Benediction (2 page)

I know.… We better call Lorraine pretty soon, he said.

I’ll call her.

Tell her she doesn’t have to come home yet. Give her some time.

He looked at the beer bottle and held it in front of him and took a small drink.

I might get me some kind of better grade of beer before I go. A guy I was talking
to said something about Belgian beer. Maybe I’ll try some of that. If I can get it
around here.

He sat and drank the beer and held his wife’s hand sitting out on the front porch.
So the truth was he was dying. That’s what they were saying. He would be dead before
the end of summer. By the beginning of September the dirt would be piled over what
was left of him out at the cemetery three miles east of town. Someone would cut his
name into the face of a tombstone and it would be as if he never was.

N
INE O
’
CLOCK
in the morning, he was sitting in his chair beside the window in the living room
looking out at the side yard at the dark shade under the tree and at the wrought iron
fence beyond the tree. He’d eaten his breakfast. He hadn’t been hungry but he’d eaten
it and he was thinking he wasn’t going to eat anything anymore he didn’t want to eat,
and he was thinking how he wasn’t going to paint the iron fence again in this life,
and then Mary came in the room.

She was carrying a watering can. She had washed and dried the breakfast dishes and
put them away in the cupboard and had gone out back to set the sprinkler going on
the lawn, and now she had come inside to water the houseplants. It was a clear hot
day. Not a cloud anywhere. But crossing the room she all of a sudden went down on
the floor like a little loose pile of collapsed clothes. She threw the water can away
from her as she fell. The water splashed up on the rose wallpaper and there was a
stain growing on the wall.

Darlin, Dad said. You all right? What’s going on?

She didn’t move, didn’t answer.

Mary. Goddamn it. What’s going on here?

He stood and bent over her. Her eyes were shut and her face was sweating and very
red. But she was breathing.

Mary. Sweetheart.

He got down on his knees beside her and felt her head. She felt hot. He pulled her
toward him and slid his arms under her, propping her up against the couch. Can you
hear me? I got to call somebody. I’ll be right back. She made no sign. Is that all
right with you if I leave a
minute? I’m coming right back. He hurried out to the kitchen and called the emergency
number at the hospital. Then he returned and got down on the floor again and held
her and talked to her softly and kissed her cheek and brushed back her damp white
hair and patted her arm and waited. After a little while he heard the siren outside
and then it stopped and people came up on the front porch and knocked.

Come in here, Dad called. Christ Almighty. What are you knocking for? Come on in here.

They entered the house, two men in white shirts and black pants, and looked at Dad
and his wife on the floor and knelt down and began to attend to her. What happened?

She fainted out. She was walking across the room. Then she just went down on the floor.

The younger of the men stood up and went out to the ambulance and brought back a gurney.

Can you move back, please? he said.

What’s that? Dad said. What are you saying?

Sir, you’ll need to move back so we can take care of her. Are you all right yourself?
You don’t look too good.

Yeah, I’m all right. Do what you got to do, and hurry.

They lifted the old white-haired woman onto the wheeled cart and buckled the straps
across her chest and legs. Dad got up from the floor and stood watching. He put his
hand on her.

You won’t let nothing happen to her, he said.

No sir. We’ll do our best.

That’s not what I’m saying. Your best might not be good enough. This is my wife here.
This lady means everything to me in the world.

I hear you. But—

No. I won’t have no objections on this. You do what I say. Now go on. He bent over
close to her face and patted her cheek and kissed her.

The two men wheeled her out to the ambulance. Almost immediately he heard the siren
start up again in front of the house, then the diminishing sound of it retreating
up the street.

S
HE STAYED
in the Holt County Memorial Hospital at the south end of Main Street for most of
three days. They could find nothing wrong with her except that she was old and she
was working too hard and she had exhausted herself by taking care of her husband by
herself.

By nightfall of that first day she was a little better. But at the hospital they said
she still needed her bed rest. The nurse said, Don’t you have somebody that would
come in and help you?

I don’t know, she said. Maybe. But I’m worried about my husband. He’s all alone.

Your husband told them he was all right there in the house.

Told who?

The men who brought you in the ambulance. They asked him and apparently he said he
was all right.

Well he isn’t all right. He wouldn’t let on how he really is. Not ever to strangers.

They said he seemed like he could be a little bit hard to get along with.

No, he isn’t. He just gets set in his ways about things. He doesn’t mean anything
bad by it. But he’s not well at all. He’s alone in that house without me.

Isn’t there a neighbor or somebody?

Maybe there is. She looked across the room. Would you bring me that phone?

You want to call a neighbor? It’s kind of late, Mrs. Lewis.

I want to talk to Dad. I want to speak to my husband.

But you shouldn’t be talking to anyone on any phone right now. You’re not supposed
to be upsetting yourself.

Would you bring it to me, she said. I want to make a private call, please.

The nurse looked at her and then brought the telephone and set it on the bedside stand
and went out. It took a long time for him to answer.

Yeah. This is Dad Lewis. His voice sounded rough and old.

Honey, are you doing okay?

Is that you?

Yes. It’s me. Are you doing okay?

You’re supposed to be asleep. I thought you’d be resting.

I wanted to see how you are.

Did they say I called this morning and another time this afternoon?

No. They didn’t tell me that.

Yeah. Well. I did.

What did they tell you about me? she said.

They said you need to rest. You need to take it easy and get your strength up.

I’m all tired out, honey, she said. When I got here and woke up I was all wet with
sweat.

You were wet when they come for you. You don’t remember that.

No.

But will you be all right, do they say?

I don’t have any pep. That’s all.

Outside the room people were talking in the hallway, and the nurse had come back in
to check on her.

She’s telling me I got to get off the phone now. Did you get some supper, honey?

Yeah. I had something.

What did you have?

I heated up some soup. But you need to take care of yourself, Dad said. Will you do
that?

Good night, honey, she said.

They still always slept together as they had since the first night so long ago, in
the old soft double bed in the downstairs bedroom, even though he was sick and dying
now and moved restlessly in the bed in the night. She insisted on being there close
beside him, she wouldn’t have it otherwise. Now in the night it was unfamiliar and
lonely, and he was desolate without her. At three o’clock he woke and went to the
bathroom and came back to bed and lay awake thinking for a long time, until the room
began to get a little gray and he could make out the brass handles on the dresser
drawers and the mirror on the door to the closet.

In the middle of the morning the old neighbor woman came over and knocked on the front
door and then cracked it open without waiting. Hello? Dad, are you here?

Who is it?

It’s Berta May from next door.

Yeah. All right.

Can I come in?

Come ahead.

She came in with a young girl behind her and they stood in the living room looking
at him. He was in sweatpants and an old flannel shirt.

Mary called, Berta May said. She said you was alone here by yourself.

Well I don’t know what she did that for.

Well she was worried about you.

Yeah, but I’m okay.

Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t.

Dad looked at her and looked at the girl. You going to sit down? I’m not going to
stand up.

No. I come over to see if I could help. To see if you needed something.

I don’t.

You’re sure of that.

I’m doing all right. Who’s this here you got with you? he said.

This is Alice, my granddaughter. Haven’t you met her before?

I see her out in the yard over there across the fence.

She’s living with me now. Say hello to Dad Lewis, honey.

The girl was eight years old, a thin brown-haired girl in blue denim shorts and a
white T-shirt.

Hello, she said.

Hello back to you, Dad told her.

Berta May said, You don’t mind me looking out in the kitchen to see if anything needs
to be done, do you.

It’s okay out there. It’s just not tidy.

Well, I’ll just take a look. She went out. The girl remained, looking around the room
and then at Dad Lewis in his chair.

Why do they call you that? she said.

What?

Dad.

Because I got a daughter like you. People started calling me that when she was born.
A long time ago.

I don’t have a dad. I don’t even know where he is. I don’t ever see him.

I’m sorry to hear that.

Are you sick or something? she said.

You could say so. I got this cancer eating me up.

She studied him for a moment. Is it in your breast? That’s where my mother had hers.

I got it all over me.

Are you going to die?

Yeah. That’s what they tell me.

She looked out the window. You can see Grandma’s house from here. You can see the
backyard.

That’s where I saw you. I noticed you yesterday back there, Dad said.

What was I doing?

I don’t know. I couldn’t tell what you were doing.

Was I down on the grass?

Yes. I believe you were.

Then I was working.

What kind of work?

Digging dandelions. Grandma pays me for every one. She’s got a lot of them.

Why don’t you come over here and dig some.

How much would you pay?

The same as your grandmother.

I don’t know, she said. I better go see if she needs any help.

The neighbor woman Berta May washed up the dishes and swept the kitchen and afterward
she and her granddaughter went back home and at noon she sent the girl over with a
tray covered with a white dish towel. Alice came in and said, Where do you want me
to put this?

What have you got?

Grandma made you some lunch. The girl set the tray on a chair and removed the dish
towel. There were potato chips and a ham sandwich and a little hill of cottage cheese
on a paper plate and a piece of cake wrapped in wax paper. Grandma said you could
drink water or make your own coffee.

You want some of it? I’m not hungry.

Grandma’s waiting for me to eat with her.

Tell her I appreciate this. Will you do that?

The girl went out, and through the window he could see her going along the fence and
on into the yellow house.

Late in the afternoon of the third day, without any warning Mary came through the
gate out front and up on the porch and into the house. In the living room Dad was
sitting in his chair by the window reading the
Holt Mercury
newspaper. He looked up and she was just standing there.

Well, what in the hell. What are you doing here?

They let me out, she said.

I didn’t hear any car out front. How’d you get here?

I walked.

What do you mean you walked?

I walked home.

You walked home from the hospital.

They couldn’t bring me right away. They were out on some other call, I guess. And
I didn’t think we had to have the expense of that anyhow. It’s going to cost too much
as it is. They told me I had to wait but I didn’t want to. I wanted to get home.

Well, Jesus Christ, Dad said. You were in there because you got too worn out and now
you walk home in the hot afternoon clear across town.

It’s not so hot out right now, she said.

What’s wrong with those people, letting you go like this.

They didn’t want to let me go. I just left. I wanted to make you some good supper.

He was staring at her. Well, by God, he said. If you keep this up, I’m going to die
right now and not put it off any longer, just to keep you from doing this again.

She came across the room and stood in front of him, small and straight and old, and
spoke slowly, directly. Don’t you say that to me. Don’t you say such a evil thing.
Don’t you ever say it again. You don’t have any right. Are you hearing me, Dad?