Benediction (26 page)

At the parsonage he called his wife and son into the kitchen and they sat at the table
looking at him. Is it over? she said.

I’ll tell you.

Then he told them: the board had made its decision tonight, he was being discharged
and they’d have to leave. But they had time to consider what to do, until the end
of summer. They could stay in the house in the meantime while they decided.

I’m going now, she said. I’ll leave tomorrow. I won’t wait. It was bad enough coming
to a place where they didn’t want you in the first place, but the shame of being dismissed … I
can imagine the glances and the whispers now. How people will act in the stores. I
won’t endure that.

It’s not shame, he said. That’s not what this is. It’s something different from that.
I don’t feel shame.

Well, don’t tell me about it, she said. I don’t want to hear it.

Mom, John Wesley said, I’m going with you.

Oh, you poor boy, she said. What a hard time for you. She lifted her hand to his face
but he pulled away.

I’m coming with you.

No. You can’t. Stay here with Dad. For a while longer. Just for a while. Wait till
I have a job and a place for us. We don’t even have a place to put our heads down
in Denver. You can come when I find something.

Yes, that’s better, Lyle said. Your mother needs time. Stay with me, son. He turned
again to his wife. You’re sure this is what you want to do? Or should you stay until
we figure out what we’re all going to do?

It’ll be a relief.

You don’t think about me, the boy said. He was close to tears. Neither one of you
does. You never do.

He stood up shoving the chair out of the way, it fell over backward, and he ran out
of the room.

Let him go, she said. He needs a chance to take this in.

They stayed in the kitchen talking and afterward she went upstairs and began to pack.

W
E HAVE TO GO
over there a last time, Berta May said. I want to tell him good-bye. I want you to
come with me.

Why?

Because he likes you so much.

He’s never told me.

He wouldn’t. But he does, I know that. It will be good for him to see a young person
again.

I don’t want to, Grandma. He scares me.

He’s just an old man. He might be in bed or he might be sitting up in his chair by
the window. It doesn’t matter. We’ll just stay a little while.

I don’t want to go back in his bedroom.

He won’t hurt you. Now don’t you make a fuss. Do you hear?

Yes.

All right. Now take the scissors out to the garden and cut some flowers so we can
take them to him.

She went out to the garden and cut a red zinnia, leaving the stem long with the leaves
on it, and brought it inside.

You only cut this one?

Yes.

How come?

I just wanted one. I thought he’d like it.

All right. Go wash your hands and brush your hair, then we’ll go.

Berta May telephoned next door. Is this a good time to come over for a minute to see
Dad?

Yes, Mary said. He’s sitting up if you’ll come now.

We’re on our way.

They went out across to the gate under the trees and up to the house and Mary let
them in. Dad was at the window in his pajamas, a blanket spread over his legs, looking
gray and thin. He stared at them when they entered the room and Berta May came over
and he slowly lifted his hand and she took it and held it and then she gestured for
Alice to come. The girl walked across the room, holding the flower in front of her,
and presented it to Dad. He looked at her and his mouth moved in a whisper. Thank
you. Mary took the flower and Dad said in the same whispery voice, Put it in a vase.

I will, honey.

And bring it back.

Yes.

Berta May patted his shoulder and turned and sat down on the couch, and Alice sat
with her, next to Lorraine who pulled her close and kissed her cheek. Mary came back
with the flower in a glass vase half-filled with water and put the flower on the windowsill
and Dad looked at it and turned to look at Berta May and Alice. Every time Alice looked
at Dad he was watching her. She couldn’t tell what he might mean by looking at her
in that way.

Mary, Dad whispered. Bring me my box from the bedroom.

Your cedar box?

Yes.

She stood up and left the room and the others sat looking out the window. Another
hot day, Lorraine said. You can see the way the tree leaves look so limp already.

We can be glad it cools off at night, said Berta May. I don’t know what we’d do otherwise.

Live with it, Lorraine said. Or get air-conditioning.

Mary came back with the red cedar box that had a lid that closed with a brass fastener.
She set it in Dad’s lap on top of the blanket. He tried to open it but his fingers
couldn’t manage the small lock. You do it, he said.

She lifted the lid and he looked across the room at Alice. Would you come back here?
he whispered.

Do you mean me?

Yes. If you would.

She looked up at her grandmother.

Go ahead, Berta May said. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

She came across the room and Mary put her arm around her and then sat down in her
chair.

Take something, Dad said.

What is it?

Look inside here. It’s just old things.

She moved closer and began to look at things and put them back. Arrowheads, snake
rattles, wartime tokens from the 1940s, a pocketknife, a ruby ring, a thick pocket
watch, old silver dollars, a little box of wood matches.

You see anything you want? he said.

But these are your things, she said.

I want to give you one.

You don’t care?

Whatever you want.

She picked a snake rattle.

That’s not much, he said. Take something more.

She held up one of the arrowheads.

He fumbled in the box and brought out two of the old smooth silver dollars and handed
them to her and shut the lid.

Then without warning he reached up to touch her face. She jerked away. He let his
hands fall and he looked at her, his eyes watery and staring.

What do you want to do? she said. I don’t know what you want.

I wanted to touch your face, he whispered. That’s all.

She looked at him. Go ahead, she said. She leaned over closer to him.

He raised both hands again and held her face in his old loose-skinned hands and shut
his eyes. She watched him, she could see his eyes
moving beneath his closed eyelids. His hands felt papery and cold on her face. Then
he released her. She looked at him. Thank you for these things, she said softly, and
turned and went to sit again with Berta May and Lorraine and showed them what she
had. Dad stared out the window. Soon he was asleep.

When they got up to leave, Berta May said, Don’t wake him. We’ll just slip out.

Thank you for coming, Mary said. I know he wanted to see you once more.

That afternoon when Lorraine came in to his bedroom he was asleep under the sheet
in the new pajamas they had bought in the department store on Main Street. His mouth
was open, his closed eyelids fluttering, and his hands were rested over his chest.
She thought at first that he had died and she came to the bed and bent over his face,
then she could feel the faint air he blew out and could smell his sour breath.

She sat down in the chair next to the bed. The window was open overlooking the backyard,
the brown shade was pulled down to keep the sun out. It was dim in the room and the
air was warm but not hot.

Dad woke and opened his eyes. He stared at Lorraine and she smiled at him. He lifted
his hand toward her and she held it, looking into his eyes.

Hello, Daddy, she said.

Yes. Hello. He spoke very quietly, slowly.

Daddy, when you were touching Alice’s face, what were you thinking?

That was this morning.

Yes.

I just wanted to touch a girl’s soft face again.

Did you touch mine like that when I was little?

He stared at her for a long time. I don’t think so.

Why didn’t you?

I was too busy. I wasn’t paying attention.

No, she said. You weren’t. She lifted his hand to her cheek now.

Forgive me, he whispered. I missed a lot of things. I could of done better. I always
loved you.

You never told me that when I was her age.

Can you forgive that too?

Yes, Daddy.

I want to tell you now, he said.

She watched him, his watery eyes staring at her.

I loved you, he whispered. I always did. I approved of you completely. I do today.

She kissed his hand and put it back on his chest and leaned far over and kissed him
on his cracked lips.

Thank you, Daddy. I feel the same way. I hope you know that.

He shut his eyes, the tears squeezed out onto his cheeks. She stayed next to him,
not talking anymore, and when he went to sleep again she went out and climbed the
stairs to her room on the second floor and lay down in the bed in the hot afternoon
while the wind blew the curtains in and out at the window.

A
T THE PARSONAGE
John Wesley used most of that same long hot summer afternoon to clear everything
from his computer. Then as the day stretched toward the end, when the sun had moved
far westward, he came out of the bedroom and walked down the hall to his parents’
room at the front of the house and looked in the drawers in the walnut bureau that
had belonged to his mother, but she had taken all her clothes and makeup with her
to Denver. He drew the curtain back from the window and looked out at the corner of
the street and into the high branches of the trees. The late-afternoon light in the
street had a slanted look. He walked back down the hall and searched the upstairs
bathroom in the cabinets and chests, but there was none of her mascara or lipstick
on the shelves or in the drawers.

Downstairs in the kitchen he took out the box of wood matches from the junk drawer
together with a flat dish from the cupboard and carried them into the bathroom. He
struck a match and smeared the charcoal end on his fingers, it made a black stain.
He lighted a dozen more matches and set them in the dish. Then he began to blacken
his face. When he was finished he stood looking at himself in the cabinet mirror,
all his face was dark now, and he shut the light off and dumped the match ends in
the trash can and rinsed the dish and put it away and drank a glass of water at the
sink and went out the door to the garage.

There was a long narrow driveway running alongside the house to the garage. Grass
had grown up in the gravel. In the garage he pulled the overhead door shut and locked
it and locked the side door. Light filtered in from the small windows at the sides.

From the rear of the garage he brought out an old wood chair and set it in the middle
of the floor where the fine dirt was black and shiny with oil leaks from the car.
Then he brought out the wood box from under the workbench. On the bench were a steel
vise and cans of nails and old hammers and wrenches all coated with oily dust. He
set the box on the chair.

After that he got out the cotton rope he’d bought at the hardware store on Main Street
and hidden in the corner by the workbench.

Then he stood next to the chair and threw one end of the rope over a rafter, making
the fine dust from all the years sift down and hang in the air, and tied a knot in
the rope and pulled it tight. He leaned against the rope to test if it would hold.

Then he walked over to the window and looked out at the backyard where his father
had started a garden. He looked past the yard to the neighbors’. Through the trees
he could see the town water tower, with Holt spelled out in red, at night it was always
lit up but he wouldn’t see that anymore, and he crossed to the other side and looked
out west across the street. Nobody there. Nothing happening.

He came back and climbed up on the box and immediately he lost his balance and had
to step off. The box tumbled down. He brushed the dirt off and set it back on the
chair and stood up on it slowly, carefully, leaning and tottering, then stood still.
He reached around behind and brought the rope over his shoulder so that it hung in
front of him. He held it for a moment, looking at it. Then he tied a slipknot and
fit the loop over his head and drew it tight around his neck, with the knot at the
back of his head just under the bulge of the skull, and let the loose end fall behind
him. Then he lowered his hands and arms to his sides.

For a long time, for maybe twenty minutes, he stood without moving. He turned once
and looked out the window at the day and all the nearby world. The light was lower
now. In the garage it was darker than it was outside.

Out on the high plains the sun went down and disappeared beyond the low flat horizon.
The boy still stood on the box with the rope around his neck.

He hadn’t been able to make himself kick the box out from under his feet. Then he
discovered that he couldn’t untie the knot behind his head without moving the box.
If he moved at all the box tipped. He began to cry, without daring to move, as the
room darkened. The tears left runnels in the charcoal on his face. He watched afraid,
as the light seeped out of the room. He couldn’t hear anything outside.