Kent Haruf - Benediction

After a while Alice leaned over to whisper in Lorraine’s ear and Lorraine said, It’s back through the kitchen, I think.

Is she wanting the bathroom? Willa said.

Yes.

Excuse me, Alice said.

She got up and went to the house. It was cool inside, the kitchen very clean and neat. There were starched curtains at the windows. The little bathroom was off the kitchen, it was clean and neat too, with a picture of a red flower framed on the wall. She washed her hands and looked out the kitchen window into the yard, they were still sitting at the picnic table. She looked through the doorway of the dining room, at the wood table and matching chairs and matching buffet, and farther back was the living room with the window shades drawn down for coolness.

When she went outside, Alene asked her, Are you okay, honey?

Yes.

Did you get enough to eat? Do you want some more iced tea?

Okay.

Lorraine said, I’m so satisfied and full. I could nap right here.

Well, we could, Willa said. We could just lie right down on the grass here in the shade.

I’ll get some blankets, Mother.

Alene went in the house and came back with two old chenille bedspreads and laid them out on the lawn.

What about the food? We don’t want it to spoil.

I’ll just put it in the refrigerator, Lorraine said. Alice can help me.

They lay out on the ground in the shade of the tree, with dinner napkins draped over their faces, to ward off the flies. Alice shut her eyes. She could still see light through the napkin. It was nice under the tree with the women.

We need a little music, Willa said.

Something soft and slow, Alene said. Piano or violin.

Then no one said anything for a while. Alice lifted the napkin from her face and looked at them, the three women lying on the ground with the pink napkins over their faces. Then she lay back and shut her eyes.

I wanted to play the piano, Willa said. I’ve told you this before, Alene.

Yes.

We were speaking of music. I wanted to play the piano and my mother bought lessons for me when I was a little girl younger than Alice here. I walked once a week across the field and paid a quarter per lesson. I walked half a mile across a plowed field to the teacher. I could do the right hand but couldn’t seem to make the left hand play in time, and after a month or two the teacher said to Mother, She doesn’t seem to be making much progress. Doesn’t she practice? Mother said, I don’t believe she does. Then Mother told me, Willa, you either have to practice or give up your lessons. I went out to the barn and just cried. A quarter was a lot of money then, like a dollar is now. Oh, more than a dollar, much more. So I told Mama I’d stop, I wouldn’t waste any more money. I’ve criticized and rebuked myself a hundred times since. I do so like music. I used to dance too.

I never heard you talk about the dancing, Mother.

Yes. I did tap dance with shiny shoes.

Then no one said any more. After a while Alice heard Willa begin to snore and then the softer snoring of Alene and the breathing of Lorraine right beside her. She opened her eyes once more under the cloth, the warm daylight was there, and she shut her eyes.

When she woke she was surprised that she had been asleep. The women were sitting up, not talking, only looking out toward the barn, waiting for her to wake. It was very hot now in the afternoon, with only a little hot wind blowing.

We ought to go swimming, Lorraine said. I wish there was a creek out here.

I used to dunk my head in the stock tank on a hot day, Alene said.

The cattle are there now, Willa said.

They wouldn’t bother us.

It’s so dirty out there.

It’s not that bad.

We don’t have any bathing suits.

Oh damn the bathing suits, Mother.

They looked at each other and laughed.

All right then. But we do need towels.

I’ll get them.

And we can take out the lawn chairs, Willa said. I’m not sitting in the dirt. I don’t care what you say.

The three women and the girl walked out to the barn carrying the towels and the lawn chairs and the leftover wine and went in through the gate and crossed the hot empty corral, going out into the pasture through the far gate, and walked along the path worn by the cattle alongside the fence and stopped at the stock tank. There was a pad of concrete laid around it, with dirt and manure below it and mud on the low side of the tank where the tank overflowed, the mud pocked with the deep split hoofprints of cattle. The tank was brimming full. Behind it, the windmill ran water whenever the wind gusted up, the pump banged and clanked, the rod jerked up and down, then the cold fresh clean water spouted out through a long pipe.

They set the lawn chairs in a line back from the tank. Alice stepped up on the concrete apron and looked in and felt the cold water. On the bottom was a bed of mud and there were strings of green moss around the edges. She could see black tadpoles squirming away into the mud. She went back to the women.

Lorraine said, Well. Then she just proceeded to take her clothes off and laid them out on a chair. She was white as cream and full breasted with blue veins in her breasts with a swatch of dark hair below her stomach to match the dark hair on her head. They looked at her. She raised her arms. Oh God, what a beautiful day. She stepped toward the tank in the hot manurey dirt and stepped up onto the concrete and leaned over and cupped her hands in the water, her bare back and legs shining in the sun, and doused her face and hair and her breasts and gasped, Oh God! Dear Lord! She lifted one foot onto the rim of the tank and brushed her foot off and stepped over into the water, her body halved, all of her full-fleshed body in the bright sun, and then lowered herself into the water and cried, Goddamn! Oh Jesus! and lay out in the water and disappeared and came up all white and shining. Jesus! Jesus! Then she stood up and turned to them. Come on, all of you, she called. Get in.

Well then, said Alene.

And she took her clothes off too. She was pale and thin, a little bony, a little sallow, with small breasts and thin arms and thin thighs and graying hair below. She walked over to the tank and splashed herself and climbed in and squatted down and rose up streaming. Oh Jesus! God bless us! Oh come in, Mother. Alice, come on.

Alice removed her clothes then. She had a girl’s flat chest and flat stomach, the points of her backbone showed and her shoulder blades were sharp edged and she had no hair there yet, her legs were tanned up to her thighs from wearing shorts and her arms were tanned. She went to the stock tank and dipped her fingers in the water. Lorraine and Alene held out their hands to her and she stepped over into the cold water and caught her breath.

Honey, Lorraine said, go ahead and yell. You have to.

Oh Jesus, she said softly.

They laughed. Yes, Lorraine said. But yell this time. Yell.

Oh Jesus. Son of a bitch.

They laughed again. Where in the world did you learn that?

At school.

Well. That’s the way then. Let it out. Yell now.

She yelled a little bit.

That’s better.

Now they looked at Willa still outside the tank.

Mother, come on now. You must.

Oh. I don’t know.

Yes. Come on.

Well. Damnation. All right, then.

She took her glasses off and set them on a chair and removed her dress and removed her bra and her white old lady’s underwear, she was flat chested with soft pale flaps for breasts, the nipples pointing down, and had a sagging stomach and wide soft hips folded a little and loose thighs and almost no hair below her stomach, almost as unhaired in her old age as Alice was in her youth, and she came over and they held out their hands to her, and she sat sideways on the rim and swung her legs over. Mercy heavens! she cried. Mercy! She cupped water onto her face and chest. Lord! I’m an old woman and I’ve never been naked outdoors before. Look at me. Have you, Alene?