No. Not now.
Go ahead and smoke if you want. I don’t care. What difference does it make now.
All right. I’ll do that.
Frank took a pack from his shirt pocket and lit a cigarette with a match and blew
smoke toward the window. The smoke was sucked out by the night air.
Your mom went to find you in Denver, Dad said.
I know she did.
How do you know?
They told me.
Who?
At the café.
I thought you weren’t there no more.
I’m not. But I drop in.
They didn’t tell your mom.
I drop in once in a while.
What are you doing now?
I’ve been out in California where most of us end up. Where else?
I guess it’s nice and warm all year long out there, Dad said.
It’s warm. Yeah. But we’re out there in numbers. That’s what I’m talking about.
You mean others like you.
Yeah. Other weirdos and cocksuckers.
Don’t talk like that about yourself, Dad said.
It’s the truth, isn’t it. Isn’t that what you think?
I did once.
What do you think now?
Not that.
What then?
I don’t know. I don’t understand it. I’m too ignorant. I don’t know nothing about
it. I told you, I come off a farm in Kansas. That’s all I knew where I come from.
It took all I had to get this far, a little plains town, with a store on Main Street.
You did all right, Dad. You’ve come a long way.
Not far enough.
No. That’s true. Not yet you haven’t.
Dad looked at him, his eyes watering again.
What’s wrong? Frank said.
Nothing.
I thought you were going to cry.
That’s the first kind thing you’ve said to me in forty years, Dad said. About me doing
all right, coming a long way.
Well, I must have forgotten myself. I let my guard down. Don’t count on it happening
again.
I know. I learned that much. I’m not ignorant about everything.
He woke once more. Frank had moved his chair to a place closer beside the bed. The
other two chairs were gone now. The air was fresh and pleasant coming in the window,
the light still shining from the barn outside.
You’re still here, Dad said.
Yeah. I’m here. I haven’t left yet.
My old mother and old dad didn’t come back.
No. They’re gone now.
Those others didn’t come back either.
Who?
Tanya. And Rudy and Bob.
No, they aren’t with me.
Dad looked at him for a while. Frank had turned sideways so he could see out the window.
The shade had been drawn up now. Son, are you doing all right? Dad said.
Me?
Yes.
I’m all right, more or less. I could use a better job. I never could get going right.
I get dissatisfied and take off.
You always could do a lot of different things.
Maybe. But I don’t know what. I don’t have any college degree like Lorraine does.
You could of.
You think so?
We would of helped you like we helped her.
I couldn’t do it back then.
Why was that?
I wasn’t thinking about studying. I didn’t have the time. Or the desire for it.
You wanted out of here, Dad said. Didn’t you. That’s what you wanted.
That was part of it.
Away from me, you mean.
Not just that. Away from this little limited postage-stamp view of things. You and
this place both.
But you still could of gone to school. That would of helped.
I didn’t think so then. I just wanted out on my own.
Well. You done that.
Yeah. He laughed. I’ve done that, all right. I’ve been out on my own. A lot of good
it did me.
But you done all right, didn’t you?
What are you talking about, Dad? I’ve been a waiter. A night clerk. A janitor. A hired
hand. A garbage man. A taxi driver. You don’t want to know what all I’ve done for
money.
But that’s just somebody getting started. You’re still getting on your feet.
Dad, I’m fifty years old. What am I going to do now? How can I start now?
Dad moved in the bed and then lay still.
Hand me one of those pills there, he said.
Here?
Yeah.
You want some water?
Yeah. He took the glass and drank and handed it back and lay still again.
You can always come back here, he said. After I’m gone you can come back.
And do what, Dad?
Help run the store.
Lorraine’s running the store.
You can help her.
It wouldn’t work. It’s not going to happen.
Then you can have some of the value of it, Dad said. You and Mom and Lorraine can
divide it up. Take your third of it. Do something. Start over.
No. I don’t want any money from you. I won’t take your money. I swore I wouldn’t.
Dad stared at him a long time. Frank looked past Dad at the wall and turned again
to stare out the window. He lit another cigarette.
You never forgave me, did you, Dad said.
You never forgave yourself.
I couldn’t. How could I? Now it’s too late.
You’re still alive, Frank said. Maybe you’ll have a deathbed conversion.
Dad studied Frank’s face. You’re being cynical. You’re just talking.
Of course.
You don’t mean what you said.
No, I don’t mean it. I’ve been too goddamn angry. I’ve been too filled up to my throat
with bitterness. Oh Jesus. I could smash your dying face right now.
Why don’t you? I wish you would. Go ahead. I want you to.
Frank stood up. I got to go. He stepped on his cigarette and put it out.
Wait. You don’t have to leave yet, Dad said. You should see your mother. Are you going
now?
Yeah. I better.
Well. Good-bye, then, son.
Frank moved toward the door.
Wait. Would you give me your hand? Dad said. Before you go. But he was gone on out
into the doorway now. Dad still watched him. This tall middle-aged balding man. Broad
in the doorway. Not too old yet. But wearing old clothes. Ragged-looking. Still, there
was something there. He was still a good-looking man. There was something there yet.
It hadn’t come out yet.
T
HE NEXT MORNING
Mary lay in the old soft double bed with Dad until the sunlight streamed into the
room. She got up and went into the bathroom and returned and put on her shirt and
jeans and leaned close over the bed to look at him.
Dear. Are you waking up now? He didn’t move. Dad?
He lay staring up at the ceiling out of half-open eyes. Then he breathed deeply, a
kind of rattle. She felt his forehead. He felt cool, clammy to the touch.
Can you hear me? she whispered.
She bent and kissed him and went quickly upstairs to Lorraine’s room.
Honey, can I come in?
Lorraine had just gotten out of bed in her light summer nightgown.
What’s wrong?
He’s going now. I’m afraid he is.
Is something different?
He won’t wake up. I can’t get him to talk. He feels cold.
Lorraine put her arms around her. We knew this was coming, Mom.
Come down with me, would you. I want to turn him on his side. The nurse said he’d
breathe a little better on his side if we turned him.
Lorraine put on a robe over the nightgown and followed her mother downstairs. Dad’s
eyes were shut now. He breathed and stopped and breathed again, rattling in his throat.
They folded back the summer
blanket and the sheet and turned him so he was facing the door, and placed an old
flat pillow under his head, and put another between his knees. His feet looked mottled
with blotches climbing up his legs and his hands were blue and on the undersides of
his arms were more blue spots that were like faint bruises.
Look at his poor fingernails, Mary said.
Yes.
They covered him again with the sheet and blanket and stood together beside the bed,
watching him. His mouth stayed open. He breathed and made a little involuntary noise
and breathed again.
He never woke that day. He lay quietly in the bed, his mouth open and dry and his
lips cracked, his face yellow and washed out. Lorraine called the nurse and she came
and examined him and looked at his feet and hands, the blue places and mottling on
his arms and legs, and told them he was in the final stages. They talked about what
they should do. They said they would bathe and dress him themselves after he died,
they preferred that, they wanted that last duty and moments of caretaking for themselves,
and the nurse said, That’s fine. But you still need to call me so I can certify his
death and dispose of the unused medicine. When you’re ready we can call the mortician.
But there’s no rush. You take as long as you want.
We’ve already talked to George Hill, Lorraine said. He’ll take care of all the details
for the cremation and there’ll be a service at the church and a brief graveside service.
Some of his ashes will be buried at the cemetery. But we’ll keep most of them here.
Just please call me if you need something, the nurse said. It doesn’t matter what
time it is.
What about his pain now, while he’s like this? Mary said. I’m afraid he’ll choke if
we give him a pill.
Give him liquid morphine under his tongue, with the eyedropper. That’ll be all right.
And just keep him dry and clean and turn him regularly. That’s about all you can do.
Will it bother him for us to talk in the room here while he’s sleeping like this?
No, I wouldn’t think so. He might even like hearing you even if he doesn’t seem to.
I think he might, Mary said. It might comfort him.
They checked on him every half hour. And then at midmorning they turned him again,
toward the wall now, and he was wet and they changed his diaper and washed him. He
slept on as before, breathing, stopping, starting again, the rattle still there in
his throat.
In the afternoon Berta May called and she came over, and they called Rob Lyle and
he came too. Lorraine met him at the door. He put his arm around her.
Thank you for coming, she said. She brought him into the living room and he hugged
Mary.
I’m glad you’re here, Reverend Lyle.
I’m not a preacher anymore, he said.
Aren’t you still a reverend?
No.
You do still pray?
Yes, I still pray. That hasn’t changed.
Will you pray for Dad?
They went in the room and sat on the bedside chairs and Mary and Lorraine and Berta
May and Lyle held hands, looking at Dad. He lay facing the door now. They bowed their
heads. May we be at peace together with Dad Lewis here, Lyle said softly. May there
be peace and love and harmony in this room. May there be the same in all the difficult
and conflicted world outside this house. May this man—he stopped and spoke directly
to Dad in the bed—may you leave this physical world without any more pain or regrets
or unhappiness or remorse or self-doubt or worry and may you let all your trials and
troubles and cares pass away. May you simply be at peace. May each of us here in this
room be at peace as well. Now we ask all of these
blessings in the name of Jesus, who himself was the Prince of Peace. Amen.
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.