Benediction

by Kent Haruf

  Well, Dad said, I might be that.

  She smiled for the first time and he saw she was missing a tooth. Jesus, I don’t know about any of this, she said.

  How much do you pay for this place? Dad said.

  Why?

  I’d like to know.

  Four hundred dollars.

  They pay the utilities?

  He does. The old son of a bitch that owns the place.

  Dad took out his checkbook. Who do you pay it to? What’s his name?

  She told him. He wrote the check in the owner’s name and put it beside the cash. She watched him suspiciously. He wrote the owner’s name in a little notebook. Then he told her what he was going to do. There would be a rent check every month and something extra for them to live on, and she could count on it, he would do these things without fail.

  I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.

  I told you.

  They talked some more and he learned that she was working at night. The woman across the hall checked on the children after she got them to bed, after she left the apartment to start her shift. That isn’t good, he said.

  What else do you expect me to do?

  You won’t have to do that anymore.

  He stood up and looked around the little kitchen and looked once more at her and went out past the two kids and walked out of the old house, and in the months following he sent her the two checks at the beginning of each month, and by the end of the year he decided to make a down payment on a little two-bedroom house in Arvada on the west side of Denver. After that he sent the house payment to the bank that held the mortgage, and she and the two children settled down in the new place. She got a daytime job and paid for regular child care. So things were looking up. She was thin again and her hair was cut nicely. He visited her once during that time but there was little now to talk about.

  Two years later there was a letter, written on yellow tablet paper. I got married, I’m writing to tell you. He seems all right to me he’s sixteen years older but that don’t matter. I don’t care about that now. Don’t send the money for the house no more he wouldn’t understand. He don’t want somebody else’s help. And don’t contact me again. We’re on our own now. Forget about me now. You done enough. I thank you for that, the last part of it.

  19

  IN THE NIGHT he lay awake next to Mary in the downstairs bedroom unable to sleep, remembering everything, taking all of his years into account. He decided he wanted to see the nearby physical world once more. He could let go of it if he saw these familiar places again.

  They drove out on the Saturday morning in his good car, Lorraine behind the wheel, Dad in the passenger seat and Mary in the back. There was a robe over him and he was wearing his cap.

  Now take it slow, he said. There’s no rush about this.

  A bright hot windless July day, and they put the car windows down. They began by driving past Berta May’s yellow house and at the south end of the street where it met the highway they turned a block east and went down Date Street past the grade school and the playgrounds and the practice field and then up Cedar past the Methodist church and across to Birch where the banker lived and where the Community Church was located and then up Ash past the old white frame hotel that was only a broken-down rooming house now with a wide sagging porch and on past the Presbyterian church and the Catholic church and over to Main Street. They drove the length of Main without stopping, from the highway north to the juncture where you had to turn east or west. Which way now, Daddy? Lorraine said.

  Go over here to the east, he said. I want to look at these streets too.

  They went over a block and then south on Albany and over to Boston and Chicago where Rudy lived and onto Detroit where Bob’s house was and then onto the state highway and back to U.S. 34.

  You’re going too fast, Dad said.

  I can’t go slow on the highway.

  Let them go around. It don’t matter.

  Where to now?

  Back up Main.

  They went up the street again past the little houses that were built at the south end and the old water tower on its tall metal riveted legs and past the post office and then the three blocks of businesses.

  Let’s go back in the alley here, Dad said.

  She turned slowly into the dark alley behind the stores. The mismatched backs of the buildings, the jumble of various things, and only a few cars and pickups parked along the way in the potholed gravel.

  Stop here, please, Dad said.

  She parked the car and they sat in the alley behind the hardware store. He looked at it all, the old brick wall with white flaking paint and the rusted Dumpster and the telephone pole black with creosote, the old rear entrances of the businesses on either side.

  He shook his head. I should of painted that back wall again.

  It looks about the same as always to me, Lorraine said.

  That’s what I mean.

  Wooden pallets were stacked on one another, and there was the scarred wooden door with the window in it that peered out into the alley.

  How many times I went in and out that door. Wasn’t that the way, Mary?

  How many times do you think, honey?

  Fifty-five years times six days a week times fifty-two, he said.

  What’s that come to?

  It comes to a lifetime.

  That’s right. It amounts to a man’s lifetime, Dad said. All right. We’ve been here long enough. Drive us around front now, please.

  Lorraine started the car and they came out on Main Street. Should we stop?

  Yes, pull in here at the store.

  She parked at the curb in the middle of the block. The store was two old brick buildings side by side with high false fronts. Dad sat looking at the plate-glass display windows with the signs touting table saws and generators. The wide front doors propped open on the hot Saturday morning. The new lawn mowers and garden tillers wheeled out on the sidewalk with chains run through them to keep anybody from taking off with them.

  A woman came walking toward them, she stopped to peer in through the window, cupping her hands beside her face to block the glare. She glanced up the street and looked inside again and went on.

  What did she want? Dad said. We would of had it for her.

  She’s got to make up her mind, Mary said. She wants to take her time.

  Let her come back then, he said.

  From where they were sitting they could see Bob inside behind the front counter waiting on some man. The man paid, they watched him remove his wallet and put money out and Bob take it and ring the sale and make change and tear off the receipt. Then he ducked out of sight behind the counter and he reappeared with a brown paper sack in his hand and put the purchase—something silver, not shiny, a pipe wrench maybe—in the sack, slipping the receipt in with it, speaking to the man, thanking him, nodding his head, then something more, and the man saying something in return, and then the man swung around and came out through the open doors onto the sidewalk with the paper sack in his hand, coming directly toward them in the car, so near that they could see the buttons on his summer shirt, before he turned and went up the block in the bright sun.

  Who was that, Daddy?

  I can’t think of his name. But I know him. I’ll think of it, he said. His voice sounded odd and then suddenly he began to weep.

  Daddy, what is it?

  He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. Mary leaned forward and put her arms around him.

  Dear, it’s all right. What’s wrong? What are you thinking? What happened?

  He shook his head. He went on weeping as they sat in the car in front of the hardware store on the hot Saturday morning, with people going by on the sidewalk. Lorraine watched her father and looked forward toward the storefront and Mary kept her arms around him and rested her head against the side of his head. After a while he stopped and wiped his face.

  Oh, Lord, he said. Well, we can go on now, if you want. I’m sorry.


  Are you all right, honey?

  Yeah. I’m going to be.

  Where to now, Daddy? Should we go home?

  No. Out in the country. Out south. I want to show you something. I was thinking about it last night.

  They backed out into Main Street and went around the block and back to the highway, past the Chute Bar and Grill and the grocery store, and turned south on the blacktop. There was wheat stubble shining in the sun and waist-high rows of corn, very green, and then pastures with black cattle scattered out in the native grass and sagebrush and soapweed, and presently Dad said, Slow down. Turn here, please.

  Lorraine steered them onto the unpaved road. They could hear the gravel kicking up under the car. There were barrow ditches on both sides and above them the long run of telephone poles and the four-strand barbed-wire fences.

  Careful, Dad said. You don’t want to go too fast.

  She slowed down and they came to an old place set back off the road behind a front pasture. The road leading back to the house was closed off by a padlocked gate. Below were outbuildings and a horse barn and loafing shed and some stunted cedar trees. Everything looked to be in good repair but it didn’t seem as if anyone were living in the house.

  Stop here a minute, Dad said.

  Lorraine shut off the engine and they looked out across the hot pasture at the old paintless house.

  This here is where those old brothers lived, Dad said. The ones that had that high school girl come out and live with them. She was pregnant, then she had the baby and went off to college, and after that the one old brother got killed by a Angus bull in the corral back there with his brother right there seeing it all and not being able to do a goddamn thing to stop it. They’re both dead now.

  I didn’t know this was their place, Mary said.

  I knew them a little. They traded at the store. After the one brother got killed the other one went out with a woman in town and he and her stayed together till he died. I believe she’s still in Holt. A nice woman, I understand.

  I’ve known all that, Lorraine said. But I never heard what became of the girl and the baby she had.

  They’re up in the mountains someplace. The baby’s grown up by now, of course. The neighbors look after the ranch.

  Nobody lives here?

  No. And she won’t sell it or let anybody else operate it.

  But what are we doing here, Daddy?

  I just wanted to look at this place one last time. For sentimental reasons, I suppose. We can go on now. I’ll show you where to.

  They went farther east on the county road and then he said, Turn in here, if you would.

  Right here?

  Yeah.

  It’s not even a road.

  It was no more than two tire trails in the sandy ground going out through pasture grass. After half a mile or so, the track began to rise and twist up onto a sandhill.

  Daddy, I don’t know if we should try this.

  We’ll make it. Just don’t stop in this sand, you’ll get us stuck. Somebody’ll have to walk out of here and get help.

  They drove on, the car bucking and rocking, the grass sweeping underneath, making a whispering noise. Once they got up on top where it was flat, Dad said, All right, we can stop now. This is it.

  He opened the door and climbed out with his cane and Mary and Lorraine got out, holding on to him, and the three of them walked away from the car and stood on the windy hill. There were more hills to the east and south, the town far distant to the north, with the grain elevators white above the green of the mass of trees, and elsewhere all the flat open space.

  I wanted to tell you what I decided, Dad said. What I was thinking about. I’m going to ask you to bury something up here.

  Bury what, honey?

  It doesn’t matter what it is. My cap or something. An old pair of my shoes. These eyeglasses here in my pocket if you want.

  Why this place here? We’ve never come up here before.

  I have. You can see this whole country from this place. I brought you both up here today to look with me.

  All right, honey, we can bring something up here. I don’t have any idea what it’ll be.

  They stood taking it all in, the wind blowing steadily, but it was still hot at noon.

  It was only a simple little goddamn thing, Dad said. That’s all it was.

  What was, honey?

  Me crying in town back there at the store. That’s what set me off. It was my life I was watching there. That little bit of commerce between me and another fellow on a summer morning at the front counter. Exchanging a few words. Just that. And it wasn’t nothing at all.

  No, that’s not right, it wasn’t either nothing, Mary said. It was everything.

  Well. It made me cry anyway, seeing it this morning. I cried like a baby.

  Daddy, it’s all right, Lorraine said.

  I don’t know, he said. I couldn’t seem to help it.

  She and Mary took his arms, standing in the wind, looking at the country. Then they returned to the car.

  They were halfway back to town when Dad said, Darwin Purdy.

  What’s that, dear?

  That fellow we saw coming out of the store. If I had a name like that I’d change it to Bill Jones or Bud Smith. He’s a pretty decent fellow, though.

  What about changing it to Dad Lewis? Lorraine said.

  He smiled. No ma’am, he said. I wouldn’t go so far as that.

  Why not?

  Look what become of him. Old man crying on Main Street, driving around out in the country making a nuisance of himself.

  20

  OH, I’VE BEEN TALKING TO Richard at night sometimes, Mom, after you and Daddy are in bed.

  I didn’t know you still had any feelings for him. I thought you weren’t that sure of him.

  I’m not. But there’s nobody else right now.

  All right. I just don’t want you to be hurt anymore.

  Haven’t you been hurt yourself, Mom?

  Of course, but almost all of my life here with Dad has been good.

  You’re lucky. Not many have had what you’ve had. Or we don’t recognize it. Most of us just settle for some imitation of it so we don’t have to live alone.

  But I won’t have him tire out your father.

  I know.

  He can come but he can’t stay long.

  He just wants to come in and say a few words.

  Why does he?

  He wants to see Daddy before he’s gone.

  They never cared for each other before.

  It’s how people are when somebody’s dying. They want to forget the past. Forgive things.

  Just so he doesn’t upset him.

  Richard drove out from Denver late in the afternoon and got out of his car and stretched and looked at the old white two-story house and came up to the door and Lorraine let him in. He kissed her. You taste good, he said. Is he sitting up?

  No, he’s in the bedroom.

  Mary came out to the front room. He opened his arms to hug her but instead she only shook his hand. Now we need to be quiet. I don’t want him disturbed.

  How is he today?

  He got up for a couple of hours this morning. He sat out here and slept and ate a little lunch and then went back to bed. He came out again for a short time this afternoon. He just now went back. I’ll see if he’s still awake.

  While she was gone Richard kissed Lorraine again. That’s enough, she said. Save it for tonight.

  Mary returned and led them to the bedroom where Dad was lying propped up on a pillow. The window shade was pulled down and the room was dim and shadowy. Richard went over to the bed and sat down on a chair. How are you doing, Mr. Lewis? Dad looked at him. Do you remember me?

  Yeah. I know who you are.

  I’m sorry you’re feeling so bad.

  I’m not feeling bad. I’m dying.

  Yes sir. That’s what I meant. I’m very sorry.

  Dad looked at the bar of light below the brown window shade and tu
rned back. What do you want here?

  Richard looked at Lorraine and her mother, standing near the door. I came to say good-bye to you. I wanted to get here before it was too late.

  Good-bye, then.

  Yes sir. I won’t stay long.

  Dad stared at his face, then shifted his eyes to Lorraine.

  You don’t need to worry, Mr. Lewis. I’ll take care of her.

  That’s no comfort, Dad said.

  Pardon?

  I can’t see why you’d think that would be good news to me. I never thought you was good enough for her.

  Well. Hell. Goddamn. I’m sorry you think that way.

  I’m sorry too, Dad said. I’m sorry I got to.

  Richard stood up. I’ll at least hope you’re in no pain. I’m going to hope that much.

  Not that kind I’m not, Dad said.

  Richard nodded his head at this and looked once more at Lorraine and Mary and went out of the room.

  Oh, Daddy, Lorraine said. What are you doing?

  I’m too far down the road to soften my words now.

  But still, Daddy. She came to the bed and kissed him and when she went out to find Richard her mother sat on the chair he’d been using.

  Don’t start lecturing me, Dad said.

  I won’t. I feel the same way.

  Do you?

  Only I wouldn’t say it the way you did.

  I felt like it, he said. What reason have I got to hold back now?

  Well, you didn’t.

  Out in the living room Richard was standing at the window.

  Do you want to go out, Lorraine said, and get something to eat? Then I’ll meet you at the Chute after a while.

  If you think I’m good enough for you.

  I don’t know if you are or not, she said.

  At nine thirty when she got to the Chute Bar and Grill she saw that his car was there in the parking lot. She stood outside and smoked a cigarette as cars went by on the highway, pickups, loaded grain trucks. It was a warm summer night with only a hint of breeze.

  She went inside and stood at the door, looking for him. It was cool in the air-conditioning and the jukebox was playing. Three men sitting at the bar turned to look at her at the same time as though they were linked together, one of them said something but she didn’t hear it and didn’t care. A few other people were at the bar, and a man and woman were sitting in one of the booths against the wall. From the doorway of the next room she saw that he was sitting alone in a booth, he had on a pearl snap shirt now and black jeans, and he was watching two women across the room playing shuffleboard at the long table with an electronic scoreboard nailed to the wall above it. The women looked to be having a good time, laughing and talking too loud, then one of them spilled the can of sawdust out on the floor and that seemed funny to them. They bent over to scoop it up.