Benediction (23 page)

Then, as on the previous Sunday, the usher came hurrying down the aisle. Stop it!
We won’t have this again! We had it once, but we won’t again. This is the church.

You shut up too! the boy cried. All of you! Everyone stop talking! Leave us alone!
And he turned out of the pew and ran back up the aisle and out the big doors.

They watched him, in shock and amazement, and then they turned once more to look at
Lyle’s wife. She appeared to be crying now—her hands over her face. She started to
move slowly, gropingly up the aisle, her head lowered, following her son, then near
the back of the church she dropped her hands and began to hurry and she rushed out.
The usher came all the way down to the front. He looked all around. What should I
do with these? He held up the church bulletins.

Never mind, Willa said. We don’t need them anymore, Wayne.

We got so many, he said.

Yes, she said. Thank you for taking care of them. Maybe you’d better shut up the church
now.

She and Alene went out and the woman at the piano closed the lid over the piano keys
and walked away and the rest of the small congregation filed out of the church, not
talking any more than they had the previous Sunday, moving quietly. The usher began
to close up the high stained-glass windows with his hooked pole.

When Lyle left the church he went home to the parsonage and walked directly through
the house and out the back door to the garage and climbed in the car and drove out
on the narrow blacktop to the south, driving fast but slowing after a few miles and
turning east on one of the county roads. He drove without motive or destination and
after a while he came to the sandhills and stopped to look at three horses standing
in a pasture. He got out and walked down through the ditch weeds and stood at the
barbed-wire fence. The horses watched him, two red mares and a colt. One of the mares
came forward and he held out his hand and she nuzzled it and backed away. Then the
mare and the two others turned and walked off. He went back to his car and drove on
along the section roads, all running north and south or east and west, straight and
surveyed and exact, and after an aimless hour of driving he came to the Johnsons’
place.

They were already home from church, not having wanted to see anyone or talk to anyone,
and at home they’d taken their Sunday dresses off and changed into soft worn housedresses
and had sat at the kitchen table and had eaten tomato sandwiches, the tomatoes from
their own garden, and had drunk iced tea. They’d spoken only a little about what had
happened at church. Then they heard the car on the gravel coming up to the house.
Alene got up and looked out the kitchen window. It’s him, she said. Reverend Lyle.

Oh good Lord, Willa said. What would he want?

Let’s find out, Alene said.

He’ll want to talk, Willa said.

Maybe he will. That’s all right if he does.

They went to the porch and stood waiting as they had when Lorraine and Alice had come
to visit in the previous week. Lyle climbed out and looked over the roof of his car
at the women and at the barn and corrals and pens and the windmill and the outbuildings
and sheds. He turned back to the women again and walked around the rear of the car
and stopped. Would you mind if I rest a moment?

No. For goodness’ sake, Willa said. Come in. Won’t you?

I’d like to.

Yes, Alene said, do please come in.

He came up the little sidewalk in the yard and followed the women into the kitchen.

This is pleasant in here, Lyle said. It’s very cool and peaceful.

It always stays cool in this part of the house, Willa said. Because of the shade trees
and the porch.

And you keep the windows open, Lyle said.

We almost never close these windows in summer. There’s almost always a breeze. Will
you sit down?

I’d like to wash my hands first, if you wouldn’t mind.

The bathroom’s there, Willa said.

He went inside and shut the door and when he came out Alene was clearing the table.

Do you prefer to sit here or in the living room? Willa said.

This is fine here, Lyle said. Don’t you think?

Have you had anything to eat?

No.

We have cheese and tomato for sandwiches, Alene said. Or I could make you a bacon
lettuce tomato sandwich.

Thank you. I’d like that.

Please sit down. We don’t stand on any formalities here.

He sat down at the table and Willa seated herself across from him.
Alene brought the iced tea and began frying bacon in a black iron skillet.

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.

T
HEY 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.

In the street she stopped to talk to Alice on her bicycle and then headed west on
U.S. 34, toward Brush, and passed Fort Morgan on the interstate and went on toward
Denver. Along the way she drank the coffee and ate the toast.

She was all right until she got to Denver. But then there was a lot of road construction
and they had the men at work even on a Sunday morning. She got lost in the detours
and roadblocks and ended up in the north side of the city. It was half an hour before
she had any idea where she was at all.

She pulled into a corner gas station. There were no other cars at the pumps or parked
at the cinder-block office but she could see an old man sitting behind the counter.
She got out and locked the car and looked all around and went inside. The man looked
up. He wasn’t as old as she had thought. It was just that he had gray hair, which
was combed back on both sides of his head, with a wave pulled up above
his face in the way the boys used to do when she was young. He’d been reading a newspaper
spread out on the counter.