Kent Haruf - Benediction

I saw the name on the mailbox, Lyle said. That’s how I found you. I thought it must be you.

Yes. We’ve been here a long time. My husband grew up on this ranch and then we lived here after we were married and then Alene came. After she went away to college and started teaching, it was just the two of us again until he died.

When did he die?

It’s been thirty years now, Willa said. I’ve been without my husband for thirty years. He had a heart attack out in the calf pen at night checking for new calves. I was the one who found him. I went out in my nightgown and overcoat with a flashlight and there he was on the ground with his eyes staring up.

I’m sorry. That must have been hard.

Yes, it was, she said softly. I’ve often wondered, is it better to have these years with someone you love and then have to remember and compare ever afterward and feel the lack of him. She glanced at Alene. Or never to have had that other person so you don’t have to keep remembering what it used to be.

I’d have to say it’s better to have loved that person, Lyle said.

Alene brought the sandwich to the table on one of the delicate old plates with the blue grapes painted on it and poured a bag of potato chips into a bowl and refilled Lyle’s iced tea glass.

Can I get you anything else?

No. But thank you very much.

She sat down next to him across from her mother. He began to eat. They watched him, he ate in big bites, they wouldn’t have guessed that he would. There had not been a man eating in their kitchen for a long time.

He ate half of his sandwich and began on the other. His face looked sore and swollen. I saw you at church, he said. Did anything happen after I left?

Yes, Willa said. You may not want to hear about it, though.

What was it?

Your wife got up and came down front, Alene said, and spoke to us.

What did she say?

She said she admired your principles, but she said you can’t eat principles.

He smiled. She’s right there.

Can we tell you what else she said? Willa said.

Of course.

I’m afraid she said she would have to leave now. Leave Holt, she meant.

I’m not surprised at that. She’s talked about it before.

She mentioned Denver and what happened there. Your son was very angry.

Did he say anything?

He shouted at us and ran out. I don’t blame him.

What will you do? Alene said.

He wiped his mouth on the napkin and looked out the window above the sink. I don’t know, he said. I think I’m done.

You don’t mean that, Willa said.

Yes. I’m finished as a minister. I haven’t done much good.

But people will get over this.

Probably they will. But I won’t. People don’t want to be disturbed. They want assurance. They don’t come to church on Sunday morning to think about new ideas or even the old important ones. They want to hear what they’ve been told before, with only some small variation on what they’ve been hearing all their lives, and then they want to go home and eat pot roast and say it was a good service and feel satisfied.

But you shouldn’t make up your mind yet, Willa said. I hope you won’t.

I think I already have, he said.

People make things unhappy, Alene said.

I would guess you know something about that.

A little, she said. All life is moving through some kind of unhappiness, isn’t it.

I don’t know. I didn’t used to think so.

But there’s some good too, Willa said. I insist on that.

There are brief moments, Alene said. This is one of them.

They looked at Lyle sitting quietly, his swollen face shining in the sun coming in the window.

I’ll have to meet with the assembly director and the ministerial relations board. They’ll want there to be some kind of a meeting about this, to make it all official.

THEY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW she was gone until half the morning had passed. Dad woke late and turned his head on the pillow and saw she was not in the bed, though that was not unusual, she often was up and dressed and out in the kitchen working by the time he woke. He called for her. Then he tried to push out of bed but was too weak and called again. Finally he couldn’t wait any longer. He wet the diaper he was wearing and he lay there wet and sopping under his pajamas, feeling angry and uncomfortable.

After a while Lorraine came in. Where’s Mom?

I don’t know. I been calling for her.

She’s nowhere in the house, Lorraine said. I can’t find her.

Is she over next door?

Maybe. Can I help you, Daddy?

I made a mess of things.

Did you?

I’m all wet down here on myself. Some of it might of come out. I got to get out of bed but I can’t without somebody helping me.

Will you let me change you and put some dry clothes on?

I want Mom here.

I know. But Mom isn’t here right now, Daddy.

Where is she?

I’ll have to find out. Let’s get you cleaned up first.

She helped him from the bed and he hobbled into the bathroom in his sagging pajamas and stood like a child at the hospital commode while she peeled off his pants and the diaper. She handed him a washcloth to clean himself and afterward she washed his skinny behind. He was shaking. Goose bumps appeared on his flanks and legs.

Do you want to sit down here for a while? she said. See if you can go some more?

Yeah. I better.

She went out, giving him his privacy, and looked out the front window to the street and came back and helped him put on a new diaper and clean sweatpants and a cardigan sweater. He came out of the bathroom shuffling, sliding his feet in his slippers, using his cane, and moved to his chair by the window.

The car isn’t here, Lorraine said. I just looked. She must have gone to the store.

She’s been gone too long for that. You want to ask Berta May if she knows where she is? You’ll have to go over there. She don’t answer the phone every time.

Next door Lorraine stood on the front porch and when Berta May came to the door they went inside the house and Berta May said she hadn’t seen her mother this morning. Then Alice came in and they asked her and she told them she was riding her bike when Mrs. Lewis came up in the car and said, Now you be careful out here. Are you watching for cars? And I said I was watching.

Then what?

Then she drove away.

Do you remember what she was wearing? Lorraine said.

She had a dress on.

You’re sure.

Yes. A blue one.

Back at home Lorraine began to look around more carefully and she found the note now that had blown off or fallen off under the little stand where the phone was located.

It was written in brief neat script, with no salutation and no closing, just the one line. I went to find Frank.

She had gotten up early from the bed when it was just turning light outside. Dad looked gray in the dim light, breathing slow and hard, his mouth belling out when he exhaled, making a rattling kind of noise. She removed her nightgown and pulled the dress off the hanger in the dark closet where she’d hung it the night before, and put it on and carried her shoes out to the kitchen, turning the light on there, and sat down on a kitchen chair to tie her shoes. She put bread in the toaster and started coffee, then went back into the bathroom to wash her face and apply a little lipstick to her mouth, watching herself in the mirror, her deeply wrinkled face, and brushed her thick short white hair. When she went back to the kitchen, the coffee was ready and she filled a thermos and spread butter on the toast, put it in a plastic bag, and took the thermos and her purse and went silently out the front door into the beautiful cool Sunday morning.