he waited until the street was empty and then he crossed and went on walking up and down the dark sidewalks and passed over the tracks to the north side where the houses were small and meager, with empty weed-filled lots. At the end of town, he looked out at the starlit windblown fields, and then turned back into the neighborhoods.

  He stood in front of houses in the shadows of trees and looked in through the windows opened to the summer nights, watching people. The little dramas, the routine moments. People moving about in the rooms, people eating and getting up from the table and crossing in the flickering blue light of television and at last turning out the house lights and going out of the darkened rooms, while he stood outside waiting to see if they would come back.

  Once he saw a man in his undershirt kneel down before a woman in a robe sitting on a sofa, his face raised up to her, and the woman leaning forward, drawing him to her, running her fingers through his thin hair and taking his face in her hands and kissing him a long time, and then the man rising and rubbing his back while she sat still and watched him walking away with his hair all mussed up.

  One night he stood so long in front of a house that a man called the police. He actually watched the man on the phone having the conversation.

  A police car pulled up at the curb and the officer put on his cap and got out.

  What do you think you’re doing here? he said.

  Just standing here, Lyle said.

  These people said you were looking in their window.

  I didn’t mean to disturb them. I’m sorry if I have.

  Let’s see some identification.

  Are you charging me with something, Officer?

  Let’s look at your driver’s license.

  Lyle took out his wallet and handed the license to him. The man examined it under his flashlight, then put the light up into Lyle’s face.

  Rob Lyle. That’s you.

  Yes.

  The preacher.

  Yes.

  Is there something wrong with you? What are you doing out here?

  I’m just walking. Having a look around town.

  Your family knows where you are?

  They know I’m taking a walk.

  It doesn’t bother you to look in other people’s houses? You think that’s all right.

  I don’t think I’m doing any harm. I didn’t mean to.

  Well, these people don’t like it. This man called you in.

  What did he say?

  That you were looking in his house.

  Did he say what he was doing in his house?

  Why would he say that?

  People in their houses at night. These ordinary lives. Passing without their knowing it. I’d hoped to recapture something.

  The officer stared at him.

  The precious ordinary.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’d better keep moving.

  I thought I’d see people being hurtful. Cruel. A man hitting his wife. But I haven’t seen that. Maybe all that’s behind the curtains. If you’re going to hit somebody maybe you pull the curtains first.

&nbs
p; Not necessarily.

  What I’ve seen is the sweet kindness of one person to another. Just time passing on a summer’s night. This ordinary life.

  Well, people are pretty good, generally. Most of them. Not all of them. I see the other side.

  Lyle looked around at the houses. The officer watched him.

  You’d better go. People don’t want you looking in their windows, good or bad. I’ll wait here till you leave.

  On Saturday night he was walking on the east side of Holt a block off Highway 34 when two men rode up in a pickup.

  Is that you, Reverend?

  Lyle looked at them. Yes, it’s me.

  We thought it was. Just stay there a minute.

  They got out and came over to him.

  What are you doing out here, Reverend? Taking the night air?

  Yes.

  It’s pretty late. Why would you be out here now?

  Did you want something? Lyle said.

  There is something, the first man said and he slapped Lyle across the face. Lyle fell back and the other man moved closer. What did you think of that? the first man said.

  Lyle didn’t say anything.

  Tell us about love, the man said. Turn us the other cheek now.

  That’s what this is about, Lyle said. I see.

  What did you think it was about?

  I didn’t know.

  You forgot already.

  No.

  No, he didn’t forget, the second man said. He still loves them desert sons of bitches. He still has that on his mind.

  The first man said, You believe all that, I guess, don’t you.

  Yes.

  He slapped Lyle again. Lyle faltered backward. He wiped his hand across his mouth, smearing blood on his cheek.

  Now what do you say?

  I ask you to stop this, Lyle said. It won’t get you what you want.

  He thinks he’s proved something.

  Do you?

  No.

  But you hate me now, don’t you.

  I don’t hate you. I don’t like you very much.

  If I slap you again, you’ll start to hate me then.

  Let’s go, the other man said. Somebody’s going to see us.

  All right. We’re done here. But you need to watch what you say, Preacher. You better mind your mouth, you’re about to get yourself in real trouble.