Are you all comfortable now?
I’ll take that pill, please.
She put the pill on his old parched tongue and gave him the water glass. He raised
his head to swallow.
Okay?
Yeah. He closed his eyes.
Can I get you anything else?
No, thanks. You do too much already.
I don’t mind at all. You know that. Would you like me to sit here with you?
No. I’m all right now.
When he woke an hour later the room seemed too dark. He hadn’t slept so long, it wasn’t
the end of day, night wasn’t coming on yet. He peered at the ceiling. Then he felt
there were people in the room. He had visitors. But she hadn’t wakened him. It wasn’t
like her letting
people come in when he was asleep. He didn’t like anyone seeing him asleep unless
it was his wife or his daughter, and he didn’t want even them to sit and wait for
him to wake up.
He looked around. There were four of them, two sitting on chairs in the corner where
the room was darker, and two more in chairs near him. The closest one was sitting
straight up, a man. He was watching him. He was smoking a cigarette.
You shouldn’t be smoking no cigarettes in here, Dad said. Didn’t she tell you that?
I got cancer of my lungs. I can’t breathe good.
I’m almost done with it.
Dad looked at him closely. I know you, he said.
You ought to. I haven’t changed that much.
Frank. Is that you, Frank?
Yeah, it’s me.
You lost your hair on top. Most of it. I didn’t recognize you.
Isn’t that the berries?
Yeah, I guess. But what do you mean?
I end up looking like you.
You don’t look like me.
Yeah. I do. Have you looked lately?
Well. If you mean you look like I used to. Not now. Maybe back then.
When you were in your fifties.
I guess so.
Well. That’s where I am. I’m in my fifties.
Dad looked at him sitting there, smoking. I know you now. I’m glad you come.
Are you? Why would you be?
I want to talk to you.
Go ahead. Talk.
Dad looked around at the others. I don’t like to talk in front of these other people
here.
They won’t mind.
Who are they?
Don’t you know me? The woman in the chair behind Frank moved so he could see her.
A blond woman about thirty, ripe-looking with a big chest, wearing a low-cut blouse
and shorts. Her legs looked white and plump. Don’t you know my voice too?
I never thought I’d see you again, Dad said.
Here I am. I came to visit you.
Do you want something?
Maybe I do.
What is it? I thought you told me you never wanted to see me again. That it was enough.
You wrote that letter.
I know. That’s what I’m talking about. I want to catch you up. Tell you all that’s
happened.
That’s fine. Go ahead. But just a minute. Who’s these others here?
You know us too, Dad. Hell, you ought to recognize us.
Is that you, Rudy?
Nobody else.
And Bob?
Yeah. It’s me, Dad.
I don’t understand this. Aren’t we done with the store?
Yeah. About done.
He peered at them. Then he studied the other faces, one after the other. Well, do
you want some coffee, all of you? He looked toward the open doorway.
No, Rudy said. We wouldn’t want to bother Mary.
I never got to meet her, Tanya said.
Didn’t you?
I used to see her in town on Main Street when we was still living here before we moved
away. Before you made us get out of here. Before you told Clayton what you told him.
What was I supposed to do? Dad said. He stole from me.
You say. There might of been different ways though.
What ways?
You might of let him work it off. Pay down his debt that way.
I didn’t want that, Dad said. I couldn’t have him in the store. I never wanted to
see him again.
Yeah. Clayton told me that’s what you said.
Dad looked at each of them again. You don’t want any coffee, Rudy?
No, sir. I’m okay. Doing fine.
You neither, Bob?
No, thanks.
I don’t know if you even drink coffee, Frank.
Don’t you remember?
No. Should I?
You would have, if you were paying attention.
What does that mean? Dad said.
I drank coffee all the time when I was still here. When I was going to high school.
You don’t remember that, do you.
No. That’s just a little thing. Why would I think of something like that?
No reason. You’re right, it doesn’t amount to anything if I was drinking coffee and
sitting at the same table with you every day, you and Mom, for however many years
I was doing it before I left and went to Denver.
We come to see you in Denver, Dad said.
And stayed one hour. That was all.
We had to get home. It was wintertime. They said it was going to snow.
It didn’t snow, Frank said.
It was going to.
They were still with him when Dad woke once more in the darkened bedroom.
Does your mother know you’re here? he said.
Mom?
Did you see her? Did you tell her you were here, that you come in? She would want
to see you. He didn’t answer. Dad looked out through the window toward the barn and
empty corral, the tall weeds growing up.
Never mind Mom for now. We’ll get to Mom.
What are you talking about? Dad said.
You don’t understand, do you.
You ought to have more respect, Tanya said. He’s your father. You shouldn’t treat
him like that.
I have respect for him. For some aspects of him.
You don’t show it. He’s going to be gone anytime now and then you’ll wish you’d of
done him different.
Like you and Clayton, you mean, he said.
Clayton don’t have nothing to do with this.
He’s why you’re here, isn’t he?
Not like you’re talking about. I loved Clayton.
Okay. Good, said Frank. You loved him.
I loved that man and then he goes to Denver and shoots himself in the head. How would
you like that?
It seems like as good a way as any, Frank said.
But how would you like to have to look at that thing there, to say that’s him. That
thing used to be my husband and now I got two little kids that don’t have no daddy
no more.
It’s tough shit, isn’t it, Frank said. It’s life. Maybe they were better off without
him.
She looked at him. Oh, you got hard, she said. Didn’t you.
I had to.
They turned toward Dad lying propped up in bed watching them talk. Gray and yellow-looking,
with parchment skin, sunken eyes, hair shoved up awry on the sides of his head.
That’s life, isn’t it, Dad. Isn’t that what you would say?
I don’t know.
You would if you were thinking right.
I’m thinking okay.
It’s life, Frank said. It’s the way it goes, it’s how shit happens. I used to want
you to do something.
What are you talking about now? Dad said.
Do something. Show something to me.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I waited for you for years and nothing happened. You never did anything, did you.
I did things, Dad said. I did a lot of things.
Not like what I’m talking about. You didn’t.
Dad stared at him. After a while he glanced toward the window again.
It’s tough shit, isn’t it, Frank said. It’s just life.
I helped her. This woman here. I did things for her, Dad said.
He give me some money, Tanya said. He did.
For quite a long time too, Dad said.
After you killed her husband, Frank said.
What are you talking about? I didn’t kill him. You just heard her say he shot himself.
How come, though? Who caused that to happen?
You can’t blame that on me.
I don’t have to. You blame yourself.
Dad peered over into the corner. The two familiar figures, one tall, one short, were
still sitting there, listening to everything, picking at their big hands. I treated
you all right anyway. Isn’t that true? Dad said.
I was going to be manager, Rudy said.
You still are.
No. She is. Your daughter is.
Someday you will be.
Which one of us?
I don’t know. That comes later, after I’m out of this.
Who’s going to decide that?
That ain’t for me to say. I gave you each a bonus.
We appreciate that.
Ten thousand dollars, Dad said.
For twenty years.
But you acted like it was a good thing I did. I believed you.
We know.
He turned to Frank. Does your mother know you’re here? Did you tell her? I need some
water. I don’t see no water here. I need some water.
Honey, who are you talking to? Mary said.
He looked up and she was standing beside the bed now.
You were talking out loud. Were you dreaming, honey? Were you having a kind of dream-like?
Here’s your water. Your water’s right here. She gave him the glass and he took it
but didn’t drink.
They’re right here, he said.
There’s nobody here.
Frank is here.
Frank. You saw Frank?
He was here. I didn’t get to talk to him enough. I wanted to talk to him.
I wish he’d talk to me, she said.
Did he drink coffee? Dad said.
Who?
Frank. Did he drink coffee when he was still living here? When he was a boy?
Yes. Of course. He always drank coffee. Frank loved his coffee.
O
N THAT NEXT
S
UNDAY
there were only a few of the congregation waiting for him in the sanctuary to begin
the service. His wife was there and their son, sitting beside her, looking bored and
angry already, and the old man, the old usher, standing in the back with a handful
of bulletins to be distributed, and the Johnson women sitting where they always sat,
and a dozen or more others, mostly women, and the pianist at the piano down at the
front of the sanctuary, playing the invitation to worship over and over until the
preacher should arrive and they could begin.
Then he came in, entering from the side door and crossing the carpeted dais to the
pulpit. He was dressed in black pants and the long-sleeved white shirt, open at the
neck as before, but with the sleeves buttoned this time, and this time he stood behind
the pulpit according to custom.
He stood there for a time not speaking, looking out at them. They waited. It was very
quiet. The pianist had stopped playing, finally making an awkward end to the music
in the middle of a passage.
Then he began to speak, in a quiet voice. Go home, he said. You might as well. I have
nothing more to say. You don’t need me or whatever I might think of to say to you.
You know yourselves what you should do. Now or at any other time. Go home. You might
as well. I don’t take any of it back, I don’t retract it. But you don’t need to hear
it from me.
He stopped. They waited for more, not moving. His face was swollen a little from the
previous night. He looked at them over the pulpit. There was a long silence. The congregation
waited, but he said
no more, except to say: Thank you for coming back this morning. I want to say that.
Perhaps there’s a kind of hope in that. I choose to see it as such. But you can go
home now. Be at peace. I have nothing more to say.
He looked at them for a moment longer. Then he turned from the pulpit and crossed
the dais to the side door and was gone. The congregation glanced around at one another.
Finally an old lame woman stood up and came out of her pew and started toward the
back. They watched her. She stopped midway. That’s it, she said. Don’t you see? It’s
no point to sit in here waiting for nothing. The rest of you can sit here all you
want. I never expected to see such a thing in church in my life. I never hope to see
it again. She hobbled slowly back up the aisle past the usher standing at the back
and went out.
Then it was just quiet again. Then Lyle’s wife rose from her pew and walked down to
the front of the church and turned at the communion rail to face the congregation.
She looked tired but still attractive in a nicely tailored summer dress. I came down
here to say something, she said. I felt I should make some kind of amends here this
morning. After what my husband said last week and what he did just now. She stopped.
Except I don’t know what to say. Why it should be me to say some conciliatory apologetic
thing, I don’t know. I haven’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t me. She stopped again,
turning slowly to look at them. I only know I’ve had enough. I’m saying this publicly,
I’m worn out. This is very similar to what happened in Denver. People thought he was
wrong then too. Now he’s wrong again and people have turned against him once more
and it’s no surprise that they have. So I’m going to leave. That’s what I see I will
have to do. I must save myself at least, and my son.
No. You should support him, Willa Johnson said. She and Alene were sitting not far
from her.
What did you say? Are you talking to me?
You should stay here and help him. This is your place. I thought that was what you
came forward to tell us. I was thinking, good for you, I was thinking that you were
brave, more than I knew.
No. Don’t you see? That’s not it. What can you know? How can you understand what it’s
been like for me?
I don’t care what it’s been like for you. You’re his wife. Your place is with him.
Have you ever been married?
Yes, of course. I was married for a long time. This is my daughter here with me.
All right, Lyle’s wife said. I will admit that he has principles. I am aware of that.
I used to admire him for his principles and his generous intentions. But what good
are they, finally? You can’t eat them. You can’t depend on them. There’s no security
in principles.
You should be proud of him, Willa said. So few of us have the beliefs he has. And
fewer still act on them.
Then the boy John Wesley stood up in the middle of the sanctuary, where he’d been
sitting in embarrassment staring at the floor, his face in his hands. Now he was angry.
Shut up! he shouted. Shut up! You don’t know anything, you stupid old woman! Be quiet!
Leave my mother alone.