Benediction (Plainsong #3)(22)

Don’t leave, Daddy. Stay and talk to us. It’s all right. Don’t go, please.

He looked at her face so close to his and looked away and closed his eyes and stood for a long time and finally sat down. She took the cane and set it on the floor, bending over him, kissing him again, putting her cheek against his old age-spotted gray face, and sat down once more beside Lyle. There was silence for a while.

Daddy, why don’t you tell Reverend Lyle about some of the preachers we’ve had, Lorraine said. Like that one you always talk about.

Which one is that?

The one that the woman saw Jesus standing on his head.

He looked at her, then at Lyle. All right, you asked about changes, have people changed, you said. They have in church. Church used to be a long serious affair. None of this bell ringing and people’s dogs getting blessed down at the altar and kids dancing around during the service.

Sounds like a good time for a nap, Lyle said.

I had me some good ones on Sunday mornings. That’s a fact. Anyway, on one of those long hot Sunday mornings there was this woman that was visiting town. Who was it she was seeing, Mary?

The Thompsons, Mary said.

That’s right.… But you tell it. I won’t remember it right.

Yes, you will.

No. Go ahead. Why don’t you.

She was visiting the Thompsons, Mary said, and while the preacher was giving his sermon this woman, she was only a little thing, didn’t weigh as much as a cat, all of a sudden she jumps up from the pew and starts wailing and crying. The preacher, it was Reverend Cooper then, wasn’t it, interrupts his sermon and this tiny little woman cries, Glory! It’s the Lord Jesus! Praise God Almighty!

Reverend Cooper says, Yes, ma’am. Can I help you?

He’s right there over your head! Dressed all in white and walking in the air!

She shoves her way out of the pew and comes running down to the front of the sanctuary and starts shouting how she’s changed this very hour. On account of what she’s witnessed. Oh heavenly days! Hallelujah! Then it’s like she faints out or has a spell, she kind of sinks down in front of the altar and Marla Thompson rushes down and lifts her up and hauls the poor thing back to her pew.

What did the preacher do all this time? Lyle said.

Oh, he’s watching her like the rest of us and then he just goes on with his sermon from where he left off. And afterward we sing the last hymn and he gives out the benediction.

It woke us up at least, Dad said. I couldn’t sleep through that. But there was another one too. You remember, Mary. Reverend John Dupree.

You’re not going to tell about him.

What was that about? Lyle said.

He was a preacher here too. About twenty years back.

What happened?

Well, him and his wife, she was a lot younger, they had a boy about eight. They were having some kind of trouble and got separated from one another. She went off somewhere and left him.

She just went back to Denver, Mary said.

She went back to Denver and that put Reverend Dupree here alone with the boy. It was a god-awful mess. Dupree, he wasn’t any good at church anymore, wasn’t much good at anything at all, couldn’t concentrate on practical matters, and the boy was moping around town getting himself into trouble. Then the Sunday comes, and during the time for announcements he says, I got an announcement myself. My bride is coming home! She’s coming back to me this week. People in the church just applauded. The women, mostly.

There were men clapping too, Mary said.

Clapping at the news. I never heard such a thing in church before in my life.

Did she come back as he said she would?

Yes sir, she come back. All in good time. And shows up in church sitting with the boy and singing hymns. She seemed more or less all right, didn’t she, Mary.

Not really.

No?

No.

Well, she seemed all right to me, a man, but Mary’s correct, she must not of been completely all right because two Sundays later the preacher’s boy is sitting in the pew by himself again and we find out the woman has left Dupree and is living across town with Don Leppke, the young fellow that manages the radio station.

I guess people in Holt didn’t care much for that.

No, people didn’t care for it at all. The station lost some advertising.

What became of her?

Her and Don went off to Denver. We’d hear her on the radio broadcasting from Denver now and then. She seemed to have a talent for it.

That happened after I left home, Lorraine said.

Yes. I think it did.

It had grown darker outside the house and suddenly there was a flash of lightning and it began to rain. The wind came up. Thunder rolled across the sky and there was more lightning flashing. In the living room they watched it out the side window. The rain came down hard at a slant.

Let’s go outside and enjoy it, Lorraine said. Come on, Daddy.

They helped him move out to the front porch and stood watching the rain falling on the grass and out in the graveled street. There were already puddles in the low places and the silver poplar trees were dark, streaming with water. Lorraine held her hand out to the rain and patted her face and then cupped both hands and caught the overflow from the gutters and held her hands up to Dad’s face. He stood leaning on his cane, his face dripping. They watched him, he looked straight out across the lawn past the wrought iron fence, past the wet street to the lot beyond, thinking about something.