Benediction (Plainsong #3)(13)

On a hot day in June she and Alene went into town and ate and then shopped for groceries at the Highway 34 Grocery Store, then they drove past the Lewis house on the west side of town and drove slowly past the yellow house next door where Alice lived with Berta May and they both envied the other old woman. They didn’t see the girl out in the yard as they had hoped so that they might talk to her. They drove back home to the country once more and put the groceries away in the kitchen and then went upstairs and got out of their town clothes and put on thin cotton housedresses and lay down and napped in their separate rooms with the windows open letting in the hot summer air and woke in the afternoon and rinsed their faces at the bathroom sink and dabbed water on the thin napes of their necks and returned downstairs and later they ate their quiet supper and sat out in the yard in lawn chairs and watched the sky color up and darken on the flat wide low horizon.

What are you thinking, dear? Willa said.

About what?

I mean what are you going to do now? Have you decided?

No. I don’t know.

You know you can stay here with me. You’re very welcome. You don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t have to leave at all if you don’t want.

Alene looked out toward the fading sky. There was only a little light remaining. It would turn nighttime now and soon they would return to the house. It would be too cool to sit outside. It would get dark out. I’m so lonely, she said. I had my chance and I lost it.

What do you mean?

My chance at love and a life.

That wasn’t much of a chance, I don’t think.

It was.

You did well to get out of it. You were wise to end it.

No. It gave my life some direction. It was my chance, Mother, and I lost it. It was probably my only chance. Oh what’s wrong with me? Why have I ended up like this? I’m not even old yet.

Of course not, dear.

But why am I this way? How did you live after Father died?

I just went on. I was lonely too.

Aren’t you still lonely?

I don’t think about it anymore. I’ve learned not to think about it. You have to.

I haven’t yet.

You will, dear.

But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be one of those sad old lonely women and not even old but just one who has lost her life and her nerve. I don’t give off any intimation of sex or even the possibility of it anymore.

Sex.

Yes. I don’t put anything out anymore for anyone to sense.

What are you talking about?

I mean that quality, that condition of being alive and interested and vital and active and passionate in my life. Oh I hate this. I’m going to die and not even have lived yet. It’s so ridiculous. It’s absurd. It’s all so pointless.

You’ll get better, dear.

How will I get better?

It gets better. Everything gets better.

How?

You forget after a while. You start paying attention to your aches and pains. You think about a hip replacement. Your eyes fail you. You start thinking about death. You live more narrowly. You stop thinking about next month. You hope you don’t have to linger.





9


LORRAINE SAT SMOKING in the evening. Rocking in the porch swing, scarcely moving. There was a little summer night’s breeze. In front of the house the wide street was quiet and empty, at the corner the street lamp shone blue. Then Dad was coming out and she got up to help him through the door, he stepped out carefully and came past the swing to one of the porch chairs and lowered himself and set his cane on the floor.

You doing okay, Daddy?

Yeah.

Will you be warm enough out here?

This air feels good. It was too hot today. It doesn’t need to be that hot.

Lorraine watched him and sat down on the swing.

But it always cools off, he said. You can count on that much. He looked out at the street. Nothing happening. Quiet, he said.

Yes. It’s nice.

They sat for a while, not talking. She took out her cigarettes again.

Let me have one of those things.

You want to smoke?

I like the smell of it. I can still smell it.

She stood and shook out a cigarette from the pack and he took it in his thick fingers and she bent and lit it for him, his face illuminated now for a moment, pale and thin, his cheeks drawn in, his eyes sunken. He puffed at the cigarette and blew out and looked at the end of it. Lorraine sat back down. Mary came out on the porch and stopped, looking at Dad.

What are you doing?

Nothing.

Oh don’t give him one of those things. He doesn’t need something more to make him worse.

What can it hurt, Mom? Come sit down.

I’m just holding it, Dad said.

You’re both foolish, Mary said. She seated herself and after a while she and her daughter began to move the swing.

Do you remember when you caught us smoking in the barn? Lorraine said.

Corrupting your brother, Dad said.

It was my job. I was the big sister.

By three years.

Big enough.

I made you smoke the whole pack afterward.

It was only a couple more cigarettes.

Was it.

But you stood there and made us.

It didn’t do any good. Did it.

No.

How old were you?

I was eleven, Frank was eight. About Alice’s age.