Kent Haruf - Benediction

Yes, her.

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.

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.