Kent Haruf - Benediction

Thank you, Lorraine whispered.

Afterward they talked quietly and watched Dad and looked out the window to the hot summer day, to the flatland beyond the house.

Would you be willing to tell us about your life? Lyle said. This would be a good time to talk.

Oh, nobody wants to hear that, Mary said.

Yes, we do. Of course we do.

She looked at him and then looked at her old husband lying in the bed with the sheet and blanket spread over him.

We met on the corner of Second and Main Street in the summer of 1947 right here in Holt. I was coming out of a store and Dad was crossing the street.

What store was it, Mom? Was it the Tavern?

Don’t be funny, Mary said. It was the department store. I was standing in front of Schulte’s on the corner trying to think about something.

What were you thinking about?

I was deciding if I had got everything I needed. I was sewing something. And Dad was walking toward me. I was thinking about my sewing and I stepped off the curb and walked right into him. I almost fell down but he reached and caught me. He helped me back up onto the curb. I was embarrassed. Oh excuse me, I said. Please. I wasn’t watching. And he said, I was coming toward you anyways, miss. You didn’t have to fall for me.

They looked at Dad in the bed, trying to see him as a young man. They looked at his back and the shape of his sharp hip and puny legs under the blanket.

That was his little joke. I suppose it doesn’t sound very funny anymore. But I did fall for him. That’s the whole truth. I did with my whole heart. And that’s how and when I fell.

Then what, Mom?

Oh, you’ve heard all this before.

I want to hear it again. We all do.

Well, then we went to the pharmacy. Brown’s Drugstore. They had some little round drugstore tables to sit down at, at the back. We drank soda drinks and got acquainted. Then he asked me out that weekend to a picture show and six months later we got married and two years after that you came along and in three more years we had your brother.

Lyle and Berta May looked at Lorraine now and looked again at Dad, breathing so slow and hard.

What were you wearing? Lorraine said.

What was I wearing when?

When you met Daddy at the corner on Main.

Well, it was in the summer. I’m sure I was wearing a dress. We only wore dresses back then, didn’t we, Berta May.

Stockings too if we was leaving the house, she said.

What was Dad wearing? Lyle said.

Mary looked at Dad. I suppose he was wearing pants.

They laughed, but quietly.

I mean trousers. He wasn’t wearing overalls, like a lot of men did. And he had on a light blue long-sleeved shirt with stripes in it. He was already working at the hardware store. His sleeves were rolled up on his arms. Oh, I can still see him.

Did he own the store then? Lyle said.

Oh no. He was only a skinny young single man then. He had been in the army. But the war ended while he was still in training. He never got sent overseas. He felt bad about that. I didn’t. Who knows what might have happened to him.

They left Dad to himself for a while, he seemed to be making some private effort that he had to make, and they went out to the living room where Mary brought them each a cup of coffee. They sat down on the couch and Mary sat in the rocking chair, leaving Dad’s chair by the window empty.

You all just please help yourselves if you want more coffee, Mary said. She sipped at her cup. She looked at Lyle. I don’t think we ever asked you. I guess we just assumed. So I want to ask you now.

Yes? he said.

We’d like you to do the service for Dad, for all of us. At the church.

Lorraine and Berta May looked at her, then at him.

Yes. I’d be honored to do that, he said. But I doubt they’d allow me to perform any kind of service in the church now. I’m not sure I’d want to anyway. We’re going separate ways.

But you still live in the parsonage, Mary said. They’ve allowed that.

They’ve agreed to let me stay two months. So it’s not a clean break. Is that what you mean?

I don’t know what I mean, she said.

Could you perform the service somewhere else? Lorraine said.

Maybe. But it depends. The other churches in Holt wouldn’t want to interfere by hosting it in one of their sanctuaries.

What about the yard here at the house? Lorraine said. We could borrow chairs from somebody, or rent them from George Hill maybe, and have the memorial right here in the shade in the side yard. That might even be better.

Yes, I’ve done services outdoors many times.

What do you think, Mom? It’s up to you.

Well, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it before. I know Dad sure looked out that window for hours on end. I never understood what he was looking at, but it seemed to give him a lot of pleasure. Yes, it might be just right to have his memorial in the very place he spent so much time looking at.

Could we still do a graveside service at the cemetery afterward? Lorraine said.

Yes, Lyle said. I’m sure we could do that too. That wouldn’t involve any of the churches.

It’s a public cemetery, Berta May said. We pay taxes for its upkeep. Nobody would stop us.

We’ll take care of all the practical details, Lorraine said. If that’s what you decide to do.

Yes, Lyle said. I think so.

Thank you, Mary said. Thank you all.

In the evening Dad woke once and looked around and asked for water. Only Mary and Lorraine were sitting with him now in the bedroom. He stared at Mary for a long time while she held his hand. He stared over at Lorraine, then he pulled his hand back under the blanket and fell into his restless sleep again.

Later that evening, Mary said, I have to go to bed. I can’t sit up any longer.

Do you want me to stay with Dad? You could have my room.

No. I want to be here with him.

You’re not afraid?

Why no. This is my husband. I’ve been with this man most of my life. Over half a century. I know him better than I know anybody else in the world.

But you’re not afraid to be here now.

No, honey. There’s nothing here to scare me. I might be afraid about the future, but not of this man in this room here.

Mom, I’ll be here to help in the future.

I know, dear. Now you should go to bed too.

After Lorraine went upstairs Mary lifted the blanket and slid in beside Dad. He was lying on his back now. She patted his hand under the blanket and rose up to kiss him.

I’m right here. I’m not going anyplace, she whispered. You do what you have to do. Did you hear us talking about you? I hope you didn’t mind.

She kissed him again on his cracked mouth and lay back beside him and lay still, peering up into the dark room where the barn light was forming dim shapes and shadows and strange figures, and suddenly she began to weep.

Later in the night she woke abruptly and switched on the bedside lamp and looked at him and felt his head, he was still breathing the same slow irregular breath. She got up and went to the bathroom and went out to the kitchen, looking out into the backyard and the corral and barn and stood staring at the darkness, and then drank a glass of water and came back and checked Dad again and got in beside him and took his hand again. When she woke in the morning he was still alive.

He lived through all of that day. He’d stop breathing for a while, then begin again with a gasp, coughing, trying feebly to clear his throat. They moistened the inside of his mouth with a swab and spread balm on his lips. He lay facing the door or the wall, or lay stretched on his back, his face gray and faded, strained-looking, and his eyes under the thin eyelids were fixed now, not moving.

They sat with him beside the bed talking softly and touching him now and then, holding his icy hands, and whispered to him, telling him their feelings for him. They cried every so often, then one would stay with him while the other went out.