Benediction (Plainsong #3)(26)

Well, I can’t blame you. She pulled the robe tighter. The way I look now.

It’s not that. Is that what you think? It’s not about that. I come to help you if I can. Can I talk to you?

You just want to talk.

That’s right.

You mean you want to come in.

Yes, so we can talk a little.

Come in then. It’s a mess. But I’m not going to apologize to you. Why should I?

He followed her back through the dark living room, past the two children sprawled on the floor like some kind of little animals in front of the television, watching some animated movie.

Come out here, she said.

In the kitchen she removed dirty dishes from the table and put them into the sink which was already full of dirty dishes, and swiped at the table with a washrag. Sit down, she said. Don’t be so polite. You don’t have to wait for me.

He sat down. She dropped the washrag in the sink and sat across from him and lit a cigarette. He looked at her and watched her smoke. Then he removed the wallet from his back pocket and took out all the bills and stacked them on the table. He had five hundred dollars to give her. She stared at him.

What’s that? she said.

For you, he said.

How come? Why are you doing this? I don’t even understand why you’re here.

I told you. I want to help you.

You’re giving me this money.

Yes. That’s what I come for.

You don’t want nothing in return.

He shook his head.

She pushed the hair away from her face. I can still do things, she said. We could go in the back bedroom. I don’t have no disease or nothing. She put out the cigarette in the ashtray on the table. I don’t look like much but I could still give you a good time. You’d get your money’s worth.

I’m not doubting that, Dad said. But that’s not what I’m here for.

Are you a homo? she said. I wondered after that other time, when I was naked, when I still looked okay.

What are you talking about?

Don’t you like women?

Of course I like women. I’m married. I’m still in love with my wife.

That don’t have to stop you, she said. If you’re not queer, are you just stupid?

Well, Dad said, I might be that.

She smiled for the first time and he saw she was missing a tooth. Jesus, I don’t know about any of this, she said.

How much do you pay for this place? Dad said.

Why?

I’d like to know.

Four hundred dollars.

They pay the utilities?

He does. The old son of a bitch that owns the place.

Dad took out his checkbook. Who do you pay it to? What’s his name?

She told him. He wrote the check in the owner’s name and put it beside the cash. She watched him suspiciously. He wrote the owner’s name in a little notebook. Then he told her what he was going to do. There would be a rent check every month and something extra for them to live on, and she could count on it, he would do these things without fail.

I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.

I told you.

They talked some more and he learned that she was working at night. The woman across the hall checked on the children after she got them to bed, after she left the apartment to start her shift. That isn’t good, he said.

What else do you expect me to do?

You won’t have to do that anymore.

He stood up and looked around the little kitchen and looked once more at her and went out past the two kids and walked out of the old house, and in the months following he sent her the two checks at the beginning of each month, and by the end of the year he decided to make a down payment on a little two-bedroom house in Arvada on the west side of Denver. After that he sent the house payment to the bank that held the mortgage, and she and the two children settled down in the new place. She got a daytime job and paid for regular child care. So things were looking up. She was thin again and her hair was cut nicely. He visited her once during that time but there was little now to talk about.

Two years later there was a letter, written on yellow tablet paper. I got married, I’m writing to tell you. He seems all right to me he’s sixteen years older but that don’t matter. I don’t care about that now. Don’t send the money for the house no more he wouldn’t understand. He don’t want somebody else’s help. And don’t contact me again. We’re on our own now. Forget about me now. You done enough. I thank you for that, the last part of it.





19


IN THE NIGHT he lay awake next to Mary in the downstairs bedroom unable to sleep, remembering everything, taking all of his years into account. He decided he wanted to see the nearby physical world once more. He could let go of it if he saw these familiar places again.

They drove out on the Saturday morning in his good car, Lorraine behind the wheel, Dad in the passenger seat and Mary in the back. There was a robe over him and he was wearing his cap.

Now take it slow, he said. There’s no rush about this.

A bright hot windless July day, and they put the car windows down. They began by driving past Berta May’s yellow house and at the south end of the street where it met the highway they turned a block east and went down Date Street past the grade school and the playgrounds and the practice field and then up Cedar past the Methodist church and across to Birch where the banker lived and where the Community Church was located and then up Ash past the old white frame hotel that was only a broken-down rooming house now with a wide sagging porch and on past the Presbyterian church and the Catholic church and over to Main Street. They drove the length of Main without stopping, from the highway north to the juncture where you had to turn east or west. Which way now, Daddy? Lorraine said.